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How does family background influence behavior
Explain conflict when things fall apart
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Have you ever had a good relationship with your parent and at times a bad one by arguing about something stupid. One time in my life i got my phone taken away and i got super mad i yelled at my mom and said “I hate you and i wish i never had you in my life”! And she said” well fine then you can leave if you don't like it “!. when she got done talking i left and didn't come back for a while. When i got back i was cooled down and me and my mother said we were sorry and that we loved each other. Another time is when me and my went to a movie together. My mom is like my best friend even though at times i may not like the way she acts toward me. I would say that me and my mother have a good relationship where i can tell her anything and she wouldn't go and tell her friends or my father when i did something i regret or don't like what i did. In the african novel ,Things Fall Apart ,by Chinua Achebe, the main character Okonkwo does not like the decisions Nwoye his son is making. In the novel Of Mice And Men, by John Steinbeck, George …show more content…
In the book, Okonkwo thinks that his son, Nwoye, is lazy. “To react, Okonkwo often “sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating” (Achebe 11). With Okonkwo's beating Nwoye it shows he doesn't care what happens to him as long as he's doesn't end up like his dad: lazy. NOt caring shows that they have a bad relationship. Good relations show that people care and someone can tell people anything. Okonkwo and Nwoye don’t have that. This is shown when Nwoye grows up and joins the Christians. Okonkwo does not like this, so Nwoye is kind of disowned. WHen asked about his dad, he says, “‘I don't know. He is not my father’, said Nwoye unhappily” ( Achebe 124). Okonkwo, Nwoye father has disowned him because he joined the christians and is very unhappy about that. Okonkwo wishes that he was more like him but since he didn't he disowns him because of the religion he
From birth Okonkwo had wanted his son, Nwoye, to be a great warrior like him. His son instead rebelled and wanted to be nothing like Okonkwo. Okonkwo would not change so that his son would idolize him, as he had wanted since his son's birth. He chose not to acknowledge his son's existence instead. This would weigh heavily on anyone's conscience, yet Okonkwo does not let his relationship with his son affect him in the least bit.
Okonkwo then later goes to live with his Mother’s family in Mbanta. Okonkwo felt that everything came to an end. He was saddened because he was stripped of his manhood and his goal: “a great passion—to become one of the lords of the clan” (121). He then later was presented with something to distract him from his loss, this was the arrival of the ‘White Men’. When Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son, converts to Christianity, it upsets Okonkwo at first, “but on further thought he told himself that Nwoye was not worth fighting for” (142).
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.
In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Obierika and Okeke bring a peace to the community and themsel and religious lives around them, while Okonkwo and Enoch strike fear and confusion into the communities around them. Okeke and Obierika are from two different worlds but their balanced character makes them similar to one another. Okeke is of Igbo descent but has begun to work as a translator for the Christians.
In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, we see a breakdown between a father and son relationship
Planet Earth harbors seven billion independent human minds, living seven billion independent, equally complex lives. Even more impressive, each mind contains unique perspectives and opinions. With so many different minds interacting, conflict between individuals’ perspectives and opinions becomes inevitable. Unfortunately, no single perspective, held by a single mind or a group of minds, dominates as the correct perspective. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the meeting of different cultures creates conflict between perspectives, in which both parties assume righteousness but neither is entirely correct. Though Okonkwo may draw a readers’ sympathy for his role as the tragic hero, the author’s sympathy sits with Obierika, who is positioned between the missionaries and Okonkwo as the most humane balance of the two cultures.
Okonkwo cannot control himself when one of his wives or kids does something that makes him frustrated, he either beats them or punishes them in another way, “His first two wives ran out in great alarm pleading with him that it was the sacred week. But Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half-way through, not even for fear of a goddess” (Achebe 4). Okonkwo has tried to influence his son in positive ways but already sees that Nwoye is already...
