Okonkwo
The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a story about the culture clash that occurs when white colonizers arrived on the African continent and attempted to force the indigenous population to accept the empirical culture. When the white people arrived in Africa, they perpetrated a campaign of superiority upon the indigenous peoples. They enslaved Africans and forcibly shipped them to toil on plantations for the rest of their lives. They also attempted to convert people from their native religions and force them into accepting Christianity. With this set up, it would be easy to make all white characters evil and all the African characters as purely good. However, Achebe does not do this. Instead the main character Okonkwo is a troubled, "problematic" hero who performs actions which are not at all heroic or good which makes him more complex and ultimately more real which is shown in the way he behaves towards others, in his personality, and finally his murder of an innocent person without any real...
He remained unmoved by the white agenda and was uniquely able to comment on the changes in his community when he was finally able to return to Umuofia. Achebe writes, "Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart" (152). Okonkwo blames the white man and his belief system for all the changes in his community. He is adamantly against change and unwilling to see any potential good in the new system or in the improvements made by the missionaries leading him to act negatively in the name of cultural preservation.
There are other issues with Okonkwo throughout the novel's narrative which makes it difficult to identify with this character. Early in the novel, Achebe defines Okonkwo in unpleasant terms. "Perhaps down in…
" Okonkwo inflexible traditionalism pitted him against his gentle son Nwoye, who joined the Christian European missionaries. In the book, Oknokwo had to participate in a ceremonial human sacrifice and endure a seven-year exile after his gun accidentally killed the son of the deceased warrior Ezeudu. He also lost part of himself when he lost Ikemefuna. Upon returning to the village, he found it torn apart by Western Imperialism. Finally, he
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
Things Fall Apart What falls apart and why? The title of Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart refers mainly to the integrity of the Nigerian tribal cultures: to their customs, traditions, and ways of life, all of which fall apart as the result of internal and external conflicts. In Okonkwo's personal life, a series of unfortunate events lead to his loss of personal integrity and his eventual psychological destruction. The gradual yet
Smith hates the Igbo faith so much that he equates it to the Baal and the followers of Baal in the Biblical Old Testament. He has strict policy over conversion to Christianity such that any elder to decides to get converted to Christian faith must immediately abandon the traditional ways and follow Christianity only. His cruelty and strictness to the abandoning of all Igbo traditional ways is seen when he
For this reason, he is a tragic hero according to Aristotle's definition of the word. Aristotle believed tragedies must "imitate actions which excite pity and fear" (Aristotle). This involves the hero to suffer a change, which usually means going from good fortune to misfortune through the course of the story. Like real life, all things are not all good or all bad. Aristotle believed "misfortune is brought about not by
Moreover, the unquestioned belief in the oracle's word conflicts with Okonkwo's own needs to solidify his family's political leadership and social standing in the tribe. Okonkwo's desire to redeem himself and his family name proves stronger than his respect for the oracle. Thus, Okonkwo at once seeks to preserve the political institutions of Umuofia culture while at the same time subverting core social and spiritual traditions. He wants to