Okonkwo

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…

fitting in and living in fear of your own father is something Nwoye has dealt with his whole life. Through Nwoye’s life there has been countless times where he had to hide his true self from others. This is mostly true when the situation included Okonkwo, Nwoye’s father. Achebe wrote, “And so he feigned that he no longer cared for women’s stories. And when he did this he saw that his father was pleased, and no longer…

In his insightful critique, “The Plight of a Hero in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart,” Patrick Nnoromele reevaluates the demise of protagonist Okonkwo, widely perceived as a repercussion of his tragic flaw: the abiding fear of resembling his effeminate and disreputable father. However, Nnoromele alternatively suggests that Okonkwo’s suicide was not the manifestation of weakness and defeat, but rather a gallant act according to the Igbo ideals. To justify this claim, the critic characterizes a hero in…

Okonkwo was a successful man; he surpassed his gynic father Unoka. He rose from the ground up from nothing to something. He gained praise and respect from the tribe to be able to persevere and come out invincible. His first outstanding completion was defeating the wrestler the Cat. In addition, he produced yam seeds where at first, he gathered mounds full from his friend and another fellow. However, those yams couldn’t grow in the treacherous weather conditions. He proved and justified his…

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is about one man’s struggle with his ambition within his Igbo culture. The protagonist, Okonkwo, strives in becoming an accomplished man and respected leader in his tribe. Aside from the central plot, Things Fall Apart includes a collection of scenarios and concepts that people experience in today’s day and age, such as reaching one’s true potential, cultural traditions, and intertwining relations. Specifically, the narrative provides several illustrations of…

Okonkwo’s fear of weakness and when Ikemefuna is murdered. In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is thought of as a fearless warrior by his people, however, it is discovered in the second chapter that he is not as dauntless as his reputation suggests. Achebe writes, “But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure…

that becoming civilized was good. But this is not the case for the main protagonist, Okonkwo, who was originally considered nothing but lower than dirt in his tribe because of his father and how he badly manged money; when it come to using it for his own family or for personal use. Okonkwo desired greatly to never become like his father, whom he considered weaker than a woman. After going through hardships, Okonkwo achieves high status in his own tribe but doesn't…

In the novel, Things Fall Apart the chi is a concept that is based around a character’s individual god. A character's quality is determined by their fortune, whether it's a good or bad chi. The idea of the chi controls and determines a character’s luck or misfortune which can be seen in the novel through the Umuofia clan. The Umuofia clan believes that if a character has a negative chi, then they will encounter bad situations. In the novel the chi is first introduced through the character, Unoka…

Every family has a person who brings shame to them like Unoka. In the book things fall apart by Chinua Achebe, the character Unoka is the father of Okonkwo. Although Unoka is a very talented musician he is lazy, a failure, and a coward, who brings shame upon his family. The author characterizes Unoka throughout the book as being lazy and unproductive. “In his day he was lazy and improvident an was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow.”In this quote Unoka is being shown lazy about…

For example, in the novel it states, “As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with the kings.” (Achebe, page 8). This proverbs exhibits that due to Okonkwo’s father he was not respected since his father was a loafer. However, Okonkwo has built his own respect and fame in which he was not judged like his father now. He became known as warrior after he defeated Amalinze the…