Okonkwo's Fear Essay

Okonkwo is a man whom throughout his entire life has strived for strength and to farther himself and those around him from things he perceives to be weak. This stems from a lifelong ambition to build his life from the ground up and become an important member of the clan, as his father Unoka was an unsuccessful farmer and seen a lowly man. Okonkwo’s greatest fear however is weakness, as described on p. 11. Okonkwo is sentenced to 7 years in exile to his motherland of Mbanta for accidentally killing a clan member at a ritual with a gun. This shatters all of his dreams of becoming a well-respected and high ranking member of the clan, this event happening soon after killing his own stepson. Over the seven years, white men and Christianity spread …show more content…
When he resists the church’s ways, and eventually slays a messenger of the church in hopes of a rebellion it is done in hopes of sparking the rest of the clan to join him and go back to the strong warlike clan he remembers. Perhaps Okonkwo may have benefited from trying to adopt a new point of view and accepting these changes as progress, but that is not a trait of a strong-willed man and blame cannot be placed on him for trying to do the right thing in his eyes.
The clan is falling apart of its old ways throughout the book. The old ways of running their society are being threatened and broken down by the white people turning the clan members against themselves. The clan certainly began to fall apart as the white man interfered, but their society’s tendency to outcast individuals led to those people finding accepting homes in the new church. Efulefu as the clan calls its men with no titles were the majority of converts, as men with power in the clan had no benefit to converting to Christianity. This breakup of clan traditions has damaged the clan beyond repair, and it is partly due to the clan’s harsh