In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the entire Igbo culture becomes in danger when missionaries show up and try to convert everyone, but many resist because denying their culture would mean that everything that they’ve worked for their entire lives was pointless. Okonkwo was a great man and warrior who held two titles in his village. He got his recognition from being brave, violent, and stoic in his ways believing that these were the marks of being a true man.
Okonkwo’s father was a bit of a disappointment. He never got any titles, borrowed money from others, was lazy, and died of a shameful illness. This drove Okonkwo to become everything his father wasn’t: hard working, successful, strong, and more specifically, without weakness. The one thing Okonkwo feared the most, was weakness; a trait that he associated with his father. Okonkwo was not weak, and he would take leaps and bounds to prove it.
Semi-early in the book, …show more content…
During the meeting, 5 court messengers attempt to stop the meeting and Okonkwo seizes his chance and strikes one of them down with two strokes of a machete. But, looking around “[h]e knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action.”
This was the last straw. The straw that broke the camel’s back. Seeing that no one else would help him defeat the christians, he was done. He couldn’t live in a world where everything he knew was being shattered and defiled around him and nobody was going to do anything about it. So, he stopped. He quit. His friends and fellow clansmates, “they came to the tree from which Okonkwo's body was dangling, and they stopped dead.” Okonkwo thought it better to be dead thinking that he was right, than to continue living with the possibility that everything that he believed in was
Okonkwo’s father was a bit of a disappointment. He never got any titles, borrowed money from others, was lazy, and died of a shameful illness. This drove Okonkwo to become everything his father wasn’t: hard working, successful, strong, and more specifically, without weakness. The one thing Okonkwo feared the most, was weakness; a trait that he associated with his father. Okonkwo was not weak, and he would take leaps and bounds to prove it.
Semi-early in the book, …show more content…
During the meeting, 5 court messengers attempt to stop the meeting and Okonkwo seizes his chance and strikes one of them down with two strokes of a machete. But, looking around “[h]e knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action.”
This was the last straw. The straw that broke the camel’s back. Seeing that no one else would help him defeat the christians, he was done. He couldn’t live in a world where everything he knew was being shattered and defiled around him and nobody was going to do anything about it. So, he stopped. He quit. His friends and fellow clansmates, “they came to the tree from which Okonkwo's body was dangling, and they stopped dead.” Okonkwo thought it better to be dead thinking that he was right, than to continue living with the possibility that everything that he believed in was