“The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power” (Unknown). In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, a novel, Okonkwo lets his past determine his future and control his life. Okonkwo tries to avoid being like his father and therefore it rules his life and does not let him enjoy life. Okonkwo’s motivations and development of his character and his society all suggest that he is a Byronic hero. Okonkwo's social dominance is shown when he thinks he rules his wives because of their gender. In the handout “Byronic Hero” it states “Social and Sexual Dominance” (Byronic Hero) as a characteristic of a byronic hero. In the novel Things Fall Apart it states “...ran madly into his room for the loaded gun, ran out again and aimed it at her… He pressed the trigger… He threw down the gun and jumped into the barn, and there lay the woman, very much shaken and frightened but quite unhurt” (page 33). This quotation from chapter five demonstrates how Okonkwo thinks he’s better than the female gender. In this quote Okonkwo shooting a female because she made him feel inferior. Okonkwo does not tolerate this and uses violence as a defence mechanism. This trait is demonstrated by Okonkwo shooting at …show more content…
In the article it states “He is usually isolated from society as a wanderer or is in exile of some kind” (Characteristics). In the novel it states “The only course open to Okonkwo and was to flee from the clan… He could return in seven years” (page 110). This quotation from chapter thirteen demonstrates Okonkwo being an exile when he is literally exiled. Okonkwo falls under the category of exile because he did something very wrong and commit a crime against earth goddess therefore was exiled. this trait is demonstrated by Okonkwo acting against what is allowed and his society. His act against the earth goddess caused him to be an exile figuratively and literally. In conclusion Okonkwo is shown as an exile when he is
In Things Fall Apart, during Okonkwo 's seven years exile, he went back to his motherland. "It 's true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother 's hut. A man belongs o his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland." (Things Fall Apart 48) Okonkwo accidently killed a clan member, his personal rank changed from a respected warrior to an exile. And his societal conditions also changes, sine he is being punished, he cannot live in his own clan, he is forced to moved, a societal change occurred around
Okonkwo is not all that he may seem as there is more than what meets the eye. Okonkwo is the primary protagonist within the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Okonkwo is a cruel yet kind man who has everything yet has nothing, which in turn creates a sympathetic character. A character such as Okonkwo has many facets or masks if you will. Then we have his many influences: the Ibo culture, his father Unoka and of course his own personality.
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).
“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.
You never know how much you care about your culture until people try to take it away from you. Okonkwo was a prideful jerk as moste would describe him, who was once exiled for seven years for his unlawful actions. When he finally returned to Umuofia, white men come trying to change things and take land. Okonkwo stepped up to help lead his clan but ended up with the same mistakes he used to make, which connects to violence. He then gives in to his biggest fear, weakness. When stress and trying to step up and change to somebody your not takes toll over you, sometimes one just can’t over turn it. This was his reaction to the cultural collision of the white men and Igbo people. This is important because that cultural collision impacted many people on both sides of the dispute. Okonkwo’s reaction to this collision showed how one can connect back to old habits and how cultural collisions mostly never end well no matter what. There will always be that person offended, killed, or even that person to take their own life because of
The cracks within Okonkwo's character are not so much external as internal, manifestations of those aspects of his being that have been his greatest strengths: acting without thinking; never showing any emotion besides anger; inflexibility; fear of being perceived as weak and, therefore, womanly. Slowly, these characteristics that have served Okonkwo so well in the past, begin to alter the direction of his life. The first such incident occurs when Okonkwo accidentally breaks the W...
Men dominate over the women in the society and they view women as week and in a lower rank. Weakness drove Okonkwo to strive for strengths and dislike any form of weakness, even in other people. For this reason, Okonkwo never expected that he would find himself making a living in his motherland when he knew he belonged in his fatherland. By providing for his needs during his exile, Okonkwo’s family in his motherland showed him that help could come from the most unlikely place and could change his life forever.
Things Fall Apart, a novel by Chinua Achebe, is a story which goes into great depth with its character development. The descriptions of the characters in this book go beyond first impressions and delve deeply into the minds of the people being described by explaining their thoughts and the experiences of their lives. Okonkwo is perhaps the most interesting example of these descriptions throughout the novel. He is a very successful man who is driven by fear and shame. Without fear there can be no courage, but when one does not choose to be truly courageous, fear can overcome them and lead to hopelessness and despair as things begin to fall apart.
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.
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, the main character of the book, was born the son of Unoka, who was a loafer. Unoka was too lazy to go out and plant crops on new, fertile land, and preferred to stay at home playing his flute, drinking palm wine, and making merry with the neighbors. Because of this, his father never had enough money, and his family went hungry. He borrowed much money in order to maintain this lifestyle. Okonkwo perceived this as an imbalance toward the female side in his father's character: staying at home and not using one's strength to provide for the family is what the women do. In reaction, Okonkwo completely rejected his father, and therefore the feminine side of himself. He became a star wrestler and warrior in his tribe and began providing for his family at a very young age, while at the same time starting new farms and beginning to amass wealth. He is very successful, and soon becomes one of the leaders of his tribe and has many wives and children. His big ambition is to become one of the powerful elders of the tribe, for what could be more manly than that?
Okonkwo, the man with many titles, may be perceived by many as a tragic hero. A tragic hero is a person who makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to his own destruction. Okonkwo is not considered a tragic hero because although his judgements lead to his own death, Achebe is instead making the readers feel unsympathetic towards him, showing us that winning and being perfect shouldn’t always be our main priority. This is important because usually authors make sure their protagonist isn’t hated. Achebe made it clear that masculinity played a huge role in Okonkwo's mindset because he wanted to emphasize his priorities.
Okonkwo’s behavior could be described as violent because he has beat his wives, killed his “son”, and accidentally killed a sixteen year old boy. During the week of peace Okonkwo beat his wife for returning too late to make his dinner. “And when she returned he beat her heavily.”(21) To him it does not matter where he is at, he will be violent anywhere, even if it ruins the occasion. Okonkwo cannot control his violent behavior, or he does not care.
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