Okonkwo’s masculinity overshadows the well being of his friends and family, creating tragedy for himself and those he loves.
News comes that the village has decided to murder Ikemefuna as punishment for the earlier murder of the young girl. Ezedu, advises Okonkwo to not take part in Ikemefuna’s murder because he considers him his father. Okonkwo decides to tell Ikemefuna that he is returning to his village and a group of men gather to “accompany him home (Achebe 41).” Then Okonkwo had an opportunity to hide the boy or defend his son but he acts as a coward instead. When the men are killing him, Ikemefuna cries out to Okonkwo but instead of rescuing him, Okonkwo delivers the fatal blow (Achebe 44). Here he fears being thought of as weak so
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much that he forgets his own relationship with Ikemefuna. Not only is the boy completely innocent, Ikemefuna is well liked and respected among both the men and the women of the family. Okonkwo’s intent is unknown but when placed under pressure; his first instinct is his own masculinity. In a sense, Okonkwo is selfish and proud; he cares for nothing than making himself appear masculine and well respected within his community. Okonkwo treasures his masculinity so much that he refuses to rescue someone he cares for. Showing any affection for Ikemefuna would cause the men to believe he was weak. Ironically what he thinks will preserve his manhood is cowardly. Rescuing his adopted son would require more courage and thus more strength than playing a part in his death. Okonkwo’s fear of becoming just like his father leads him to alienate his own son.
Nwoye resembles more Unoka, his grandfather, than his father Okonkwo. Unoka was told that he had bad harvests because he was lazy. Chika, the priestess at the time, believes that the harvest is determined by a man’s strength and hard work (Achebe 13). In a repeat of events, Nwoye fails to prepare the seed yams correctly to plant and receives a reprimand from his father for it (Achebe 24). Yams symbolize masculinity so Nwoye’s failure at yam farming reflects his failure as a man. Okonkwo believes his son already shows signs of laziness and will not become a successful man. Also, Nwoye sympathizes with others and recognizes the injustices of the community. He heard a twin crying from the Evil Forest and had an intuition that this practice was wrong, just as he felt after Ikemefuna’s death (Achebe 45). In contrast to Nwoye, Okonkwo sympathizes with no one. He treats his family harshly, especially his wives. From the beginning of the novel, Okonkwo is described as a man who uses his fists, not words to settle conflicts and is impatient, especially with unsuccessful men (Achebe 3). Okonkwo thinks of these characteristics as masculine though this opinion stems from the hatred and desire to be the complete opposite of his …show more content…
father. An aspect of masculinity in the Igbo culture is a man’s ability to rule over his wives.
Okonkwo beats his wives for false or unwarranted reasons. During the Feast of the New Yam, Okonkwo becomes restless with nothing to do because his masculinity is related to hard work to provide for his family. He cannot appear or feel masculine during a time of idleness, what his father would have enjoyed. In Okonkwo’s opinion a man avoids idleness and constantly labors over his crop. Ekwefi cut off banana leaves to wrap the food in; however Okonkwo believes she killed it. Because of his angry state, Okonkwo beats his wife and then aims at her with his gun (Achebe 28). The issue is not with the banana tree but the frustration and unease that come with a holiday. Okonkwo’s wives and children celebrate the festival since this time is a celebration and a time of feasting of fellowship (Achebe 27). They do not value work as Okonkwo does; to them it is a way to reach a specific goal, such as a clean house, but he works as a source of pride as a man. A more serious offense in the community is Okonkwo’s beating of Ojiugo during the Week of Peace. The Week of Peace is a sacred week in the Igbo culture in which neighbors are to live in peace with each other so as not to disrespect the earth goddess. Religion is very important in Umuofia, especially the treatment of the many gods and goddesses. Ojiugo left to plait to her and did not return in time to prepare the afternoon meal. When she
returned, Okonkwo beat her severely, forgetting about the sacred week. His other two wives reminded him but by then it was too late. The neighbors heard Ojiugo crying and came to investigate. It was unheard of to beat someone during the Week of Peace (Achebe 21). The last sentence emphasizes the severity of Okonkwo’s action. His own need for masculinity overpowered his respect for the earth goddess. Okonkwo’s need for masculinity also leads to the ultimate tragedy of the novel. When he returns to Umuofia after his exile, Okonkwo struggles with the change of his village’s customs. The men of the village refuse to fight back against the white men and their ways. This is a sign of weakness to Okonkwo. A major reason for loyalty to the white men is adherence to their religion. Differentiation is not made between a certain aspect of a people’s culture and the rest of it so the converts abandon their neighbors to join the ranks of the white men (Achebe 129). In conclusion, Okonkwo’s want for masculinity drives him throughout the course of Things Fall Apart.
