Part 1: “Things Fall Apart” is a story which starts by giving descriptions of the main character Okonkwo. Okonkwo is a much known wrestler through the nine villages. Out of the nine villages he is leader of Umuofia. The way he rose to fame was very devastating knowing that his father was a bum and having to lose his mother at a very young age. The reason Okonkwo believes his father is a bum is due to the fact his father Unoka was a failure. Unoka had owed money to every neighbor he lived around. Unfortunately Okonkwo father has passed away. Since then Okonkwo knowing he has no parents to look up to has been working hard to take care of himself. He has become a wonderful farmer and one of the greatest wrestlers to be known out of the nine …show more content…
Ever since he became leader of Umuofia they have been known to be one of the fiercest men out of the countries around them. One day the leaders of Umuofia were given an objective to take care a boy name Ikemefuna until they have found a reasonable punishment for a crime he has committed. Okonkwo was following the objective of taking care of him until then. Okonkwo would make sure Ikemefuna would help him around the house with the farm that way it would be easier on Okonkwo to work. As years went by Okonkwo enjoyed having Ikemefuna around until the day has come for his punishment. As they tell Okonkwo his punishment, Okonkwo was devastated. Ikemefuna punishment was for him to die and Okonkwo was the one who killed him. Towards the end of part one Okonkwo is going to a feast for his friend Obierika who is celebrating his daughter’s uri. An uri is part of the betrothal ceremony when the dowry is paid. At the end the feast was going very well and everyone was having a great time dancing and …show more content…
As he returns home he notices the changes of Umoufia and feels disgust. He hears the story of the white men having to try to change the way they see religion and how there is only one God. They have built schools for the kids in Umuofia and other villages that way they would attend and learn new ways of how the white men see things. Okonkwo notices and wants to do something about it. The whole village is surprised to see Okonkwo and his family return home and seeing how everyone has grown up. Next the whole family goes back to their old house to get situated. Okonkwo is willing to do something to the white men trying to get rid of them any way how. So he has two plans. The first plan would be for him to kill the white men. The second plan would be to just try to scare them away. His friends tell him killing the white men would just give more problems and that there was no need to kill them. Then they receive an invitation from the commissioner saying how he wants the six important leaders to see him. As the six leaders attend and Okonkwo being one of them, the commissioner just wants them to pay a fine for the crime they have done. If they didn’t they would be held until they pay the fine. They wouldn’t pay so then the white men would treat the six leaders with disrespect so they eventually payed the fine. When they got out no one has spoken to them until Okonkwo decided to
With the Christian missionaries are followed by British colonizers. This new political and religious order will upset Okonkwo's social order. He works extremely hard throughout his life to achieve his status and be a better man than his father, Unoka. However, like his father he doesn't completely fit into the community. ...
With the white men from Europe bringing new traditions and customs, the Igbo culture is damaged. Some people went against their own beliefs and converted to the white man’s religion. The end of the novel justifies this being the main idea when Okonkwo sees his tribe as people who are to afraid to fight for their ancestor’s beliefs. Knowing that the Europeans would continue to invade their land, he chose not to see his culture slowly drift away and took his life. Things did fall apart in the culture and in Okonkwo’s life. The author, Achebe, uses his novel as a way of conveying historical fact through a fictional story. He uses fiction to show his views and beliefs about the European explorers and the religion that they brought. In the novel, Achebe shows the white men’s ignorance to the customs and beliefs of the native people. He also uses Okonkwo’s character to show the lack of change in the native’s lifestyle and to show the contrast that lies between the two cultures. The author also put a story in the book when the missionary and an elder of the tribe are discussing religion. This can be shown as evidence that the author believes that the Christians and the natives could have learned things about their own religions by sharing their faith and facts amongst each
Unlike his father, Okonkwo is a hard worker with little debt and a driven personality. His internal fear leads to his decision to beat his wife during the week of peace and to take part in the mandatory action of killing his beloved son, Ikemefuna.
