Examples Of Okonkwo's Sense Of Identity In Things Fall Apart

Okonkwo’s sense of identity has greatly been affected by the arrival of the white commissioners. In the book, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, it talks about a story of a man from the Umuofia clan, who is a fierce warrior that became successful in life due to the hard working and the ideal thinking of a man in the Ibo culture. He is completely opposite of his father, who was considered a failure in life. He is also well known as “The Cat”(Chapter 1, page 1) beater, who was the best at time in wrestling. Even though Okonkwo is all successful and that, he has anger issues and a strong belief in his culture that later becomes problematic for when the commissioners arrive. Therefore, the cultural collision had a huge impact towards Okonkwo’s

After the first few days of the church being built, Okonkwo was informed of this by his cousin, Amikwu, who “Was passing by the church on his way from the neighboring village, when he saw Nwoye among the Christians”(Chapter 17, page 151) and “When he got home[,] he went straight to Okonkwo’s hut and told him what he seen”(Chapter 17, page 151). Later when Okonkwo and Nwoye came in contact with each other near Okonkwo’s obi, Okonkwo “Suddenly overcome with fury…, gripped him by the neck”(Chapter 17, page 151) and questioned him about where he has been. Since Okonkwo didn’t like the idea of Christianity and how he thought the commissioners were foolish for thinking there was only one god; finding out about his son’s conversion to Christianity didn’t help the situation either and so misacted by beating his son. This also led him to questioned about how cowardly his clan is acting about the situation when its supposed to be a warrior clan. For that reason, Okonkwo’s sense of identity was impacted by the cultural collision between the Ibo culture and the Western