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Major themes in things Fall Apart
Analysis the character of okonkwo in things fall apart
A character and analysis of okonkwo in things fall apart
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In Chinua Achebe’s Classic 1959 novel Things Fall Apart, we are faced with the foreign ways of the Ibo people of present-day Nigeria. The story is told through the experiences and often times thoughts of protagonist Okonkwo, an imperfect but respected clansman whose fear of appearing weak drives every decision he makes. In the peak of conflict, Okonkwo is exiled for seven years, loses much of the esteem he had gained and finds his bad Chi to be to blame. Eventually, this leads him to commit suicide. However, despite his belief that his Chi is blocking his good efforts, Okonkwo does have good Chi and free will, and it is his fear of weakness that truly brings upon his downfall.
Okonkwo has many flaws that Achebe points out to us. The most critical of which is that he is afraid of being weak, or being perceived as such. Early in the Novel Achebe writes, “Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness…It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father” (Achebe 13). As the driving factor in Okonkwo’s life, it plays a role in every single step that leads him to his eventual suicide. It is apparent that this is a flaw in Okonkwo’s character for it is not celebrated in the culture. By showing us this, Achebe is creating a classic tragic hero. The protagonist of the story has a fatal flaw, fear of weakness and unbalance that leads to his downfall. Achebe would see this as a serious character flaw because of the culture he comes from (Okafor).
Okonkwo is also unbalanced, another trait that is frowned upon by his society. Wise men, such as the elder Ogbuefi Ezedu, or Okonkwo’s friend Obierkia have a balance of warlike aggressio...
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...hebe 207).
Okonkwo’s actions lead him to the choice to kill himself, not bad Chi or fate. Specifically, his fear of being weak, his unbalanced lifestyle, and his lack of appreciation for his love of his sons drive him to exile and eventually suicide. A clearer head would have allowed him to value the Ibo ideals of balance and the bond between father and son. These ideals would have kept him from killing Ikemefuma, and the Earth would not have punished him. They would have allowed him to reason with Nwoye, the missionaries, and his clansmen. Instead, he chose the paths of extremity, of pure anger and aggression. Ultimately, those paths lead him to a tree, and Okonkwo hanged himself from it.
Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1994.
Okafor, Clement. "Ibo Cosmology and the Parameters of Indivual Accomplishment ." (n.d.): 67-81.
Okonkwo is known throughout Umuofia to be extremely masculine. He rarely shows signs of fear or weakness. This is because Oknokwo promised himself he would be the complete opposite of his father Unoka. Unoka had passed away ten years prior to when the story takes place but he has always been remembered as a weak, lazy, poor man who could barely provide for his family. He was always in debt and didn't care to work, he would play his flute all day everyday if he was able to. "People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back" (5). Unoka was the laugh of the town and Okonkwo would never allow himself be that.
Akunna on one of Mr. Brown's visits. " We also believe in Him and call
In the book, Things Fall Apart, there are a couple of folktales that are extended throughout the book. These folktales contributes to and comments on the central narrative of the story. Animals and folktales were important to the Igbo people. They used animals in fables and stories to demonstrate their beliefs and rituals. With all rituals, animals and symbols play a crucial role in Igbo society. The fable of the Tortoise and the Birds has uncanny similarities with Okonkwo and his rise and fall. The tortoise’s strength and cunningness eventually gets to be too much, which ends up crushing him. And Okonkwo’s inability to adapt to change leads to his demise. Both the tortoise and Okonkwo’s seek to be strong in society and they both want to be known as important. That is why I believe that the fable, The Tortoise and the Birds, is the closest fable to the central narrative of the story.
He was in great conflict with the ideas of the white men and the missionaries. Okonkwo saw that their beliefs had not only changed the daily life of the Ibo, but it also changed the people themselves: “He mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women” (Achebe 183). The author uses strong diction to compare the men before and after colonization. This quote also portrays Okonkwo’s opinion towards the cultural collision. He values strength and masculinity immensely because of his fear of appearing weak like his father Unoka. When he describes that the men of Umuofia changed to be soft like women, this shows how much he dishonors the Western ideas and how it has taken over the village. He made an attempt to get rid of the Western influence by urging the tribe to fight like men, but they refuse to. He was determined and still attempted to furthermore encourage the people of Umuofia to revolt against the new culture. He realizes that his attempts to return the village back to the way it was before were futile. He knew that Christianity was tearing his people apart, but knew he was incapable of making change to help his people. Okonkwo then starts to feel hopeless and abandoned by his clan, which causes him to commit suicide by hanging himself: “Obierika… turned suddenly to the District Commissioner and said ferociously: ‘That man was one of the greatest men
Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" presents its readers with an African tribe and its culture. Okonkwo, a well-respected member of the tribe, has some very interesting attributes. Specifically, he has an undying desire to be manly at all times complimented by a deeply rooted fear of being thought of as weak. Okonkwo has a very short, violent temper that is immediately triggered in response to actions that he deems to be weak. Okonkwo basically lived by the phrase, act first and think it through later. Unfortunately, almost every time that Okonkwo lets loose his violent temper in his manly way, he brings trouble upon himself, as well as those around him. One way to explain his actions and the misfortunes that usually follow is to conclude that Okonkwo has bad luck. Another way of looking at this fact is to say that the events are a result of coincidence. However, I disagree with these views, and instead assert that Achebe deliberately made sure that after each of Okonkwo's outbursts, a tragedy befell him and those around him. I think that Achebe could have been trying to hint to the reader that placing too much emphasis on acting manly is bad.
