Similarities Between Macbeth And Things Fall Apart

666 Words2 Pages

Tragic heroes are created to make the audience weep at their death and feel emotionally attached to the story. Novelists/playwrights achieve this by giving the hero admirable features that are usually common amongst all heroes. Tragic heroes are popular in Western literature, but cultural differences haven’t stopped the emergence of tragic heroes in other forms of literature. Macbeth is a famous Western classic featuring a tragic hero, while Things Fall Apart is a novel set in Nigeria, also featuring a tragic hero. Even though Things Fall Apart and Macbeth are set in different backgrounds, Achebe is successful in portraying Okonkwo as a tragic hero through his similarities to Macbeth, such as his thirst for power and his principally good conscience.
In Okonkwo’s case, he feels guilty of executing Ikemefuna: a young boy that lives with Okonkwo for three years, a boy that “calls [Okonkwo] his father.” (Achebe 57) Ezeudu, the oldest man in Umuofia, advised Okonkwo to “not bear a hand in his death.” (57) But he kills him anyway, which makes him depressed. Although Okonkwo doesn’t admit his guilt, the reader can notice his clear distress and possible regret for his heinous act, since he could “not sleep at night. He tried not to think about Ikemefuna, but the more he tried the more he thought about him.”(63). His guilt for his actions can be inferred to be a consequence of his good moral: his need to appear strong affects his hidden compassion. Similar morals are observed in Macbeth as well, when he hallucinates a dagger leading him to Duncan’s room: “Is this a dagger I see in front of me, with its handle pointing toward my hand?” (Shakespeare II.i.33). Macbeth’s evil thoughts and desires affect his mental health, portraying Macbeth to be a primarily moral person with no wicked intentions. He feels guilty about an act that he hasn’t even committed, which could indicate a pure and honest heart, one that isn’t cruel in essence. This resemblance between Okonkwo and Macbeth demonstrates that tragic heroes are depicted as people with good intentions, in the beginning, at

Show More
Related

  • Macbeth And Lord Of The Flies Comparison

    481 Words  | 1 Pages

    The quote, “Man is not truly one, but truly two.” can be analyzed from a behaviorally or mentally aspect. Physically, man is one, but if you delve deeper into the man, he can be separated into two parts which creates a whole man. In the play Macbeth and in the novel Lord of the Flies, some of the characters can be split into two conflicting parts. The characters are neither entirely good or entirely bad. In both the novel and the play, something happens to the characters that made them split into an evil side, thus creating two men.

    Read More

  • Tragedy & Ambition: A Comparative Study of Macbeth and Dark Places

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    Macbeth by William Shakespeare, is a play about ambitions, taking control of one’s life causing a great tragedy. Meanwhile, Dark Places by Gillian Flynn is a novel about how the Day family is affected by a tragedy. One of these is a play and one is a novel but, the stories are both about how a tragedy affects one’s life. Although Macbeth and Dark Places are both centered around tragedies, they have different narratives and over all different styles of writing.

    Read More

  • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

    865 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... his words that he committed a great evil; we live in peace with our fellows to honor our great goddess of the earth without whose blessings our crops will not grow. You have committed a great evil (Achebe 30). Okonkwo displays another fit of anger during the feast of the new yam, when he almost killed his second wife with a gun because she cut a few leaves off the banana tree to wrap some food. Without patience to discern her explanation; she was beaten mercilessly and almost got killed. Okonkwo lacked a sense of affection towards his family, which can be linked to his fear of weakness. He repudiates any show of emotion or patience in order not to appear weak. His household lived in a perpetual fear, he never gave them the opportunity to get close to him without been scared of him, and this really had a great effect with the relationship he had with his household.

    Read More

  • The Tragic Flaws of Heroes Portrayed in Hamlet, Things Fall Apart and 1984

    749 Words  | 2 Pages

    In many works of Literature, a character comes forth as a hero, only to die because of a character trait known as a tragic flaw; Hamlet from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Okonkwo from Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, and Winston Smith from Orwell’s 1984 all exhibit that single trait, which leads, in one way or another, to their deaths. These three tragic heroes are both similar and different in many ways: the way they die, their tragic flaws, and what they learn. All three characters strongly exhibit the traits needed to be classified as a tragic hero.

