"Yes. They are most unhappy if the engagement is not arranged by them. In our case it’s worse—you are not even an Ibo."
This was said so seriously and so bluntly that Nene could not find speech immediately. In the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the city it had always seemed to her something of a joke that a person’s tribe could determine whom he married.
In the opening scene of the story, Nnaemeka reveals to his fiancée Nene why he has concealed news of their engagement from his father. Nene is so used to living in the diverse atmosphere of Lagos that she is stunned to learn people still insist upon conventions like arranged marriage and marrying within one's tribe. The passage is significant because it introduces the story's central conflict: for reasons immaterial to Nene but of great importance to Okeke, Okeke will refuse to accept his son's decision to marry Nene.
As Nnaemeka walked home that evening he turned over in his mind the different ways of overcoming his father’s opposition, especially now that he had gone and found a girl for him. He had thought of showing his letter to Nene but decided on second thoughts not to, at least for the moment.
In this passage, the narrator reveals that Nnaemeka was not entirely truthful with Nene in the story's opening scene. Although Nnaemeka outlined some of the reasons why he believed his father would object to their engagement, he declined to tell Nene that his father had found him a local woman to marry. The passage is significant because it shows the extent to which Nnaemeka is torn between the two halves of his identity. While his allegiance to Nene represents modernity, love, individuality, and life in the city, his allegiance to his father represents tradition, loyalty, family, and life in the country. Nnaemeka hopes that he can combine both worlds, but his father refuses to accept Nene's incursion upon his family.
“I don’t love her.”
“Nobody said you did. Why should you?” he asked.
“Marriage today is different…”
“Look here, my son,” interrupted his father, “nothing is different. What one looks for in a wife are a good character and a Christian background.”
Nnaemeka saw there was no hope along the present line of argument.
In this exchange, Nnaemeka returns to his village to ask his father's forgiveness and to say that he cannot marry Ugoye. Nnaemeka's line of argument—that he doesn't love Ugoye—means nothing to Okeke because Okeke is committed to the custom of arranged marriage. This passage is significant because it reveals the gulf in values between father and son. While Okeke has lived his whole life in the village, Nnaemeka has absorbed contemporary ideas while living in Lagos. Although Nnaemeka hopes that he can overcome these differences, Okeke's obstinacy proves nearly impossible to shift.
“Nene Atang from Calabar. She is the only girl I can marry.” This was a very rash reply and Nnaemeka expected the storm to burst. But it did not. His father merely walked away into his room. This was most unexpected and perplexed Nnaemeka. His father’s silence was infinitely more menacing than a flood of threatening speech. That night the old man did not eat.
After Nnaemeka admits to his father that Nene is not an Ibo, Nnaemeka expects his father will erupt in anger. However, "the storm" he expects to burst does not. Instead, Okeke becomes uncharacteristically silent, retiring to his bedroom to be alone. The difference between what Nnaemeka expects and what occurs is significant because it suggests that Nnaemeka underestimated his father's attachment to the custom of arranged marriage. Nnaemeka had hoped that his father would be upset but ultimately come around to accepting his decision; in this passage, Nnaemeka struggles to understand that he may have been wrong.
Nnaemeka, for his own part, was very deeply affected by his father’s grief. But he kept hoping that it would pass away. If it had occurred to him that never in the history of his people had a man married a woman who spoke a different tongue, he might have been less optimistic.
While Okeke refuses to speak to his son while simultaneously praying his son will see the error of his ways, Nnaemeka holds out hope that his father will change his mind about refusing to meet Nene. However, the narrator reveals in this passage that Nnaemeka does not realize he is the first person in his village to marry "a woman who [speaks] a different tongue"—i.e. a woman who is not Ibo. The passage is revealing because it suggests Nnaemeka is naïve in his embrace of modern ideas of love, which leads him to believe that he can so easily break with his people's most closely held traditions.
The story eventually got to the little village in the heart of the Ibo country that Nnaemeka and his young wife were a most happy couple. But his father was one of the few people who knew nothing about this. He always displayed so much temper whenever his son’s name was mentioned that everyone avoided it in his presence. By a tremendous effort of will he had succeeded in pushing his son to the back of his mind. The strain had nearly killed him but he had persevered, and won.
Despite Okeke's prejudice against Nene, Nene and Nnaemeka manage to make a happy life together. In his village, Okeke remains embittered against the young couple, insulating himself from any news of their lives by exploding in anger whenever someone brings them up. In this passage, the narrator comments on how the strain of steeping himself in isolation and resentment nearly kills Okeke, but he lives through it, believing himself to have won the battle of wills against his son. The passage is significant because it establishes how Okeke's efforts to drive away thoughts of his family has in fact made him vulnerable to the news Nene will send. Ignorant of the details of his son and daughter-in-law's life together, Okeke unwittingly primes himself to be especially shocked by the news that he has grandsons.
Okeke was trying hard not to think of his two grandsons. But he knew he was now fighting a losing battle. He tried to hum a favourite hymn but the pattering of large rain drops on the roof broke up the tune. His mind immediately returned to the children. How could he shut his door against them? By a curious mental process he imagined them standing, sad and forsaken, under the harsh angry weather—shut out from his house. That night he hardly slept, from remorse—and a vague fear that he might die without making it up to them.
This passage, taken from the story's closing paragraphs, details the change in heart Okeke has once he learns of the existence of his grandsons. Having received Nene's letter, Okeke feels his hardened resolve against familial affection finally giving way. Simultaneously, a storm opens in the sky, causing Okeke to imagine his grandsons standing in the rain, shut out from his house. With this image, Okeke finally understands how callous he has been. However, his sleep that night is disturbed by the fear that he will not live long enough to make amends for the damage he has inflicted through his stubbornness.