The definition of sexism is discrimination on the basis of sex. In many cultures sexism was and still is a controversial topic. In fact, women in America couldn’t even vote until the 1920’s. The abundant masculinity in this novel is not sexism but just how the culture functions. Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart is not sexist towards women; in fact, it shows that women are essential to the Ibo society and posses a great amount of strength.
Okonkwo is often described as being similar to characters in Greek tragedies. Okonkwo knew that the end of his clan was coming, and that they would do nothing to prevent it from happening. He took his life out of desperation. He had struggled his whole life to become a respected member of his community, and suddenly his world is turned upside down and changed forever because of an accident. Okonkwo sees that he is fighting a losing battle, so he quits. Suicide was one of the biggest offenses that could be committed against the earth, and Okonkwo?s own clansmen could not bury him. Okonkwo?s death symbolizes the end of patriarchy in Umuofia. The last page of the book is from the point of view of the white Commissioner, who notes that he wants to include a paragraph on Okonkwo?s life in his book entitled The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of Lower Niger. Okonkwo?s struggles, triumphs and defeats are all reduced to a paragraph, much like his culture and society will be reduced.
One of the most commonly asked questions about the novel Things Fall Apart is: why did Achebe choose a tragic hero, Okonkwo, as the main character in the story. According to Nnoromele, “A hero, in the Igbo cultural belief system, is one with great courage and strength to work against destabilizing forces of his community, someone who affects, in a special way, the destinies of others by pursuing his own. He is a man noted for special achievements. His life is defined by ambivalence, because his actions must stand in sharp contrast to ordinary behavior”(Nnoromele). In my opinion, he chose this type of hero to show the correlation between Okonkwo’s rise and fall in the Igbo society to the rise and fall of the Igbo culture itself. Many commentators have come up with various reasons for Okonkwo’s failure in the novel. Some say that it is just his chi that causes him to be a failure; however others believe it is because he is incapable of dealing with his culture deteriorating before his eyes. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo’s character as a tragic hero is a result of his chi, inability to cope with the destruction of the Igbo culture, and ultimately, his own suicide.
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.
Okonkwo is “a man of action, a man of war” (7) and a member of high status in the Igbo village. He holds the noticeable 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.
In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is an influential leader in his tribe. Okonkwo is driven by his fear of becoming weak and unmanly, much like father. He achieves social and financial success by being motivated by these ideals. Achebe's, Things Fall Apart takes place in Nigeria in the late 19th century. Achebe suggests that fear is devastating to one’s well being.
Okonkwo constantly plagues himself with the mindset of courage and bravery and consequently the expectation of this upon himself. By virtue of this, Okonkwo fears weakness in himself and other people. This stems from his father’s constant proneness to weakness. As his son, Okonkwo struggles to move away from the shadow of his father and to be his own person. Okonkwo resents him and had
The character of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was driven by fear, a fear of change and losing his self-worth. He needed the village of Umuofia, his home, to remain untouched by time and progress because its system and structure were the measures by which he assigned worth and meaning in his own life. Okonkwo required this external order because of his childhood and a strained relationship with his father, which was also the root of his fears and subsequent drive for success. When the structure of Umuofia changed, as happens in society, Okonkwo was unable to adapt his methods of self-evaluation and ways of functioning in the world; the life he was determined to live could not survive a new environment and collapsed around him.
His flaw is his fear of failure and weakness, which dominated his entire life. Okonkwo feared that he would resemble his father, who was weak, gentle, had no titles, and had many debts. This causes Okonkwo to act with violence and anger is the only emotion he shows. His vicious acts cause him to have conflicts with his family and even Umuofia. For example, he punishes his wife and breaks the week of peace which is important to the traditions of his culture. Next, Okonkwo goes with his clan when Ikemefuna is to be killed as shown by this quote, “Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak” (Achebe 61). His last act of violence is when he attempts to instigate war by killing a white court
His society was complacent to change, content to surrender its traditions to a different culture. In killing the messenger at the end of the novel, Okonkwo was looking to save the culture that had fallen apart long before that moment. And like his culture before him, he fell apart when no one else resisted. Whether or not he had hanged himself, under British rule, he would still have been dead. Works Cited Achebe, Chinua.