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Okonkwo is a typical tribesman living and adapting to his surroundings. He is actually no different from anyone else in that he acts according to his heart. He truly believes he is doing the right thing and that is what matters.
Okonkwo is not a bad man; he simply makes mistakes and this makes him human. He does not set out to do evil. Upon hearing about Ezeudu's death, Okonkwo is saddened along with the rest of the tribe. Ezeudu was a noble man in the clan and he was also the oldest tribesman. At the funeral ritual, Okonkwo's gun explodes, killing Ezeudu's son. This is a shocking event because nothing like this had happened before. Okonkwo had to obey tribal law and leave the clan because it was a "crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansman's son" (124). The law of the land dictated Okonkwo could return to the tribe after seven years' exile. That was not the worst of things: the clan also burned Okonkwo's houses and destroyed his property. Here we see how Okonkwo could be seen as a victim of fate and circumstances. He did not intend to shoot anyone at the funeral that day but he did take his gun along with him to the event. Okonkwo is also happy when the clansmen burn down the church and along with the others guilty of the crime,...
He, along with the others, are jailed and Okonkwo is sentenced to hang. All of these events are not Okonkwo's fault and the consequences of events are not his, either. However, he does choose to react to the in specific ways.
Okonkwo may not be the luckiest man in his tribe but he is very independent. He may not have control over what goes on in the tribe but he certainly does not allow himself to be beaten down. Okwonko is a self-made man because he knows his sense of self almost from the beginning of the novel. He never doubts who he is and while this might lead him to be headstrong, it also makes him very aware of what he is doing. He followed his convictions and while he might have been aggressive at times, he was not evil. Some of his actions are wrong but he is only human. In saying that, we see how mankind chooses to do things based on emotion and while fighting for a cause might seem like a good idea, it is also good to know when it is also a hopeless one. Okonkwo would not have cared because he was proving a point. His society did not make him but it certainly ruined him.
Work Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books. 1959. Print.
Work Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books. 1959. Print.
But because Ezinma is female, she cannot function in this capacity. Moreover, even a woman, in a traditional reading of the text would support this notion" (Strong-Leek). The fact that society was patriarchal at the time was especially devastating for women. Moreover, women readers are probable to consider that it is perfectly natural for Ezinma to be unable to follow her father's footsteps because society as a whole has
They were segregated to a corner of the village close to the Greta Shrine and they were considered to be at the bottom of the societal rung, well below the children. In a sharp contrast, the Christianity disregarded the social order of the Umuofia people and imbibed the Osu into the church, shaving off the tangled hair off their heads and treating them like brothers. They were taken from
Colonial Resistance in Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe was born in Ogidi, Nigeria, and his father was a teacher in a missionary school. His parents were devout evangelical Protestants and christened him Albert after Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, although they installed in him many of the values of their traditional Igbo culture. He attended University College in Ibadan, where he studied English, history and theology. At the university Achebe
Things Fall Apart and Gilgamesh Despite being conceived and written during distinctly different eras in human history, both Chinua Achebe's modern indictment of colonial conquest in Africa Things Fall Apart, and the anonymously authored tale of legendary heroism The Epic of Gilgamesh share the common thread of a protagonist struggling to reconcile personal expectations with the rapidly changing world around him. One of the earliest known surviving examples of ancient literature,
The 1958 novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, follows the life of the protagonist, Okonkwo, a leader and a local athletic hero in a made-up Nigerian hamlet, named Umuofia. The novel is divided into three very distinct sections— the first which examines the family of the hero, another his personal perspective and lineage along with the current societal customs, the following sections look at the influence of outsiders on
Therefore, Okonkwo rejected his father, and hence, the womanly element of himself. He turned out to be a leading wrestler and warrior in his people to make available the facilities of life for his family at a very small age. Simultaneously, he established a new farm and began to collect his own riches, and ultimately a name. His uphill struggle confirms itself in his victory, and he rapidly became