What does Okeke do when his son sends him a wedding photo?

In Chinua Achebe's short story, "Marriage is a Private Affair," when Nnaemeka's father, Okeke, receives the wedding photo from his son, he rips the picture in half. After ripping out the image of Nnaemeka's bride, Nene, he sends the photo back to his son with a terse message:

It amazes me that you could be so unfeeling as to send me your wedding picture. I would have sent it back. But on further thought I decided just to cut off your wife and send it back to you because I have nothing to do with her. How I wish that I had nothing to do with you either (para 54).

Unfortunately for Nnaemeka, Okeke had previously arranged a marriage for him as is the Ibo tradition. It was unheard of for a son to find his own bride, much less a bride from a different tribe who is a school teacher. When Nnaemeka rebels against the planned marriage and weds Nene anyway, his father is overcome with grief. Eight years later, Nene sends the father a letter imploring him to meet his two grandsons. The old man is beset with guilt caused by shutting out his son's family. At the end of the story, he hopes that it is not too late to make up the years that he lost and knows he must accept his son and his family.


When Nnaemeka sends him a wedding photo, Okeke cuts out the bride's image and sends the photo back to Nnaemeka. In his letter to his son, Okeke voices his irritation at receiving an unsolicited wedding picture from him. From the letter, we can deduce that Okeke did not attend his son's wedding.
Okeke admits that he initially planned to send the photo back whole. However, he later decided to cut out Nnaemeka's wife's picture before returning the photo. In his letter, Okeke insisted that he had no connection to Nene, Nnaemeka's wife. At the same time, Okeke did not clearly disavow his relationship with Nnaemeka. He merely voiced disappointment that he was still connected to Nnaemeka by blood ties.
The letter left a deep impression on Nene regarding Okeke's intransigence, and she shed tears because of it. Despite the hurt she experienced, Nene later wrote to Okeke about allowing his grandsons to visit. This letter greatly affected Okeke, and he was forced to admit that his hard-heartedness had been a terrible burden to bear.

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