Things Fall Apart, Chapter 11&12 - 'Food Is Worth It'

"Tortoise turned to all the birds and said: 'You remember that my name is All of you. The custom here is to serve the spokesman first and the others later. They will serve you when I have eaten.' He began to eat and the birds grumbled angrily. The people of the sky thought it must be their custom to leave all the food for their king. And so Tortoise ate the best part of the food and then drank two pots of palm-wine, so that he was full of food and drink and his body filled out in his shell" (Achebe 98).

Ekwefi is telling her daughter, Ezinma a story about how a tortoise who tried taking advantage of the birds' great feast and the consequences he suffered by doing this. In the story the second wife is telling, there is a famine in the land so tortoise was very hungry and would try anything to get some food and drink. Imperialism is showed in this story that is being told because the tortoise uses his knowledge of certain cultures to eat most of the great food and drink that the birds had prepared for their feast, before any of them could get a chance to have some. But when tortoise uses his knowledge of cultures to fill his growing appetite, the birds grow angry of how the tortoise took advantage of the birds' kindness to let him come to their feast and just use his superiority of knowledge of certain customs to eat all their food. So the birds also show imperialism through an act of patriotism towards their kind to get back at the tortoise, they tell his wife to bring out all the hard things instead of soft things so when he fell to land at his home he broke his shell.