Who Is Okonkwo's Masculinity In Things Fall Apart

In the novel, Things Fall Apart written by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo, the protagonist, is a man everyone wants to be. He is the greatest wrestler in all nine villages, proficient yam farmer, and proudly married three wives. Everything was working out for him since his goal was just not to become a man similar to his father, a person who was weak, lazy, and poor. At the end, he could not handle all the power he had and exploded. Okonkwo’s ego and self-importance overpowers his nobility to the village because he tries so hard to protect his masculinity. In the beginning of the story, Okonkwo was introduced as someone who has a stable life, but his emotions got the best of him. For example, he had a violent side of him that he could not control. When it was the time of the Feast of the New Yam, women are generally the cooks. Okonkwo’s second wife, Ekwefi, needed some …show more content…
Okonkwo tried to use violence against them to terminate their religion out of their village. However, he hesitated since Nwoye was part of them. In fact, many of the people from Umuofia are converts, so Okonkwo does not want to hurt them. At the end, Okonkwo started the war with the missionaries when their messenger said “‘the white man whole power you know too well has ordered this meeting to stop.’ In a flash Okonkwo drew his machete..and the man’s head lay beside his uniformed body” (204). This scenario is closely similar to when the neighboring village, Abame, was burned down into ruins when they killed a white man. Okonkwo knew this was going to happen to Umuofia too, so he got protective and killed himself to guard his entire village. He took matters into his own hands, which was a manly thing to do and sacrificed himself, but he would not have to put himself in that position if he just listened to the messenger and talk to him with his