Okonkwo is on two ends of a stick. Sometimes he can be shown to be a caring, sympathetic character, but others he is shown as a ruthless person that is very unsympathetic person. Okonkwo is a man of action that would rather solve things with his fists rather than talking it out. He is a great wrestler hailing from the Umuofia clan that has thrown Amalinze the Cat. Okonkwo is also a very good farmer, where he has been able to grow two barns worth of yams. He is someone that doesn’t know how to control themselves when they get angry as he will then resort to violence. Okonkwo’s family relationships make him a sympathetic character because of his caregiving nature and hospitality and he is shown to be an unsympathetic character because of his …show more content…
Okonkwo is a man of action, he would rather settle things with his strength rather than talk it out with the person he is mad at. This is very unsympathetic because not only is he going to use violence towards others, he is doing it just because he can not get his point across with using his words. This quote shows that he does not care towards others emotions because he would rather just fight them than talk it out. Another quote that shows Okonkwo’s unsympathetic behavior is,“He rules the household with a heavy hand” (Achebe 13). Okonkwo is shown to be someone who disciplines where he sees fit, if he does not like what is going on then there might be a high chance that the heavy hand is going to come down onto you. It shows how unsympathetic Okonkwo is because it shows how he might not care about his family’s feelings towards getting hit when they disobey him. His wives are more often beaten, especially Ekwefi, who has been beaten almost to death because Okonkwo was in a bad mood. It shows that he lets his emotions get the best of him and he does not control them very well, he would rather let it all out violently than talking it out with the people that he is mad at. Those quotes show how Okonkwo can be seen as a very unsympathetic person from his
Okonkwo was a man that was held high in his village, he was a wrestler that, in his early days had taken down one of the toughest opponents. On page one, "Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and beyond." Like Kurtz, Okonkwo had flaws that affected him greatly in the end. Okonkwo lived in fear of being like his father, of being weak. One consequence that Okonkwo's fear led him to, was the killing of someone which he cared deeply for, whom he loved like his own son. On page sixty-one, "Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak." Okonkwo's fear of being weak, was a flaw that people reading the story can relate to. Okonkwo is a highly respected man, a man with multiple wives, good crops, and children. To the reader, these parts of Okonkwo's life may not make sense. A lot of Okonkwo's life and culture might not make sense to the reader, but looking at Okonkwo's fears and flaws, gives you something to relate
Okonkwo is known throughout Umuofia to be extremely masculine. He rarely shows signs of fear or weakness. This is because Oknokwo promised himself he would be the complete opposite of his father Unoka. Unoka had passed away ten years prior to when the story takes place but he has always been remembered as a weak, lazy, poor man who could barely provide for his family. He was always in debt and didn't care to work, he would play his flute all day everyday if he was able to. "People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back" (5). Unoka was the laugh of the town and Okonkwo would never allow himself be that.
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 ...
Thus, Okonkwo becomes a tragic hero, and at the end of the book, he takes his own life to end his pain. Okonkwo a man in disguise is a victim of wrong choices in life and dies for it as a noble purpose. Okonkwo is a human being and with that comes the result in fatal flaws that result in his downfall. High birth is not of Okonkwo’s back ground, but ultimately his actions affect Umuofia in more ways than he could ever understand. Okonkwo not only is a tragic hero, he is also a victim of his own fate and destiny.
“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.
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.
Okonkwo is known for always reacting to every event with anger and physical punishment to please his ego which is to be seen as a strong warrior, hardworking, and powerful. Which you can see when Okonkwo kills ikemefuna “Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak.
Okonkwo is a very powerful character in this story he really doesnt show emotion and He has the need to be stronger because his family is weak so okonkwo wants to be very stonf and powerful and he wants to be the leader so everyone looks up to him and he can lead everyone so be a stronger person and not weak at and he wants to show everyone that hes a strong person and some that doesnt have fear so everyone knows he can lead his team and his village
Okonkwo, a fierce warrior, remains unchanged in his unrelenting quest to solely sustain the culture of his tribe in the time of religious war in Achebe's book, Things Fall Apart. He endures traumatic experiences of conflict from other tribes, dramatic confrontations from within his own family, and betrayal by his own tribe.
