Okonk Oil Meaning

857 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How the life of okonkwo falls apart

After Okonkwo has accidentally killed Ezeudu’s sixteen-year-old son, he brought shame to the figure that he worked on for years and built to represent him in the best way possible, and brought embarrassment to his inner self. When analyzing this proverb “If one finger brought oil, it soiled the others” (pg 111), it can be translated in different ways based on the perspective it is viewed. After Okonkwo has perpetrated the crime he is the finger that brought the oil. The oil is a metaphor that can be interpreted differently based on the way it is viewed, when viewing it in terms of Okonkwo, it represents the sin that he committed, when this metaphor is taken further and looked at in a scientific way, oil cannot mix with any other liquids, so …show more content…

When observing this proverb in terms of his family, Okonkwo committed a transgression that affected him and his family, it “soiled” his family which implies that he got them into trouble with him. As the family gathered all their valuable belongings to leave the village “His wives wept bitterly and their children wept with them without knowing why”(pg 110). As an outcome of his actions, he got his family to move out of their home, leave their village, depart to a different village, and lose everything they worked on and for. They had to leave everything behind and exile the village with Okonkwo. Under those circumstances, they have to start from the beginning and slowly get acclimated to the new

Show More
Related

  • The Stubborness of Okonkwo

    389 Words  | 1 Pages

    After Okonkwo gets banished from the tribe it undergoes a drastic cultural change. Okonkwo does not. Upon his return he discovers that his tribe has been partially converted by the Christian missionaries. He is appalled and rejects the idea.

    Read More

  • Societal Change In Things Fall Apart And The Play King Lear

    1159 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Things Fall Apart, during Okonkwo 's seven years exile, he went back to his motherland. "It 's true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother 's hut. A man belongs o his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland." (Things Fall Apart 48) Okonkwo accidently killed a clan member, his personal rank changed from a respected warrior to an exile. And his societal conditions also changes, sine he is being punished, he cannot live in his own clan, he is forced to moved, a societal change occurred around

    Read More

  • Things Fall Apart Okonkwo Quotes

    676 Words  | 2 Pages

    He hadn't realized he had his people in front of him until they were gone. In the page of 171 paragraph 1, it quotes “The clan was like a lizard, if it lost its tail, it soon get out another.” The quote defines that Okonkwo lost so many people and he wanted to restore them, the changes effected him dramatically from what the missionary was doing. In page 171 paragraph 2 quoting “Okonkwo knew these things. He knew that he had lost his place among the nine masked spirits who administered justice in the clan.” This evidence is explaining that Okonkwo lost his position, people who had admired him changed, he quickly lost his power. This made Okonkwo devastated which resulted badly for him as he was

    Read More

  • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

    741 Words  | 2 Pages

    ... a rat when it was caught by the tail and dashed against the floor”(Achebe, 63). He refused to eat for two days straight and only drank palm wine. This shows that he felt he did something horrific and knew it was wrong, but only because society and culture dictated that he had to kill Ikemefuna. Thus, Okonkwo evokes sympathy within the reader because he is not only a product of society.

    Read More

  • okonkowo

    1159 Words  | 3 Pages

    Not only was Okonkwo being displaced from his community an alienating experience but it was also an enriching one. Okonkwo's kinsmen in Mbanta receive him and his family kindly. Uchendu, Okonkwo's mother's younger brother, is now the eldest surviving member of that family. In the novel, Achebe states that, “Okonkwo was well received by his mother’s kinsmen in Mbanta. The old man who received him was his mother’s younger brother, who was now the eldest surviving member of that family. His name was Uch...

    Read More

  • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

    659 Words  | 2 Pages

    Okonkwo’s father was a man who was not looked up to through out the village. This was because he was a man who was lazy and would not think of the future. On page 3 it is stated, ‘In his day he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of think about tomorrow.’ As a result of Unoka’s lifestyle, Okonkwo despises a lazy lifestyle. Okonkwo’s life is all about hard work and never failing. As it is quoted, ‘He had no patience with unsuccessful men. He had no patience with his father’ (Page 3). Okonkwo had an obsession with working and never giving up. He would work all day until he made sure all tasks were complete before he would go and rest. Page 11 explains, ‘During the plant season Okonkwo worked daily on his farm from cockcrow until the chickens went to roost.’ As it is visible in many sections of this book, Okonkwo has a fear of becoming a failure and this causes him to work as hard as he can. As it is stated above, Okonkwo had no patience with his father, which was due to his fear. Quote: ‘But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.’ Okonkwo’s fear of becoming like his father wa...

