Okonkwo's Suicide In Things Fall Apart

The Reason Behind Okonkwo’s Suicide

What drives people to kill themselves? There are many answers to this question, and in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, readers find an answer to it. Although many things lead up to Okonkwo’s suicide, his main motivations were the major changes and losses in his life which prompt him to contradict his own beliefs and kill himself. He made the decision to kill himself when he recognized that he no longer had a place to belong.

The first breaking point for Okonkwo was when his life started to go downhill for accidentally killing a clansman. Because of this, he was sent into exile and forced to flee to his motherland. He was left with nothing. When Okonkwo reached his motherland, he “was given a plot of ground on which to build his compound, and two or three pieces of land on which to farm during the coming planting season” to restart his life (Achebe 129, 130). This was a major change in Okonkwo’s life, and changes in a person’s life can lead to suicide. In the real world, readers can find an example of change leading to suicide in the article “Manager Commits Hara-Kiri to Fight Corporate Restructuring” by Sheryl WuDunn. When “Mr. Noka was demoted and his pay was cut,” he had undergone a significant change in his life that lead him to commit Hara-Kiri, a ritual

suicide (WuDunn 1999). During Okonkwo’s time in his motherland, he was in a new place where he had no position or authority. Okonkwo was now where Unoka had been in his life; therefore, he had become his greatest fear, his father.
During Okonkwo’s exile, missionaries came into the clan, gathered converts to a new religion, and brought a new government. When Okonkwo returned, the clan had undergone such extreme change that it was “barely recognizable” (Achebe 182). Churches, trading stores, hospitals and schools were all built, and “religion and education went hand in hand” (182). The changes in his clan gave him a feeling of disconnection from his clan and people, including his son Nwoye, a convert. Nwoye went into training to become a teacher, and Okonkwo was filled with rage when he heard. He drove his son away and lost him. The anger he was filled with, and the loss of his son both played a part in his suicide.
As the new religion and government grew stronger, it caught more people’s attention, and the warlike quality of the clan started to subside. Okonkwo “mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women” (183). He once again didn’t have a place or position; he felt worthless. The feeling of worthlessness can drive someone to take their life.
Okonkwo’s final push towards suicide was when he killed the messenger. As soon as Okonkwo saw the messenger, “he confronted the head messenger, trembling with hate” (204). All of his hate had bottled up. He did not know how to express the anger that consumed him; thus his “machete descended twice and the man’s head lay beside his uniformed body” (204). This was Okonkwo’s last straw. Obierika, Okonkwo’s best friend, stated that the missionaries are what drove Okonkwo to take his own life. Okonkwo couldn’t take the change, the hate, and not belonging; therefore, he killed himself.
Because Okonkwo went through major changes in his life when was sent into exile, lost his son and clan, and took someone else’s life, he took his own.

Feelings of worthlessness, anger, hatred, and a sense of not belonging is what came from this. These feelings play a role in why people kill themselves. Things Fall Apart revolves around Okonkwo and his clan, and when his clan started “breaking up and falling apart,” Okonkwo changed (183). This change allows readers to better understand Okonkwo’s personality, his actions, and his feelings. His suicide also shows weakness which contradicts Okonkwo's belief that a true man should never be feminine or

weak.