In works of literature, characters are driven towards their defeat by an uncontrollable force, typical a higher power.. Things Fall Apart, written by Chinua Achebe, is a historical fiction novel that takes place in Umuofia, in Nigeria, during the 1900s. In this written work, the protagonist, Okonkwo, is a well respected warrior of his Umuofia clan. He fears of becoming like his cowardly father, Unoka. Okonkwo is haunted by the actions of his father who died in disrepute, leaving village debts unsettled. Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare, is a tragic play that takes place in Scotland in the 1100s. In this play, the protagonist, Macbeth, receives a prophecy from the three witches. The prophecy is that one day he will become king of Scotland. Macbeth soon murders King Duncan and a line of others to take the throne for himself. Then, Macbeth ends up being murdered himself leaving him defeated in the hands of a once friend. In both texts, Things Fall Apart and Macbeth, both mean are brought to their defeat from hubris actions. Their excessive pride guides them towards great …show more content…
Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action. He discerned fright in that tumult. He heard voices asking: “Why did he do it?” (Achebe 205).
This is significant because when Okonkwo was faced by his enemies, he let his pride get in the way and murders the messenger. He kills the messenger in order for Umuofia to go to war, but instead that does not occur because Okonkwo no longer had power. Since Okonkwo’s pride made him take negative actions again, he decided to come up with the decision of committing suicide. Committing suicide was seen as a cowardly act to do, but since Okonkwo had already lost his power due to his pride, he figured the only other option was to hang
To begin with, Macbeth is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare that believed to have taken place around 1606. This play dramatizes the physical, emotional, and psychological effects of those who seek power for ones’ sake. In this play a Scottish General named Macbeth receives predictions from three witches that voice him he will one day become the King of Scotland. With determination his wife takes action convincing him to murder King Duncan therefore he would become king. Macbeth then becomes paranoid and filled with guilt, forcing him to commit more murders to protect himself from suspicion. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth then receive the madness of death.
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
William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a play centred around opposing forces trying to gain power in the succession for the throne of Scotland. Macbeth, in the beginning, is known to be a noble and strong willed man, who is ready to fight for his country. However, one may see that Macbeth has a darker side to him, he is power hungry and blood thirsty, and will not stop until he has secured his spot as King of Scotland. Though Macbeth may be a tyrant, he is very nave, gullible, and vulnerable.
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.
As you see, Okonkwo was a deprived man after hearing about the whites expanding their beliefs and customs to Umuofia. Being unable to contain it, he had no choice but to give in. Okonkwo wanted to go to war and fight the invading Europeans, but he soon realized that he was the only one hungry for war. “I shall fight alone if I choose” (Achebe 201). Being the only one seeking for revenge, he had no choice but to behead the head messenger who was trying to end a clan meeting. Letting the other messengers escape, Okonkwo’s visual was the truth. “He knew that Umuofia would not go to war” (Achebe 205). Everything that he stood for was now distant. His once powerful and running clan was now weak and resistant to fight off enemies. What was the point to live when everything else had failed him and he could do nothing to resolve it? He struggled with the changes occurring in the tribe. He was known as a very strong and honorable tribesman, but when the whites arrived promoting Christianity and other tribe members began to change as a result, even his own son, he could not bear the change. While viewing the others as weak, like his father, he tries to remain strong against change however he is the only one. Killing the messenger was the last attempt to try and save the tribe from the influence of the white man. Seeing the others not join in his action, he loses hope and in desperation ends his life
...nkwo did one last thing that his father would never have had the strength of conviction to do. In a way, Okonkwo’s suicide really did conform to the ways of Umuofia; the true Umuofia that Okonkwo had been able to identify with and that he sought validation from had killed itself with its pliability towards the new ways.
...side made him suffer. He did it to himself. If he wasn't so caught up on the idea that if you weren't violent and brave then you were a woman, perhaps he would still be alive at the end of the novel. He takes his own life because he realizes everything he has done to be that powerful leader he has always wanted to be was a waste. When he comes back from exile, everything is different. He realizes that the people in the village don't need him. They are content with change and adapting to a new way of life, unlike himself. They don't want to go to war and have bloody battles like he does. Okonkwo realized his village was able to survive without him. By Okonkwo taking his own life, he proved his misery and the idea of him being truly weak at heart was affirmed.
Okonkwo’s determination to succeed in life and to not fail leads to his fatal downfall in the end of the novel. His inability to adapt to colonization and his failure to follow the morals of many of the morals of the Ibo culture also are an important key leading to his downfall. Okonkwo was willing to go to war against the missionaries, with or without the clan. He made it clear that he believed the missionaries were in the wrong for trying to change Umuofia. Since the clan wanted no part in the war with the missionaries, Okonkwo took action into his own hands and murdered the head messenger. During the killing of the messenger, Okonkwo had a moment of realization: “He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action” (Achebe 205). Okonkwo finally understands that he doesn’t have support from his fellow clansmen anymore and he feels as if he loses his place in society. Instead of backing up Okonkwo and his decision to murder the messenger, the clan stood in both confusion and disorder and questioned, “ ‘Why did [Okonkwo] do it?’ ” (Achebe 205). Okonkwo’s impulsiveness causes the clansmen to question Okonkwo’s violent actions against the messenger. Throughout the entire novel, Okonkwo struggles to accept the missionaries and the changes that they
Okonkwo was ashamed of him and did everything possible to never end up like his father. When the narrator stated, “With a father like Unoka, Okonkwo did not have the start in life which many young men had. But he threw himself into it like one possessed. And indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father’s contemptible life and shameful death” (pg. 18). The.
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.
Meanwhile he was alive, the missionaries could not try to fully “civilize” the Umuofia, as Okonkwo was an obstacle in their path. He was not willing to give up on everything he knew just because someone else told him to. Okonkwo was going to go by his and the long standing beliefs that the Igbo people have stood by for hundreds of years. Okonkwo’s death tells the reader that eventually the Igbo culture will die out in light of Christianity. Looking at Okonkwo’s body, Obierika loses his composure and blurts out, “That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be buried like a dog…” at the District Commissioner. It should not be so that a man of such strength and manhood should kill himself just because he cannot take all of the changes surrounding him. This tells the reader that there is no longer a want to be a part of the Igbo culture as so many were converting over to Christianity but not Okonkwo. He’d rather kill himself than to convert over to Christianity. This shows how much he cared about the Igbo culture and how much he was disgusted he was by everything that was going
This shows how although Okonkwo was hurt by killing him he had to do it so he would not ruin his image of a masculine man. He did not want the other men to think that he was weak, that would be the worse things that could happen to him as a
He was scared of the white men changing the Igbo culture and bringing in new religions and customs to the villages. Okonkwo was against the white man essentially coming into the Igbo village, destroying the Igbo culture and its traditions and reinstating their own. The effects of colonialism take a huge toll on Okonkwo and he is devastated because of the change that the colonist brought to the Ibo village. Okonkwo does the most cowardly thing a man can do in the Igbo tribe, which is killing himself. Okonkwo feared the change that was happening and wanted no part of it so he ended his life.
(205). When Okonkwo killed a messenger who told the people of Umuofia to stop their meeting about whether or not they should go to war against the white men, the people of Umuofia did not help him, not wishing to go to war to protect their way of
...clansmen come to decide what they should do, Okonkwo has already chosen war. As the messenger arrives to order an end to the meeting, Okonkwo is once again driven by his rage and kills the messenger. He realizes that the others were not prepared to fight, and he comes to understand the consequences of his actions. Instead of being executed, Okonkwo decides to take his own life.