How Does Okonkwo's Culture Change

In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe represents many themes you can apply to everyday life. Whether it’s cultural change or about the importance of your loved ones around you, Achebe’s themes are ones anyone can relate to. A vastly relatable theme in Things Fall Apart is being blinded by the need to succeed and ignoring your true fate. The character Okonkwo displays this theme the most by his control over the clan, his killing of Ikemefuma, and taking his own life. From the beginning of the story Okonkwo expresses his desire to not end up like his father, Unoka. Unoka was a disappointment to the Igbo people and Okonkwo felt he was lazy and incompetent. Okonkwo was driven by his father’s failure to succeed and do the opposite of what …show more content…
They treat each other with respect and his biological son Nwoye is turning into the man Okonkwo always wanted him to be. A village elder comes to Okonkwo to tell him the time for Ikemefuma’s death has come, so Okonkwo tells him he must return home which greatly upsets Nwoye. As Ikemefuma is on his way home he is attacked, and runs to Okonkwo for help. Ikemefuma calls him his father as he cries for help and Okonkwo strikes him and kills him. Okonkwo’s killing of Ikemefuma represents the fact that part of Nwoye changing into a man was influenced by Ikemefuma. Okonkwo could not transform him himself like he wanted to in order to appear strong, so Ikemefuma’s success could have been received as a threat. Okonkwo also did not want to appear weak by listening to someone cry and beg him for help, so he killed him. Even though it brought him sorrow and pain he killed someone who was practically his son in order to not appear weak and become his …show more content…
One of the most disappointing things Okonkwo returns to is the fact his son Nwoye has converted to Christianity. This shows that the Umuofia tribe has submitted to the white men and he has failed them just as his father did. Okonkwo could not accept the fate of the Igbo people, and could not accept his own fate. Because Okonkwo could not accept this fate of what he created, he chooses to break the only clan rule he has ever broken, which is suicide. Okonkwo could not accept being perceived as weak and could not end up just like his father. Instead of dying on someone else’s terms because of the clan’s disappointment. He chooses to die on his terms instead of accepting what he