EA 3.2
Literary Analysis: character analysis
Some people are faithful to their religion, as for Okonkwo he was faithful to his religion and culture. Okonkwo thought nothing wrong until the missionaries came upon on the land. Before the missionary came he was a man who didn’t treat his family as a loving and caring one. Sometimes he wished for his children to be different than who they really are. Okonkwo didn’t know what his actions and thoughts could do to his people. Okonkwo had things planned but as soon the missionaries came alone he didn't know what was upon him. When they came to the land he had his future built for himself, he planned what to do but the plans changed and fell apart.
Okonkwo’s personality was a stubborn one, he was hot headed and had a bad temper. What Okonkwo thought was that it was inappropriate for people to change cultures and religion. “Our own men and sons joined a rank of strangers,” in page 176, paragraph 1. The quote is meaning that Okonkwo’s people are changing and having loses. He can't recognize who they are anymore, he wanted his clan back but it would have been difficult for him since they believed in something else. In the novel it
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He hadn't realized he had his people in front of him until they were gone. In the page of 171 paragraph 1, it quotes “The clan was like a lizard, if it lost its tail, it soon get out another.” The quote defines that Okonkwo lost so many people and he wanted to restore them, the changes effected him dramatically from what the missionary was doing. In page 171 paragraph 2 quoting “Okonkwo knew these things. He knew that he had lost his place among the nine masked spirits who administered justice in the clan.” This evidence is explaining that Okonkwo lost his position, people who had admired him changed, he quickly lost his power. This made Okonkwo devastated which resulted badly for him as he was
After Okonkwo gets banished from the tribe it undergoes a drastic cultural change. Okonkwo does not. Upon his return he discovers that his tribe has been partially converted by the Christian missionaries. He is appalled and rejects the idea.
In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo was one of the strongest proponents of violence against the white missionaries. Throughout the book, he advocated for violence while be outnumbered by his fellow natives who objected. Near the end of the book, he had had enough. During a village meeting gathered to discuss what to do about the white missionaries, a messenger for the missionaries arrived to tell them the meeting had been ordered to be stopped. “In a flash Okonkwo drew his machete. The messenger crouched to avoid the blow. It was useless. Okonkwo’s machete descended twice and the man’s head lay beside his uniformed body”.3 The man had been killed. Shortly after, Okonkwo hanged himself on a tree. Violence was by far the most disruptive response to to the presence of white missionaries in Africa. It was the only response that led to deaths. Not only was the violence disruptive, it was also ineffective. In the last paragraph of the book, the Commissioner of the missionaries articulated how Okonkwo’s actions would make a good paragraph in the book he planned to write. Violence against missionaries was disruptive and led to death for both the locals and the
In the world, people have to uphold an image and that was what Okonkwo was doing and it slowly got harder and harder to keep the image and that is when things fell apart.When Okonkwo tried to take action no one followed. Now with Okonkwo gone there is no one there trying to push back and try to regain their village back. Out of the 1,500 people or so, the one who tried to fight back didn't have the support and was not there to try to push them to fight
Some people might say that Okonkwo was just trying to protect the tradition and cultural of his tribal village but in actuality this is far from the truth. When Okonkwo cut down the guard, he made the swift assumption that his clansmen were as passionate about fighting colonialism as him and would follow him into war. When he found otherwise, he could not understand what had happened to his village. The next place he was seen was hanging from a noose in a selfish show of hypocrisy. In the end, Okonkwo's status among his tribe counted for nothing because his own despair over the colonization of his village led him to kill himself. His whole life Okonkwo strived to not to look weak like his father, but in the end he took the cowards way out, suicide. Suicide was a great sin against the Earth. Because he took his own life, Okonkwo, a great leader of Umuofia, had to be buried by strangers. All of his work and perseverance amounted to nothing because of what he had done.
He was in great conflict with the ideas of the white men and the missionaries. Okonkwo saw that their beliefs had not only changed the daily life of the Ibo, but it also changed the people themselves: “He mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women” (Achebe 183). The author uses strong diction to compare the men before and after colonization. This quote also portrays Okonkwo’s opinion towards the cultural collision. He values strength and masculinity immensely because of his fear of appearing weak like his father Unoka. When he describes that the men of Umuofia changed to be soft like women, this shows how much he dishonors the Western ideas and how it has taken over the village. He made an attempt to get rid of the Western influence by urging the tribe to fight like men, but they refuse to. He was determined and still attempted to furthermore encourage the people of Umuofia to revolt against the new culture. He realizes that his attempts to return the village back to the way it was before were futile. He knew that Christianity was tearing his people apart, but knew he was incapable of making change to help his people. Okonkwo then starts to feel hopeless and abandoned by his clan, which causes him to commit suicide by hanging himself: “Obierika… turned suddenly to the District Commissioner and said ferociously: ‘That man was one of the greatest men
With the Christian missionaries are followed by British colonizers. This new political and religious order will upset Okonkwo's social order. He works extremely hard throughout his life to achieve his status and be a better man than his father, Unoka. However, like his father he doesn't completely fit into the community. ...
Okonkwo realized that everything had changed after returning to Umuofia. The change in Umuofia had a negative impact on Okonkwo. "Okonkwo was deeply grieved....." (Achebe 183). Achebe foreshadows that with everything going on and the clan slowly falling apart, so will Okonkwo. Okonkwo's inability to accept the new changes in Umuofia eventually lead to his fall.
