Okonkwo's Transformation In Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart is a novel that takes place in the country of Nigeria during the era of colonialism and takes the perspective of the warrior Okonkwo. When the English missionaries come to the lands of the Ibo culture, Okonkwo does not seem to react well to it. He saw how they manipulated his people for their own welfare and transformed the Ibo culture into their own. He tries to help his own people, but they do not listen. Okonkwo becomes the tragic hero of the story by reacting to his culture collision in a destructive way to himself from how the missionaries tried to influence their culture upon the Ibo’s own. Okonkwo lived his life as a fierce warrior of the village Umuofia, the audience experienced how he would be a short tempered person and only solved his problems with violence. Okonkwo wanted a life as where he did not want others to see him as weak or emotional, like how a woman would be thought of, so the only way he would show how strong he could be would be physically …show more content…
Okonkwo wanted to be strong, unlike how his father was. He was poor, had no land, no titles, and was always in debt, so “Okonkwo was ruled by one passion-to hate everything that his father Unoka had ever loved” (23), that was his reasoning for being strong. Okonkwo did not learn anything throughout his life after everyone told him to be more kind, but rejected all the ideas. The people of the Ibo culture did not follow him, nor did they listen to him, so in the end, he had committed suicide. As Okonkwo lived his life, he did not really learn anything, from the people teaching him to be more kind and to treat women more equally than he had been doing. Okonkwo had a climax so much hate built up inside of him that he exploded with disappointment and had no other choice. Okonkwo has become the tragic hero of the story as he showed that culture collision have negative