    Read More

  • Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

    975 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Okonkwo Masculinity Quotes

    483 Words  | 1 Pages

    “No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.” (53) This quote demonstrates one of the traits of masculinity that Okonkwo values, which is the ability to control his family. Okonkwo is the man of the household. He provides them food from his crops and a roof over their heads, and by his beliefs of masculinity he therefore holds all the power in his family. He wants to maintain the role of the man or authority figure of the household and whenever any of his wives try to talk back to him or argue, he would beat them. There was an example of this control in the novel with Okonkwo’s wives, Ekwefi and Ojiugo. Ekwefi was Okonkwo’s second wife, and in the novel, he beaten her in a fit of anger because he thought she had killed a banana tree.

    Read More

  • Cultural Collisions In Things Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe

    747 Words  | 2 Pages

    When some of the Igbo people started to convert, it also caused problems between people inside the clan itself. Okonkwo’s initial reaction is to prepare with violence and protect their land and people. This slowly changes through time as he goes from being his old self to giving in. Ironically, he who is afraid of appearing weak, gives into weakness and commits suicide. In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo shows his old habits with the following statements, “He had spoken violently to his clansmen when they had met in the marketplace to decide on their action. And they listened to him with respect. It was like the good old days again, when a warrior was a warrior.”(Achebe, page 192). He had slowly started to change some of his views when Okonkwo was exiled to his motherland. This was all for nothing when he came back home to a cultural collision he could jump into. He thought he could redeem himself but got too wrapped in the mess. His identity was challenging itself seeing just how far Okonkwo would

    Read More

  • The Power Struggle in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

    1198 Words  | 3 Pages

    Unfortunately, the clash of the cultures that occurs when the white man's missionaries come to Africa in an attempt to convert the tribal members, causes Okonkwo to lash out at the white man and results in his banishment from the tribe. Okonkwo had a bad temper which he often displayed: Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear of failure and of weakness.

    Read More

  • Okonkwo’s Resistance to Change in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

    1470 Words  | 3 Pages

    From an early age, Okonkwo was ashamed of his father, Unoka, who was unable even to feed his family. The unpredictability of receiving enough food at a young age was enough to inspire fear and embarrassment in Okonkwo who associated this embarrassment with his father and was given further justification for these feelings when he went out into Umuofia, discovering that the other villagers held similar opinions of Unoka. When he was old enough, Okonkwo began farming his own yams because “he had to support his mother and two sisters […] And supporting his mother also meant supporting his father” (25). Okonkwo’s self-reliance was admired, valued in the community where “age was respected […] but achievement was revered” (12); this admiration gave him feelings of security, and the respect of his peers pushed him towards greater self-respect, distancing him from his father. The security and respect became related in his mind as he viewed his acceptance in the community as his life’s goal and Okonk...

    Read More

  • Things Fall Apart Adapt To Change Essay

    622 Words  | 2 Pages

    When he went out into Umuofia, he found that the villagers had very similar opinions towards his father. As soon as he was old enough, Okonkwo began farming yams because “he had to support his mother and two sisters [.] And supporting his mother also meant supporting his father” (25). He received admiration from many people for this, and he turned the admiration into a feeling of security, knowing that the people of Umuofia did not think the same of him as they did his father. He began to respect himself a lot, and felt that it was appropriate to distance himself from Unoka.

    Read More

  • Manhood In Macbeth And Things Fall Apart

    712 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book, Okonkwo is trying to prove that he can command his village and keep the power from the white missionaries. His village pressures him

    Read More

  • Character Analysis Of Okonkwo

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although the reader feels remorseful for Okonkwo’s tragic childhood life. It is another reason to sympathize with a man who believes he is powerful and respected by many when in reality, he is feared by his own family and that is another reason that leads Okonkwo to his downfall. He started positive, motivated but down the line, Okonkwo treats his wife and children very harshly. When the author mentioned, “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children” (pg.13).

    Read More

  • Essay on Okonkwo and Nwoye in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

    1451 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the beginning of the story, Okonkwo’s relationship with his son was strained.  Toward the end of the story, Nwoye has left is his family and will never see his father again.  The elders of the village put much emphasis on family life and helping fellow clansmen.  Okonkwo’s family life had increasingly gone downhill as the story progressed.  This book can be related to any family, even though it was written in a different time and place.  Family problems affect everyone and this story shows the reader how certain problems are dealt with.  I don’t believe, however, that Okonkwo’s family took care of their problems in a productive manner.  With better communication, Nwoye’s leaving and Okonkwo’s death may have been prevented.

    Read More

More about Okonk Oil Meaning

Open Document