Things Fall Apart Quote Analysis

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To begin, Okonkwo shows his strength and weakness/ success and failure through many different emotions. Though he may not physically show his weakness, he shares it mentally and we as readers can feel this throughout the story. Because we only physically see his strengths, we only see the type of person Okonkwo wants us to see. We see a man who seeks fear from others rather than love. We understand this as true because we feel the love Okonkwo has for his people through his thoughts and understand that success isn't given it's worked for, and that hard work pays off. The relationship between strength and weakness portrayed throughout the story comes through Okonkwo. Okonkwo has a hidden love for his surrounding, which he cannot show because he'll seem as weak. He hides his love with strength, even if that strength means it could end love. Okonkwo shows that he'd rather portray fear than love, he appears less of a man if he does show his true emotions. His fatal flaw is his strength, not giving change a chance. Achebe reaches out this point though this quote, “Whenever the thought of his father’s weakness and failure troubled him he expelled it by thinking about his own strength and success. And so he did now. His mind went to his latest show of manliness.”(Achebe …show more content…

It takes trial and error to become successful. In this quote, “For the first time in many years Okonkwo had a feeling that was akin to happiness. The times which had altered so unaccountably during his exile seemed to be coming round again. The clan which had turned false on him appeared to be making amends" (Achebe 283), it shows Okonkwo's happiness and that hard work really does pay off. Okonkwo didn't have many happy or victorious moments, but the ones he did have left an imprint on his heart and began to change him. These moments changed him in a way that we can visibly see as

Okonkwo Unsympathetic Character
705 Words | 2 Pages
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
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Okonkwo A Sympathetic Character
563 Words | 2 Pages
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.
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Things Fall Apart Quote Analysis
1151 Words | 3 Pages
Do people really change based on their past? We should believe they do. Chinua Achebe, wrote the novel, Things Fall Apart. This novel takes place in an African tribe with a village called Umuofia.The main character, Okonkwo, has a hard childhood. Later in his life he becomes very wealthy and has a big family. Okonkwo makes some big mistakes, but we can believe he learned from them. In the end of the book, Okonkwo kills himself after he kills a Christian missionary. Okonkwo killed the Christian missionary because he was trying to convert the people in his clan, to Christians. Okonkwo was so furious he had to get justice for his clan, so, he decided to kill the Christian missionary. On one hand, we can say Okonkwo was not learning from his mistakes. On the other hand, one can say Okonkwo was learning from his mistakes. We can think Okonkwo did learn from his mistakes because now he cares
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The Man Behind the Mask in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
847 Words | 2 Pages
Their beliefs are completely opposite each other because of Okonkwo's need to fulfill his own pressures and ideal image, which he burdens himself with. Certain characteristics he holds which his father does not is seriousness, determination, and brutality. Okonkwo cannot move on from his past, instead he forces his future to be effected by his past, which results in his emotional separation from others around him. Oknonkwo describes his father as "lazy, improvident and quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow.
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Tragic Hero In Things Fall Apart
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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
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The Development of Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart
665 Words | 2 Pages
Okonkwo had dreams, some of his dreams were fulfilled while others weren’t. Okonkwo's dreams were to be successful and better than his father which happened because he was one of the greatest, well known and respected men in the tribe of Umuofia. His other dream was for his son Nwoye to be just like him which didn’t happen since Nwoye was not happy with the way he was being treated and he went and joined the white men church in spite of his father.
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The Power Struggle in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart
1198 Words | 3 Pages
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...
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Life Without A Father In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart
602 Words | 2 Pages
For instance, because Okonkwo despises his father’s characteristics, he does everything he can to avoid them. Therefore, Okonkwo becomes a pillar of strength and stability in
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Okonkwo as Tragic Hero in Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
1149 Words | 3 Pages
First of all, I feel that one of the main reasons why Okonkwo is considered a tragic hero is due to the weakness of his chi. His chi plays an important role in the novel because, according to Igbo culture, every time something goes wrong it is a result of bad chi. Throughout the beginning of Things Fall Apart Okonkwo seems to be one with his chi and everything seems to be going well. From the beginning the reader is meant to think that Okonkwo can overcome anything that he faces and this his chi is quite heroic up to this point in the story(Friesen).This i...
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Chi In Things Fall Apart
634 Words | 2 Pages
Okonkwo is very lost on the idea that success is not granted to us without doing the work to earn it. This idea works the same in our society today, especially in school. When a student works hard and takes the time to put forth their best effort, their results are positive. Although, when a student doesn’t put forth their strongest effort, they can’t expect to get the outcome they were hoping for. Earning success is a continuous cycle that is achievable, when the dedication is there. Okonkwo wrestles with this idea throughout the novel, blaming his failure on his chi. While Okonkwo is under the belief that his chi turns positive or negative based on his success status, the truth lies in his attitude toward
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Character Analysis of Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart
526 Words | 2 Pages
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...
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Character Analysis Of Okonkwo
1034 Words | 3 Pages
Although the reader feels remorseful for Okonkwo’s tragic childhood life. It is another reason to sympathize with a man who believes he is powerful and respected by many when in reality, he is feared by his own family and that is another reason that leads Okonkwo to his downfall. He started positive, motivated but down the line, Okonkwo treats his wife and children very harshly. When the author mentioned, “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children” (pg.13).
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How Does Okonkwo's Change In Things Fall Apart
706 Words | 2 Pages
Throughout the story we see Okonkwo as this big deal, a fearless man who “ doesn’t fear blood” but as the story trails on we see different. The beginning of this character change was of course Ikemefuna's death, he had to hide his emotions so that his men did not think he was weak, he went to his “obi” or hut and cried for Ikemefuna, he didn’t eat for days. The next character change was when he was cast out of his clan for accidentally killing someone’s son at a funeral, he was sent to his motherland to live with the kinsmen and he put nothing but hate and sorrow on his back and dwelled on what he did for a long time until Uchendu knocked sense into him. The final character change was when these missionaries came to umuofia, Okonkwo was expecting his warriors to fight off these strangers but as said above they were cowards to him. This made Okonkwo want to fight his own war as a one man army which further led to his death as a poetic way of saying he lost hope for his
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Okonkwo Flaws
1294 Words | 3 Pages
He grew up in the family of a failure and decided to change all that by being extremely traditional. He followed the culture like a religion. He was afraid to be seen as weak because the community hated his father and gave him a great amount of disrespect when they put him in the evil forest instead of burying him. The communities really respected hard work and self-determination, which can be seen plainly in Okonkwo, even though the people believed the Gods had their back and they understood the unpredictableness of nature (Foofo 1). Because of this, Okonkwo worked harder than any other, often throwing his emotions to the side.
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Igbo Culture In Things Fall Apart
712 Words | 2 Pages
Many characters including Okonkwo are fearful within the novel, Okonkwo fears following his father's footsteps and becoming lazy and shameful. As a result he rarely shows his affection and it often leads him to violence a trait his father never
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Things Fall Apart Quote Analysis

Okonkwo Unsympathetic Character

Okonkwo A Sympathetic Character