Okonkwo's Failure In Things Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe

The book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe focuses on the character Okonkwo, his family and the Ibo tribe. The book Things Fall Apart gives many examples of how Okonkwo has failures and consequences for his failures and then has to live with these consequences and their negative effects. Many examples of this show up throughout the novel such as him killing another tribesman by accidentally shooting off his defective old gun and this has him and his family getting banished from their tribe. Okonkwo is a well-decorated tribesman and warrior who has based his life off of not being a failure and considered weak as his father was before him. Many times in life, as well as literature, people make choices and must live with the consequences …show more content…
One mistake Okonkwo makes is how in trying to be unlike his father, he becomes an angry, violent and aggressive man. This is one mistake that is definitely contributing to Okonkwo’s demise as it leads him to do irrational things and treat his family badly as well as treating himself badly even though he has achieved such wondrous things in his lifetime. Okonkwo’s also got many other failures of himself and one of those being how he has such excessive pride and is also such a traditional man that he is not able to accept what the missionaries have done to his village during his time away in “motherland” because he was banished from the village for 7 years. This was one of the big mistakes that Okonkwo made because he wasn 't able to accept how his village was being changed and he couldn 't do anything about it which was one of his past mistakes before he ended his life. One of Okonkwo’s first big mistakes in the book was how he partook in the killing of Ikemefuna after he was instructed to not by the higher ups in the spiritual respect of the tribe. This was such a big mistake as it was something that led him to a very significant at the beginning part of the book where he “wasn’t able to taste food for three days …show more content…
This is very good for helping to remind us how Okonkwo is a symbol of Africa. He is a symbol of Africa because he is not able to accept how Africa has changed so drastically since he came back, particularly in his village we see his inability to accept the new dominant religion in his village is Christianity. We observe Okonkwo showing his inept ability to acceptance towards the new religious beliefs instilled in his community of which are no longer the ones he had become accustomed to. This fact makes Okonkwo 's life in this community after exile and many changes very difficult. He finds it hard to swallow change and the new ideas around his village and this is a great representation of how Okonkwo is a very accurate depiction of the old parts of Africa. The ones who don 't want change and don 't what this western cultures belief enforced upon them and diminishing their