    Read More

  • Okonkwo A Sympathetic Character

    563 Words  | 2 Pages

    In these few chapters that we read, we have already learned a lot about Okonkwo, his life, and how he shows sympathy to some, but to others he is heartless. Okonkwo is other wise known as an unsympathetic person. Okonkwo is a clan leader of umuofia who holds many titles and is well known among his people. Okonkwo's daily life consists of tending to the three yam farms he has produced and to make numerous offerings to numerous gods and to help himself and his family. Okonkwo's personality is hard driven, since his father did not provide for him and his family Okonkwo had to start man hood early and this led him to be very successful in his adulthood, Okonkwo is an unsympathetic character who only shows sympathy rarely because he believes it's a sign of weakness Okonkwo's family relationships make him a sympathetic character because when his children show signs of manliness or do their jobs right he shows sympathy towards them. He is an unsympathetic character because whenever he get a little mad he has to take his anger out on something and that is usually vented by beating his wife's.

    Read More

  • Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

    975 Words  | 2 Pages

    Okonkwo is “a man of action, a man of war” (7) and a member of high status in the Igbo village. He holds the prominent position of village clansman due to the fact that he had “shown incredible prowess in two intertribal wars” (5). Okonkwo’s hard work had made him a “wealthy farmer” (5) and a recognized individual amongst the nine villages of Umuofia and beyond. Okonkwo’s tragic flaw isn’t that he was afraid of work, but rather his fear of weakness and failure which stems from his father’s, Unoka, unproductive life and disgraceful death. “Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness….It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.” Okonkwo’s father was a lazy, carefree man whom had a reputation of being “poor and his wife and children had just barely enough to eat... they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back.” (5) Unoka had never taught Okonkwo what was right and wrong, and as a result Okonkwo had to interpret how to be a “good man”. Okonkwo’s self-interpretation leads him to conclude that a “good man” was someone who was the exact opposite of his father and therefore anything that his father did was weak and unnecessary.

    Read More

  • Theme Of Loss In Macbeth

    338 Words  | 1 Pages

    Macbeth is depressed by the loss of Lady Macbeth, but he finds it difficult to mourn in view of the army advancing against him. He also feels alone, recognizing that at this stage in his life he should have many friends and enjoy the prestige and honor that come with being king. He, however, did not become king through conventional means. According to Macbeth, life's an illusion, a tale.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between Macbeth And Othello

    1878 Words  | 4 Pages

    William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer of all time as well as the greatest dramatist. Shakespeare lived in Stratford-on-Avon and he dedicated most of his life to writing plays and poems. Shakespeare’s plays are well known and they have many of the same reoccurring and similar, underlying themes. One very interesting thing about Shakespeare is the way he approaches the women characters in his plays and how he treats them. In the Shakespearian plays, Macbeth, Hamlet, The Tempest, King Lear, Much Ado about Nothing, Othello, and A Midsummers Night Dream, the women characters are treated very similar, but also differently as well.

    Read More

  • Guilt and Conscience in Shakespeare’s Macbeth

    1298 Words  | 3 Pages

    Shakespeare uses the title character of Macbeth to effectively develop the theme of guilt and conscience in his play. Several times in the play we see Macbeth’s character crumbling as a result of a guilty conscience. At the beginning of the play he meets the witches with Banquo, and this prompts the first step toward killing the King. This helps in developing the theme because we get the idea that Macbeth does not trust the witches, nor does he fully believe them. Unfortunately his ambitious nature gets the better of him and causes him to listen carefully to how he might acquire his kingship. Macbeth feels guilty that he is thinking about killing the King because he’s basing his entire thought upon belief in the ‘evil creatures’. We see this when Macbeth has a soliloquy in which he says, “Cannot be ill, cannot be good” and also asks himself why the thought of becoming King makes his “seated heart” knock against his ribs.

