Okonkwo In Things Fall Apart

Okonkwo is the main character in Things Fall Apart, he is a leader in his village of Umofia. His father is a lazy man who has many debts in his village his family who normally go hungry. Okonkwo earns his leader title in the village by wrestling Amalinze the Cat he does this to not be known as the son of a weak lazy man. Okonkwo doesn’t want to be anything like his father Unoka, he tries his whole life not to but it leads to his downfall. One of the neighboring villagers kills one of the women from Umofia. This angers the village in order to maintain the peace in both villages the man who killed the woman offers his son to Okonkwo. Ikemefuna and Okonkwo develop a fatherly bond and with Okonkwo’s son. In Umofia during the Week of Peace Okonkwo beats two out of his three wives. His first wife he beats because she went off to a friend’s house instead of making lunch and feeding her children. His second wife took leaves from his banana plant Okonkwo beats her and shoots her. Ogbuefi Ezeuder the elder in the village tells Okonkwo a message from the Oracle. The Oracle says that his adopted son Ikemefuna must be killed to get back …show more content…
But now that I am reading it a second time I realize the main message in this story which is keeping true to you. During this whole story Okonkwo tries to be something he isn’t either it is by showing his dominance by beating his wives or by fighting the Cat. To me if you try too hard you are going to fall hard because you don’t have that chance to learn from mistakes. If Okonkwo didn’t try as hard I don’t think that his village would have been taken over, he wouldn’t have killed Ikemefuna, his daughter would be okay, and he wouldn’t have accidentally killed a villagers son. In the future I would use this lesson by just staying true to myself. I know what I am capable of and what I am not. Being true to yourself is the only way I am going to get