Okonkwo In Things Fall Apart

Throughout time, parents have been the ones that make their children the people they grow up to be. Everything from a parent’s presence to their attitude shapes the way the person their child develops and becomes. In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Unoka’s laziness and status as the village beggar shape Okonkwo into be a harsh, cruel, hardworking man. Okonkwo grows up ashamed of his father, Unoka, which shapes Okonkwo to want to be the opposite. Okonkwo grows up in a family that “barely had enough to eat”, with a father that people “laughed at” (5). This embarrassing and dreary childhood guides Okonkwo to become a hard worker at a young age, so that his children will not have to endure the same adversity and pain. Okonkwo works tirelessly for Nwakibie so that he can start his own farm with yams. Okonkwo

Sharecropping is the only way for a “young man whose father ha[s] no yams” to start a barn (22). Okonkwo works hard to make sure that his children will have barns of yams to start with, rather than having to sharecrop like he did. Okonkwo works to gain 800 yam seeds from Nwakibie so that he can start his own farm. Okonkwo works, so that he will be successful, unlike his father. Unoka’s failure as a father and as a man causes Okonkwo to have a deep-rooted fear of “failure and weakness” and in short, a fear of “[resembling] his father” (13). Okonkwo’s fears causes him to act irrationally and even cause him to have a short temper. He tries vigorously to do whatever Unoka did not and he avoids whatever Unoka did. Okonkwo treats his children harshly, beating them when they do a job incorrectly, even if he knows they are too young to understand the task. Okonkwo treats his children cruelly because he wishes to “stamp out” the “signs of laziness” that he subconsciously connects to his father (33). Okonkwo