    Read More

  • macbeths descent into evil

    847 Words  | 2 Pages

    The character Macbeth in the story of Shakespeare’s Macbeth faces decisions that affect his morals. He begins as an innocent soul, dedicated to serve his kingdom and its king, Duncan. As time passes and opportunities present themselves combined with the deception of the evil witches, Macbeth begins his descent into madness. Macbeth’s innocence and loyalty are completely corrupted due to his over confidence, guilty conscience, and the inevitability of human nature. Macbeth looses sight of what is morally right to do in life because his logical choices are changed by these factors.

    Read More

  • Essay On Macbeth A Tragic Hero

    1404 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are many heroes in this world, whether it’s a fireman or a doctor. A hero is defined based on their courage, nobility and strength. In contrast, there are tragic heroes. According to philosopher, Aristotle, the definition of a tragic hero is one that is of greatness and dignity but, despite their greatness, makes an error, otherwise known as the hero’s “tragic flaw” or “hamartia” which leads to his downfall. In William Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, the main protagonist and round character, Macbeth starts as a man of greatness and dignity. His assumed loyalty to the country and king earns him respect from a variety of men and the title “Thane of Cawdor.” But, unfortunately because of his tragic flaw he is corrupted by his overwhelming ambition and destroys himself and the natural order of man. Macbeth transitions from the savior of his country, “Bellona’s bridegroom”, a “brave” and unbeatable man to a man of endless brutality. Macbeth is the epitome of a tragic hero.

    Read More

  • Comparing Fear In Streetcar Named Desire, Macbeth, And Things Fall Apart

    59 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the novels Streetcar Named Desire, Macbeth, and Things Fall Apart, Blanche has fear of showing her true identity, Macbeth has fear of not having power, and Okonkwo has fear of becoming lazy; the characters act harshly to others and struggle with the society in order to run away from fear, but fear dominates them, leading to tragic events.

    Read More

  • Okonkwo the Hero

    939 Words  | 2 Pages

    Over the years, there have been many ideas of what a hero is. We all know the stories of superheroes like Batman, The Flash, Ironman, and The Incredible Hulk. Being a hero is more than being the strongest person around. There are everyday heroes that exist in our world. A hero can be anyone. Even a man doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young boy's shoulders to let him know that the world hadn't ended. A hero could be a young boy helping an elderly woman cross the road. There is no exception. There are heroes all over ther world. all different shapes, races, and sizes. Chinua Achebe tells us the tale of an unsung hero named Okonkwo who lives in an Ibo village in Nigeria. Achebe’s Things Fall Apart demonstrates how Okonkwo is a righteous hero by showing how he handles every event in the rise and fall of his life.

    Read More

  • Macbeth: A Tragic Hero

    1162 Words  | 3 Pages

    Tragic heroes, who destined for a serious downfall, are the protagonist of a dramatic tragedy. A tragic hero is usually a great hero, who gets the most respect from other people; on the other hand, a tragic hero can also lose everything he gained because of his mistakes. His downfall is the result of a wrong judgment, a flaw which might combined with fated and external forces. The downfall can cause the tragic hero to suffer for the rest of his life. In many literary works, the downfall of the tragic heroes usually happen in their highest point. In the same way, Macbeth is a tragic hero in the play called “The Tragedy of Macbeth” which is written by a legendary writer, William Shakespeares. Macbeth is a great general who gained many respect from the people and even the king. In the highest point of his life, because of seeking for greater power, it created Macbeth’s downfall. Macbeth, a tragic hero, causes suffering for himself and others by committing murders and creating distress, which are the negative effects of seeking for a greater power.

    Read More

  • Macbeth: A Tale Of Two Theories

    724 Words  | 2 Pages

    text of the play seems to imply that Macbeth is indeed responsible for his own

    Read More

More about Similarities Between Macbeth And Things Fall Apart

Open Document