Overdoing In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Overdoing It Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a book with wild decision making from a man named Okonkwo. He is the son of a loser father who dies with many unpaid debts. Okonkwo unlike his father becomes a successful warrior of his clan. He is determined to not be anywhere close to how his father lived his life. On one of his negotiations for two clans to make peace he gets a boy named Ikemefuna. They become close to the point of Ikemefuna calling him father. Later during the week of peace, Okonkwo beats his wife Ojiugo. Even though he repents the damage is done. Another time a village elder tells Okonkwo an oracle that Ikemefuna needs to be killed by someone other than Okonkwo. He sends Ikemefuna away to his home village so that along the way he will be killed but He escapes and Okonkwo ends up killing him. The elder of the oracle dies and at the funeral …show more content…
They begin to convert people including a man named Enoch. Enoch commits a heinous crime by unmasking an egwugwu. The egwugwu burn Enoch’s compound and the missionaries’ church. When the leaders gather to discuss they are taken by the missionaries as prisoners. They suffer verbal and physical abuse. When they are released the clansmen meet with messengers. Okonkwo decides to kill one of them assuming the rest of the clan members will to and take revenge to make things right. When they don’t he knows he’s failed again. Okonkwo is found soon after hanging himself. Okonkwo is so focused on being better than his father that he loses sight of what is good. He starts small with disrupting the Week of Peace. Then he kills to not look bad in front of his men. He tries to redeem himself by killing the messenger and becoming the hero but no one else wanted that. His legacy that he fought so hard to get was all lost by him trying too hard. Had he not tried to be better than his father but to be the best he could then his legacy could’ve