“They will take him outside Umofia, as is the custom, and kill him there. But I want you to have nothing to do with it. He calls you his father. (57)” This quote explains that Ogbuefi expresses concern for Okonkwo, because the Oracle explains how it would be wrongful of Okonkwo to kill Ikemefuna. “Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak. (61)” This quote portrays that Okonkwo completely disregarded what Ogbuefi and the Oracle cautioned him about, because he was too concerned about his status of what others thought of him. “At last the man was named and people sighed “E-u-u, Ezeudu is dead.” A cold shiver ran down Okonkwo’s back as he remembered the last time the old man had visited him. (121)” At this point in the story, it appears that Okonkwo is starting to realize his wrongdoings, primarily because he takes religion and his spiritual life very seriously, in regards towards the Oracle. Okonkwo begins to lose trust within his family, especially with Nwoye. (As mentioned in the previous paragraph.) In the beginning of the book, Okonkwo relied on Ikemefuna to help Nwoye become more masculine and tough. After Ogbuefi warns Okonkwo about taking part in the murder, Okonkwo thinks about what could happen to him once the gods find out. Once again, Okonkwo lets his emotions
Some people might say that Okonkwo was just trying to protect the tradition and cultural of his tribal village but in actuality this is far from the truth. When Okonkwo cut down the guard, he made the swift assumption that his clansmen were as passionate about fighting colonialism as him and would follow him into war. When he found otherwise, he could not understand what had happened to his village. The next place he was seen was hanging from a noose in a selfish show of hypocrisy. In the end, Okonkwo's status among his tribe counted for nothing because his own despair over the colonization of his village led him to kill himself. His whole life Okonkwo strived to not to look weak like his father, but in the end he took the cowards way out, suicide. Suicide was a great sin against the Earth. Because he took his own life, Okonkwo, a great leader of Umuofia, had to be buried by strangers. All of his work and perseverance amounted to nothing because of what he had done.
At the beginning of the novel Okonkwo was a fairly wealthy and well-respected member of the Igbo society, but it had not always been that way for him. Okonkwo?s father, Unoka, had been a lazy man who would rather play his flute than take care of his crops. Unoka was said to be a charming man, and was able to borrow large amounts of money from his friends, but was never able to pay it back. As a result, Okonkwo has grown up very poor and ashamed of his lazy father. At one point in the book, Okonkwo remembers hearing one of his playmates calling his father an ?agbala,? which was the word for woman, but all described a man who had taken not titles (13). Okonkwo never forgets this, and actually develops a deep-seated fear that people will think that he is weak like his father. As I mentioned, Okonkwo became very well known, and his wealth and prestige rested solely on his own personal achievements. Okonkwo had received no inheritance from his poor father, no land and no money. As a young man, Okonkwo had been very successful wrestler, and as he grew older he became a well-known warrior. He was said to have brought home five human heads, which was a great achievement even for men who were much older that he was. At the beginning of the story, Okonkwo had obtained two titles, and had the respect of every man from all nine villages of Umuofia. Symbols of his wealth and prestige were his family and his compound. As I mentioned earlier, Okonwo had received no inheritance, and at the time of this story Okonkwo is still fairly young, and the fact that he had three wives, several children, and a very productive piece of land showed that Okonkwo was a very diligent worker. ?Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially...
After Okonkwo gets banished from the tribe it undergoes a drastic cultural change. Okonkwo does not. Upon his return he discovers that his tribe has been partially converted by the Christian missionaries. He is appalled and rejects the idea.
Overall, Okonkwo is a crucial part to the story Things Fall Apart, for he represents African culture, and helps demonstrate how colonization can change everything. Through this book we see how colonization changed history, and how it is important for groups, tribes, societies to stay together in times of invasion, in order to protect their own customs and traditions; and how crucial a sense of unity would've been for the Umuofian tribe. Okonkwo was the sense of unity of the tribe, doing everything he could could to protect it. His collection of honorable titles, his love for his tribes culture, his drive and passion, and even his booming pride all contribute to his district character, a true hero in my eyes.