In the book “Things Fall Apart”, evidence of a social structure was apparent within the Igbo community. This rigid social structure served as a purpose to balance the life of the people within the society, as well as promoting the downfall of the clan. The social structure was important in keeping a centralized society and preventing any sign of corruption within their clan. The social structure had advantages in keeping a balanced and equal society, supporting a division of labor, providing a surplus of food, individual huts, a communal society, and the development of some kind of government. In contrast, this social structure led others to reject to cooperate with the new religion and aided the lack of unity among the people. It also promoted a more patriarchal society, the inferior rank of women, and the lack of strong bonds between family members.
“Even Okonkwo himself became very fond of the boy – inwardly of course…there was no doubt that he liked the boy. Sometimes when he went to big village meetings or communal ancestral feasts he allowed Ikemefuna to accompany him, like a son, carrying his stool and his goatskin bag. And, indeed, Ikemefuna called him father”(4.7). It’s not clear as to why Okonkwo would take Nwoye’s only pride and joy away. This shows how selfish he is, he only cared about reputation and status rather than how someone felt. This grew their father son relationship downwards. Nwoye knew the consequences of combining with the newly arrived “white man”. He was aware of how unstable their relationship was and by him converting, Okonkwo probably wouldn’t even claim him as his son. Nwoye was standing up as a real man and by this time of the plot he didn’t care what anyone thought. He wanted to explore and learn new ways on his own. “I am one of them,” replied Nwoye.“How is your father?” Obierika asked, not knowing what else to say.“I don’t know. He is not my father,” said Nwoye, unhappily”(16). Nwoye didn’t want to be associated with any negative energy, and that meant not associating with his father or his culture 's ways. The Igbo culture was harsh and a lot of deathly punishment went into it. Nwoye didn’t fit in from the beginning, he was more of a peaceful soul who was never out to kill or do harm. If Nwoye kept abiding by the laws, he wouldn’t be presenting the “Real
Unfortunately, everything is not perfect. His son, Nwoye, seems not to be showing the characteristics of a real man. He prefers to stay with his mother, listening to women's stories, than to listen to his father's tales of battle and victory. Later, when missionaries come to the tribe, Nwoye is attracted to their Christian religion because of its unqualified acceptance of everyone, much like a mother's unqualified love. Of this, Okonkwo r...
Life has a funny way of turning for sometime the better but it always has a dark way to turn around. Is being a leader standing on top and being better than all below is it really worth all the pain? Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a true example of the way life turns for the worse.
In the current world, men and women are considered equals. They all get equal opportunities at jobs, buying houses and basically anything that involves building a person up in the social pyramid. Except this was not how life was until the 1980’s, where women were considered the property of men and had no true stand in society as they do now. This is the case in the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, where Okonkwo who is a great warrior of the Igbo tribe, is left wishing that his eldest daughter, Ezinma had been born a boy. Okonkwo’s expectations and wishes are not with his sons, but with Ezinma due to her understanding of him, their relative likeness, Ezinma’s respect shown to Okonkwo and his actions towards her, but because of Igbo culture, Ezinma can not fulfill his wishes of having a child become great like him.
Nwoye grows tired of his father and is called by the Christian faith and converts. Nwoye’s internal struggle with himself between change and tradition ultimately led him to convert against his father’s wishes. Okonkwo is extremely resistant to change, so he does everything in his power to prevent his family from converting; “‘If you turn against me when I am dead I will visit you and break your neck’” (Achebe 105). Okonkwo uses fear to keep his other children from the Igbo culture.
The Downfall of Okonkwo People would normally think the main character of the book is a hero, but are they really? In Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, he portrays that if people don’t accept life or anything else bad things may comes throughout time. Okonkwo the mighty, that’s what most people think of him when the reader first open the book and read about him. When they read the exact words on how Okonkwo lays a heavy hand in his household their point of view would change.
Two passages from the story Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, provide the reader with a more profound understanding of Okonkwo, and his son Nwoye. The two do not have a good relationship and it becomes worse as the story progresses. Throughout the book the two become increasingly distant and it is apparent that Okonkwo is very disappointed in his son. After the death of Ikemefuna, Nwoye begins to question many aspects of his life, especially religion. As the Christian missionaries spend more time with the members of the village, Nwoye becomes interested in this new religion. The first passage I have chosen discusses Nwoye’s feelings about Christianity.