Okonkwo as a Tragic Hero in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Okonkwo is an example of a tragic hero. Okonkwo accomplishes and succeeds in many noble and brave tasks but also has some flaws that lead to his downfall. The definition of a tragic hero according to dictionary.com is:

a great or virtuous character in a dramatic tragedy who is destined for downfall, suffering, or defeat.

In the Novel, Thngs Fall Apart Okonkwo is a tragic hero in the fact that he is the protagonist, a character or superiority, he has tragic flaws, and his egoistic personality which ends up beaming his own destruction. In thte novel Achebe proves examples of Okonkwows heroic and masculine traditions. Achebe states:

"At an early age he had achieved fame as the greatest wrestler in all of the land."(Achebe 27)

Okonkwo develops his manly demeanor due to his father's reputation. His father was a lazy man who left the earth with vast amounts of debt. Okonwow wanted to rise above his father and prove that he was not as weak as his father, his very own blood.

Achebe in the Sotry of Things Fall Apart. A main theme in Things Fall Apart is change and learning to accept change. Okonkwow in things fall apart rejects the new political power and the new religion that has settled in his culture. Okonkwow doe not know how to accept change. He feels that if he accepts it he will lose his manliness and be of weaker status if he conforms to their belifs.

Okonkwow is the protagonist in the novel Thngs Fall Apart who is considered a tagic hero because he holds a high position of power, he decides his fate, and he retains a tragic flaw. Okonkwow’s tragic fall in which he retains is his fear of being similar to his father, weak and a failure. According to book builder, a t...

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... “Cantral to this discomfort is the question: why did Achebe choose as his hero an aspiring but brutal young man who ultimately took his own life? The author himself aknoleges he has “been asked this question in one form or another by a certain kind of reader for thirty years”.

Patrick is then stating that Achebe has in fact chosen Okonkwow to be the travis hero of the novel and is questioning as to why Achebe has chosen such a charceter as a hero for the novel. Achebe has been asked this uestion for over 30 years. Both Okonkwow failure as well as the Umofian society have contributed to the heroes downfall.

You may wonder how it is that Okonkwo falls under the tragic hero category. One must understand that Okonkwo entails every trait of a tragic hero. Onkonkwo was of noble and high status, he entailed a fatal flaw, he endured suffering, and his downfall.