Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

In Chinua Achebe’s postcolonial story of Things Fall Apart, Achebe portrays the main character, Okonkwo, as an angry man who is unable to show compassion which becomes his hamartia. This hamartia which impacts Okonkwo throughout the novel, eventually leads to Okonkwo’s own tragic demise. The death of Okonkwo was from his own fatal flaw, as a tragic hero. Not through the cultural displacement that may have affected the people around him. Aristotle describes a tragic hero as someone who: holds a high or noble social status, has a mixture of positive and negative qualities, has a fatal flaw who leads to his downfall, who has a large capacity for suffering, and whose self realization and understanding leads to his own downfall. Okonkwo’s character in Achebe’s story meets Aristotle’s conception of a tragic hero including the aspects of holding a noble or high social status, having a fatal flaw, having a large capacity for suffering, and having a downfall that is preceded by his own self realization and understanding. In the story, Okonkwo earns his high and noble status on his own. Okonkwo rose out of poverty to become a wealthy and prosperous farmer at a young age. Okonkwo holds two of the four highest titles in the clan which are very difficult to attain, and is the strongest and most fearsome wrestler and warrior in the land. Achebe makes Okonkwo’s fatal flaw is his anger and inability to show …show more content…
Before the cultural displacement would have even begun, the tensions were increasing through the story due to Okonkwo’s uncontrollable bursts of anger. They began to cause havoc within the clan and his family. It became very apparent that Okonkwo’s fatal flaw would soon lead to something that would be the death of him and was only supported more and more as the story continued. Okonkwo’s untimely death can be attributed to nothing other than his own fatal