In these few chapters that we read, we have already learned a lot about Okonkwo, his life, and how he shows sympathy to some, but to others he is heartless. Okonkwo is other wise known as an unsympathetic person. Okonkwo is a clan leader of umuofia who holds many titles and is well known among his people. Okonkwo's daily life consists of tending to the three yam farms he has produced and to make numerous offerings to numerous gods and to help himself and his family. Okonkwo's personality is hard driven, since his father did not provide for him and his family Okonkwo had to start man hood early and this led him to be very successful in his adulthood, Okonkwo is an unsympathetic character who only shows sympathy rarely because he believes it's a sign of weakness Okonkwo's family relationships make him a sympathetic character because when his children show signs of manliness or do their jobs right he shows sympathy towards them. He is an unsympathetic character because whenever he get a little mad he has to take his anger out on something and that is usually vented by beating his wife's.
by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo depicts his masculinity in many different ways, even if it hurts the people closest to him. He feels it is necessary to display his manliness so he does not end up like his father Unoka. “He had no patience with unsuccessful men. He had no patience with his father” (4). Okonkwo correlates virility with aggression and feels the only emotion he should show is anger, leaving him no way to cope with the death of his culture.
Masculinity is a major theme in Things Fall Apart. The epitome of masculinity and power is Okonkwo himself. As a high village elder, he exemplifies the coveted attributes of
Okonkwo’s fear leads him to treat members of his family harshly, in particular his son, Nwoye. Okonkwo often wonders how he, a man of great strength and work ethic, could have had a son who was “degenerate and effeminate” (133). Okonkwo thought that, "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" (45).
Unlike his father, Okonkwo is a hard worker with little debt and a driven personality. His internal fear leads to his decision to beat his wife during the week of peace and to take part in the mandatory action of killing his beloved son, Ikemefuna.
Okonkwo’s desire for respect motivates his quest to preserve the practices of Ibo culture, while Obierika preserves the practices of the Ibo culture with a more humanistic perspective. Achebe uses the differing approaches of Okonkwo and Obierika in maintaining the cultural doctrines of the Ibo people to reveal his sympathy for Obierika over Okonkwo. Okonkwo’s motives for maintaining the customs of the Ibo originate with fear. Okonkwo kills Ikemefuna while “dazed with fear,” drawing “his machete [to] cut him down” because, “he was afraid of being thought weak” (Achebe 61). Though Okonkwo attempts to appear strong to the people of Umuofia, his fearful motivation speaks to a hidden internal weakness. Okonkwo’s focus on eradicating the taint of “his father’s weakness and failure” and his yearning for respect drive him to kill Ikemefuna instead of the more proper motive of simply effectuating what the Ibo conside...