Okonkwo is “a man of action, a man of war” (7) and a member of high status in the Igbo village. He holds the prominent position of village clansman due to the fact that he had “shown incredible prowess in two intertribal wars” (5). Okonkwo’s hard work had made him a “wealthy farmer” (5) and a recognized individual amongst the nine villages of Umuofia and beyond. Okonkwo’s tragic flaw isn’t that he was afraid of work, but rather his fear of weakness and failure which stems from his father’s, Unoka, unproductive life and disgraceful death. “Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness….It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.” Okonkwo’s father was a lazy, carefree man whom had a reputation of being “poor and his wife and children had just barely enough to eat... they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back.” (5) Unoka had never taught Okonkwo what was right and wrong, and as a result Okonkwo had to interpret how to be a “good man”. Okonkwo’s self-interpretation leads him to conclude that a “good man” was someone who was the exact opposite of his father and therefore anything that his father did was weak and unnecessary.
When some of the Igbo people started to convert, it also caused problems between people inside the clan itself. Okonkwo’s initial reaction is to prepare with violence and protect their land and people. This slowly changes through time as he goes from being his old self to giving in. Ironically, he who is afraid of appearing weak, gives into weakness and commits suicide. In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo shows his old habits with the following statements, “He had spoken violently to his clansmen when they had met in the marketplace to decide on their action. And they listened to him with respect. It was like the good old days again, when a warrior was a warrior.”(Achebe, page 192). He had slowly started to change some of his views when Okonkwo was exiled to his motherland. This was all for nothing when he came back home to a cultural collision he could jump into. He thought he could redeem himself but got too wrapped in the mess. His identity was challenging itself seeing just how far Okonkwo would
The above passages were taken from the end of chapter three, part one. After finishing reading this book and then going back through it, I found these passages very ironic in regards to how the story eventually ended. Okonkwo believed that because he was such a fierce fighter, he could conquer anything life threw at him. However, it was his fierce, proud, fighting attitude that was his demise in the face of uncontrollable circumstances in the end. Okonkwo believed that war and brute fighting would fix everything. He was a proud and stubborn man constantly struggling to improve his standing in the tribal community. Okonkwo also had intense pride for his tribe and way of life. He believed it was the right way of life and not to be questioned. Everyone was supposed to fear war with Umofia due to their fierce warriors and greatness in battle. When the white men not only did not fear them, but openly threatened the tribal way of life, Okonkwo prepared to handle the situation the only way he knew how. He wanted to got to war against the new white invaders, chasing them from tribal lands and ending the threat of different ways of life.
Throughout the novel the setting does not change much in Umoufia where mostly everything takes place. “And it was not too hot either, because the cold and dry harmatten wind blowing down the north” (4). Here is a minor description on how Chinuea Achebe takes us back to the 19th century era in Nigeria. We can see how the Igbo (Ibo) people have adapted and react to certain weather. “When the rain finally came, it was in large drops of frozen water which people called the nuts of water of heaven” (108). This is an indirect quote that tells us a few things about these Ibo people. First of all the hail is interpreted as the “nuts of frozen water of heaven”. This shows the reader and the audience how valuable hail and water is
...ung lazy and reliant on the whites. When Okonkwo's own son joins the church he must have felt a great sadness that his son was weak in mind, and would become softened by the white culture. Feminine versus masculine traits is the controversy in this instance. Okonkwo has built his whole life on the masculinity of the tribe. The masculinity is what helps the tribe survive.
Okonkwo has murdered, beaten, and cast off those he loved throughout his life. He remained stubborn and violent until his last days, and yet through his internal struggle, and sparse, yet endearing loves Okonkwo is still perceived to be morally indefinite. Okonkwo may not be considered by western culture to be a good person, but viewing his life in its entirety, it is almost impossible for one to attach a completely negative label to him. By telling the story of Okonkwo's life, Chinua Achebe, creates a dynamic and morally ambiguous protagonist while addressing the moral issue of Christian evangelism in Africa.
Okonkwo’s determination to succeed in life and to not fail leads to his fatal downfall in the end of the novel. His inability to adapt to colonization and his failure to follow the morals of many of the morals of the Ibo culture also are an important key leading to his downfall. Okonkwo was willing to go to war against the missionaries, with or without the clan. He made it clear that he believed the missionaries were in the wrong for trying to change Umuofia. Since the clan wanted no part in the war with the missionaries, Okonkwo took action into his own hands and murdered the head messenger. During the killing of the messenger, Okonkwo had a moment of realization: “He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action” (Achebe 205). Okonkwo finally understands that he doesn’t have support from his fellow clansmen anymore and he feels as if he loses his place in society. Instead of backing up Okonkwo and his decision to murder the messenger, the clan stood in both confusion and disorder and questioned, “ ‘Why did [Okonkwo] do it?’ ” (Achebe 205). Okonkwo’s impulsiveness causes the clansmen to question Okonkwo’s violent actions against the messenger. Throughout the entire novel, Okonkwo struggles to accept the missionaries and the changes that they
People always change when your around different things. Okonkwo having a terrible personality when others talk bad about his gods. Okonkwo has always been someone who a strong and dependable person. But being around all this new stuff changed him and the motivation to keep on going on with his life. Okonkwo dosent like these new white men living in their land and refuses to let them stay.