Things Fall Apart Ambition Essay

As clearly noted by each source, ambition cannot have a true negative or true positive side. The truth in ambition lies within the will of a person, as shown by all of the characters and people mentioned in each section. However, the way the character or person acts upon the ambition that they present themselves with is where “ambition” can obtain its connotation. As seen by the actions of Okonkwo and John, an ambitious personality can become reckless and incur a level of selfishness within one. Adversely, with proper control and management of oneself, success is the breath that ambition breathes, as shown through Marcus Aurelius, Steve Jobs and Pope Francis. Though, through the events of both John and Okonkwo's lives, their situations seem like special cases where …show more content…
The occurrence within the story is a worst case scenario that ruins several lives. The buildup of this ambition has next to no payoff within the story at all, and it id through Okonkwo that the whole story itself falls from grace. His ambition should be a theme to leave an impact on us, but it is not until the latter half of the story that the reader finds out that this tale is no more than a clash of cultures that leads to several unnecessary deaths of unmemorable characters. The only driving force is what Okonkwo is going to do throughout the story, and his ambitions get the better of him in the worst possible way. The theme of pursuing a passion is eminent throughout and shows younger readers that dreams can be sought after, yet this story presents that dream as fleeting, dying, and unremarkable, which weakens the overall theme of ambition being a possibly positive theme. It shows an interesting side of a coin that is ill-explored, but the plot itself is sadly lacking in what the author actually wants to explain to