Okonkwo is driven by the fear of weakness; being seen as feeble by the other men which escalated from his persistence to not be his father. Additionally when Okonkwo faces the attacked Ikemefuna he ignores his pleads. Achebe illustrates this through Ikemefuna cries, “my father, they have killed me!” As he ran towards him. Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak’ (1977:54). The confliction between personal and cultural consequences explores how Ikemefuna and Okonkwo feel fear differently in this situation. As a consequence the contrast between the characters fears highlights how Ikemefuna fears the men with the machetes and death, both of which he has no control over. On the other hand Okonkwo fears losing his sense of masculinity, an internal anxiety which he could regulate but chooses not to. Furthermore the representation of Okonkwo’s identity in chapter one and seven demonstrate how Achebe, created Things Fall Apart to ‘reveal the darker side of both traditions as well as the better side and leave us to draw our own
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...
Throughout the novel, Oknonkwo does many things to prove his masculine quality. Many of these things are debatable as to whether they affirm Okonkwo's masculinity or if they bring out his true weakness and lead to his destruction. (Goldman 2)
For example, Nwoye suppresses the fact that he would rather listen to his mother’s stories than Okonkwo’s because he needs to uphold society’s expectation that males would prefer to listen to something more “masculine”. In fact, Igbo society is so gendered that even the crops that are grown are associated with being male or female. Okonkwo is a character who is ruled by fear, which stems from his desire to be perceived as masculine. This need to be perceived as masculine leads Okonkwo to do what he wants regardless of how his actions will affect the clan. At times, Okonkwo goes directly against the will of others, which for him, proved to be consequential.
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...
Okonkwo’s fear of unmanliness is kindled by his father, who was a lazy, unaccomplished man. Okonkwo strives to have a high status from a young age and eventually achieves it. He has a large family, many yams and is well known throughout the village for his valor. He raises his family by his mentality of manliness and is ...
Ikemefuna was Okonkwo’s “adopted” son. Ikemefuna and a little girl were taken away from their families in a neighboring village after a man from his village killed a man in Umuofia’s wife. Ikemefuna was given to Okonkwo as a peace offering and he fit in quite well with his new family. Okonkwo’s other sons were greatly influenced by Ikemefuna, and Ikemefuna’s relationship with Okonkwo was closer than that with his biological father. After three years of living with Okonkwo, Ikemefuna was told that he was going home. In reality, the oracle had told Okonkwo that Ikemefuna was to be killed. As Ikemefuna was on his journey “home” his innermost thoughts give his opinion
When Ikemefuna first arrives in Umuofia, he is housed with Okonkwo because Okonkwo is a great man in the village. He had reached his prime and was a man of wealth. Ikemefuna quickly befriended Okonkwo's eldest son and began calling Okonkwo "father." Soon, however, this seeming peace and civility in the village and the life of the villagers disappears. Okonkwo receives a message from the village elders that the boy, the town's innocence, must be killed off. The boy is lead off to the slaughter completely unaware of his fate, and with his "father" in the company of the killers. When a machete is drawn and the black pot atop Ikemefuna's head is cut down, the boy runs to the man he loved as father. It is he who, lacking the courage to confront the others with his love for the boy, draws his machete and...
Okonkwo sees his father’s gentleness as a feminine trait. He works hard to be as masculine as possible so that he will be the opposite of his father and overcome the shame his father brought to his family. Okonkwo deals with this struggle throughout the entire book, hiding the intense fear of weakness behind a masculine façade (Nnoromele 149). In order to appear masculine, he is often violent. In his desire to be judged by his own worth and not by the worth of his effeminate father, Okonkwo participates in the killing of a boy he sees as a son, even though his friends and other respected tribe members advise him against it. (Hoegberg 71). Even after the killing of Ikamefuna, Okonkwo hides his feelings of sadness because the emotions are feminine to him. He goes so far as to ask himself, “when did you become a shivering old woman” (Achebe 65), while he is inwardly grieving. The dramatic irony of the secret fears that Okonkwo has will open the reader’s eyes to how important gender identity is to him. This theme is also presented among Okonkwo’s children. He sees his oldest son, Nwoye, as feminine because he does not like to work as hard as his father (Stratton 29). When Nwoye eventually joins the Christian church, Okonkwo sees him as even more feminine. On the other hand, Okonkwo’s