In the essence of his character, Okonkwo evokes sympathy in the reader only because of his many cultural and personal influences. These influences make him a product of society. Due to this he has lost much but also gained much. Okonkwo also thinks he is doing something to help when he may in fact being harming others. He has a conscious and regrets certain deeds. He punished himself after killing Ikemefuna. Therefore, Okonkwo is a cruel yet kind man who evokes sympathy in the reader.
Because his father borrowed from others without means of returning, lived off of others, and never made a stable life for himself and his family, Okonkwo does the opposite in his life. Normally a son would inherit his father’s barn, but because his father was unmanly and “had a miserable harvest” (Achebe 16), “there was no barn to inherit” (16). Okonkwo “hate[d] everything that his father Unokoa had loved” (13) because all that his father did was weak. He makes a stable life for himself and his family by producing yams and stocking up his barn. Okonkwo’s idea of manliness is also more aggressive than the clan. When he is suggested to not take part in the killing of Ikemefuna, Okonkwo not only was there, but he “cut him down” (61) because of the fear “of being thought weak” (61). Whenever Okonkwo thought he or a member of his family was being thought of as weak, he would either beat them, physically, or himself, emotionally, up. He is more aggressive and intolerant of unmanliness because of the fear of becoming like his
Okonkwo is portrayed as a respected individual in many ways. He was a well known person through out the 9 villages and beyond. His successes were based wholly on his personal achievements. For example, he was a warrior and wrestler who gained respect through his athletics. Manliness was a characteristic that was greatly valued by the people of the village. Since Okonkwo was a wrestler and a warrior this showed that he was a fierce fear-free individual. And because he hadn't lost one fight or any battles this was more reason for the people of the village to love him. He was also respected because of his wealth. Okonkwo had three wives and m...
Okonkwo is a character who strives to make his way in a world that he thinks values manliness. His greatest fear is becoming his father. He stands for everything portrayed as "manly". His father was a man of cowardly traits. He was poor and his main interest was music. Okonkwo labels his father as feminine. He associates masculinity with aggression. This is the main reason he tries to define himself as the manly man of society. He achieves great success in both social and financial perspectives. He marries three women and has a plentiful amount of children with each. He runs his household with fear. He frequently beats wives and even threatens to kill them. He is perceived as a powerful, wealthy and violent man. His whole outlook on the way he lives his life is based on being the opposite of his father. His experience with living with someone he was so ashamed of drives him to become a person of violence and authority. "But in spite of these disadvantages, he had begun even in his father's lifetime to lay the foundations of a prosperous future. It was slow and painful. But he threw himself into it like one possessed. And indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father's contemptible life and shameful death" (Achebe, 18). Okonkwo is consciously opposed to anything perceived as feminine or soft. He struggles to be as different from his deceased father as possible.
Achebe describes Okonkwo at the beginning of the book to demonstrate Okonkwo as a prideful and respected man. Okonkwo’s described as a“wealthy farmer [who] had two barns full of yams, and had just married his third wife”(8). “[Having] no patience for unsuccessful man”(4), Okonkwo would pounce on individuals, as he cannot control his anger. Unoka, Okonkwo’s father having been a coward left his son and family nothing. Okonkwo worked his way up, “it was slow and painful, but he threw himself into it like one possessed, and indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father’s contemptible life and shameful death”(18). Okonkwo’s description depicts an individual, whose hardworking, prideful, and ferocious. Others in the village believe him as worthy of “[eating]
Okonkwo - Okonkwo is a clan leader in Umuofia. He has a large family, yet is very stubborn and known for his violent personality. He became well known through all of the seven villages by throwing “The Cat” during a wrestling tournament.