Okonkwo In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

929 Words2 Pages

No one likes to be told how to live, especially if they do not wish to follow a certain custom. In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe talks about Okonkwo a successful, strong young man that is controlled by fear of weakness and failure. This great fear came due to his father. His father Unoka was a “lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow” (Achebe 4). Therefore Okonkwo fear was resembling his father. This caused Okonkwo to become an unloving husband and parent. Whereas Nwoye bared opposite characteristics of his father because he was emotionally unfulfilled and sympathetic. By Okonkwo’s fear of being like his father and Nwoye’s sensitivity and lack of masculinity caused the shape of both their generations to be curved in ways that Okonkwo tuff love causes Nwoye to become his complete opposite. …show more content…

In the case of Unoka he had achieve no titles and was a debtor. Unoka had a great childhood and loved the good fare and the good fellowship but “Unoka, the grown-up, was a failure” (Achebe 5).He was said to be poor and his wife and children barely had enough to eat, this caused people to laugh at him because he was a slacker. This caused Okonkwo to have no patience with unsuccessful men also “He had no patience with his father” (Achebe 4). Therefore Unoka and Okonkwo had no father and son relationship, he despised he father so much that he forgot to be a father to Nwoye. Due that his father was such a lazy man he also had to support his own mother and sister which was not his duty. This very situation caused Okonkwo to be

Open Document