Okonkwo's Role In Things Fall Apart

The Importance of having strong male and female figures in one’s life is often stressed, however the lack of a strong male role in Okonkwo’s life in “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe may have ultimately lead to his death. Throughout the story the reader learns that Okonkwo struggles with how to express his emotions, the struggle he faces through returning to his motherland, and losing his high status. He fights the weakness his father embodies throughout the story trying to represent the most masculine characteristics a person can. Okonkwo’s father is discussed very shortly in the beginning of the story but the struggles that Okonkwo witnessed within him persist throughout the story. Unkoa was a weak man who had no money and could not …show more content…
Okonkwo craved that his son be like him “another indication of his rather extreme self-conscious and individualism.” (Shelton, 37) A quarrel with a nearby village ends with Ikemefuna living with Nwoye and his mother in Okonkwo’s compound. Okonkwo builds a relationship with the boy and hopes that his son will learn from him “Even Okonkwo himself became very fond of the boy – inwardly of course…there was no doubt that he liked the boy. Sometimes when he went to big village meetings or communal ancestral feasts he allowed Ikemefuna to accompany him, like a son, carrying his stool and his goatskin bag. And, indeed, Ikemefuna called him father”. (Achebe 28) Over time Ikemefuna begins calling Okonkwo father. Ikemefuna helps with the manly chores during the dry season. Okonkwo enjoys watching Ikemefuna because he exhibits traits that Okonkwo had hoped for in his own son. The closeness in the relationship between Ikemefuna and Nwoye offers some relief to Okonkwo because his son has a friend and role model who displays the most masculine …show more content…
Okonkwo must return to his motherland with his family to reside for the next seven years. This offers the biggest struggle that Okonkwo faces. He has not been to the motherland sense his mother’s death. He holds not prestige in his motherland. To the people in the villages all around but mainly to Okonkwo living in the motherland is a sign of weakness. Okonkwo is not strong enough to follow the law of the land and must not live in the masculine land in which he belongs. “Okonkwo was well received by his mother’s kinsmen in Mbanta” but even still he did not feel he had been the man he was supposed to be for his family. (Achebe 129) Okonkwo had spent much of his life concerned that his son would follow in his father’s footsteps, shortly before he returned to his homeland Okonkwo was informed that Nwoye had joined the white man’s church. Nwoye changed his name to Isaac and left the village he had grown up