Okonkwo In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Throughout the story, the main character Okonkwo, has only one view on gender… that men with titles are superior and are above all in the community. Beneath the men with titles are men without titles and below those men are women which do all that men would never do in their lives like raising the children and managing the house. Not only is the male gender superior in Okonkwo’s eyes, but he also views himself as superior and above all in the community because of all the titles he has received and everything he has done for his people. He has done this not only for his people but for his own sake, because the less he resembles his father, the better he feels about himself. As being a man with many titles and much respect around his community, …show more content…
A man without any titles in the eyes of Okonkwo is not a man at all. So for him, his father Unoka was a complete failure because he never achieved any titles. Okonkwo took it as his goal to not be like his father and not do anything his father did. There was a time when Okwonko was young and his fathers harvest had suffered a severe weather and Unoka never had any luck providing for his family, and so Okonkwo had to share crop to support his family. As the author stated, “and what made it worse in Okonkwo’s case was that he had to support his mother and two sisters from his meagre harvest. And supporting his mother also meant supporting his father. She could not be expected to cook and eat while her husband starved” (TFA 22 Chinua Achebe). In the community to be a real man also meant providing food and shelter for their family. But since Unoka couldn’t do this Okonkwo saw it as his duty to help, but it still brought him shame from his father. Being part of the male superior gender allows him to prove himself, and earn respect from others. Gender matters to him because as long as he is not what his father was then he feel good and proud of himself by being a man with actual