Okonkwo’s determination to succeed in life and to not fail leads to his fatal downfall in the end of the novel. His inability to adapt to colonization and his failure to follow the morals of many of the morals of the Ibo culture also are an important key leading to his downfall. Okonkwo was willing to go to war against the missionaries, with or without the clan. He made it clear that he believed the missionaries were in the wrong for trying to change Umuofia. Since the clan wanted no part in the war with the missionaries, Okonkwo took action into his own hands and murdered the head messenger. During the killing of the messenger, Okonkwo had a moment of realization: “He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action” (Achebe 205). Okonkwo finally understands that he doesn’t have support from his fellow clansmen anymore and he feels as if he loses his place in society. Instead of backing up Okonkwo and his decision to murder the messenger, the clan stood in both confusion and disorder and questioned, “ ‘Why did [Okonkwo] do it?’ ” (Achebe 205). Okonkwo’s impulsiveness causes the clansmen to question Okonkwo’s violent actions against the messenger. Throughout the entire novel, Okonkwo struggles to accept the missionaries and the changes that they
Then there is a staggering list of achievements. Okonkwo is a strong character but thinks only inwardly - especially towards his father - which will be discussed further in this essay. As a child Okonkwo was neglected by his father and even later in his life did not speak with him until of course his father was on his deathbed, this made him very angry. Okonkwo always saw his father Unoka as lazy. Okonkwo worked hard to remove any trace of laziness from his personality.
Since his childhood, Okonkwo has always been ashamed of his father, Unoka. Unoka was rarely able to feed his children, which made Okonkwo scared and embarrassed. When he went out into Umuofia, he found that the villagers had very similar opinions towards his father. As...
The white missionaries arrive in Umuofia during Okonkwo’s exile in Mbanta. When Okonkwo returns and sees how his home changing, Okonkwo feels devastation because of how much different Umuofia has become. The quote, “He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking and falling apart” (183), best exemplifies how Okonkwo feels when he returns to Umuofia. The white missionaries change all the traditional aspects of Umuofia in different ways that include trying to convert people to Christianity which is away from the native religion in Umuofia and establishing a modernized court system. These all contribute to how the Umuofia people change, but some Umuofians resist change while others embrace
Unfortunately, the clash of the cultures that occurs when the white man's missionaries come to Africa in an attempt to convert the tribal members, causes Okonkwo to lash out at the white man and results in his banishment from the tribe. Okonkwo had a bad temper which he often displayed: Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear of failure and of weakness.
This crime from Okonkwo left him away from his homeland for seven years, and during his escape, his old culture would soon be evolved. This unintentional action also played a domino effect, first moving his family away and having his home destroyed, then having his son, Nwoye turn back on him and become a missionary in Umuofia joining the white culture. Achebe describes how Nwoye declines Okonkwo being his father towards Obierika who is doing favors for the family (144). Hearing this, his father seems to not be harmed and is disappointed in his son. These missionaries began assembling into Umuofia, convincing the clansmen that there is only one God, and He is the creator of everything unlike what the clansmen had believed. They had a god for everything, but they now were being persuaded. Hearing this, Okonkwo is in shock and believes that the only way to solve the issue is to chase the men out of the village some way (Achebe 146). Nwoye is attracted to the new religion but has yet to reveal it to his father for fear of him. When Okonkwo heard the news, he is infuriated with anger. “… sprang to his feet and gripped him by the neck”
...clansmen come to decide what they should do, Okonkwo has already chosen war. As the messenger arrives to order an end to the meeting, Okonkwo is once again driven by his rage and kills the messenger. He realizes that the others were not prepared to fight, and he comes to understand the consequences of his actions. Instead of being executed, Okonkwo decides to take his own life.