How Does Okonkwo Kill Himself

In the novel “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe the main character Okonkwo ends up killing himself. This character is very much against weakness and all about being strong and manly. During the novel, Okonkwo has to watch his tribe convert, under the influence of the white man, to Christianity, which he sees as his tribe caving into weakness. In a last attempt to save his tribe from the path of weakness and help trigger them to want to be warriors and strong, he kills the leader of the court messengers who are trying to stop a meeting that is happening to try to put an end to what is happening in their tribe. My belief to why Okonkwo killed himself is because he knew that killing that messenger would lead to execution, and rather than die at the hands of the white men, the men who turned his tribe against their beliefs and made them weak, he would rather kill himself than let the white men kill him.

Okonkwo’s whole being and his motivation for everything throughout the novel was not be his father, to not be weak.

His father wasn’t even buried, but his body left alone in the woods. Ironically this is what happens to Okonkwo’s body. In his mind he may have been defending his strength by not letting the white man execute him, but in his tribe it is seen as cowardly, weak and essentially “womanly”. By the end Okonkwo wanted his tribe to go to war against the men that had come in and tried to colonize his tribe. Many people of the tribe did convert to christianity and so they would have to fight brother against brother, but Okonkwo wanted to do what would be

necessary.
When Okonkwo beheads the leader of the court messengers, as mentioned before, he hoped to bring the warrior in his people out, like they would have been before the British came. What ends up happening is that he realizes that they are more scared of what he did than willing to fight. The members of his tribe which were at the meeting didn’t jump in to help in but rather let the rest of the white men go. When this happened I think Okonkwo was left with a realization that his tribe had been essentially “conquered” by the white men and Christianity. He knew that the tribe did not win, they had very much lost in the struggle with the white men. This realization probably made Okonkwo feel alone, and feel like he worked so hard his whole life to be so strong and to not be weak, and to see almost his whole tribe submit to the white man’s influence, probably made it feel like it was all for nothing. Okonkwo knew that for his action of beheading that man, that the white men were going to come for him. I think Okonkwo chose to die in a disfavoring way to his own gods as opposed to dying by the hand of those who want to destroy all he believes in. In this way, even though it was disfavoring to his gods, it was his gods he was disfavoring and not dying by the people who have destroyed everything he holds true. I think this was a way also for Okonkwo to rebel one last time against the Christian society. It was a way to keep him tied to his religious beliefs.
Another occurrence in Okonkwo’s life to think about when dealing with his suicide is his banishment for seven years when he accidentally killed that boy at the funeral of the young man’s father. Okonkwo’s gun exploded and a piece of iron pierced the boy’s heart. Okonkwo was exiled for seven years. He was so certain that when he returned there would be a welcome home party, some sort of praise for the fact the he would finally be home again. Okonkwo thought so highly of himself and thought everyone else thought so highly of him. When he returned however, no one seemed to have even been fazed that he was gone at all and that it didn’t really make a difference that he was back.