Everyone reaches a point in life where enough is enough. People get to a point where they get overwhelmed and can’t take it anymore. So they decide to make actions that aren’t really good choices. The cultural collision challenges Okonkwo’s identity; he feels as if his culture is responsible for the problems he may be having in his life , but he tries to hide it because he believes his culture represents him . Okonkwo has a lot of strengths and weaknesses.The things that he were doing were causing him to have effects and a downfall in his life which was him committing suicide. The first reason Okonkwo’s sense of identity was challenged with the introduction of Western ideas into the Ibo culture was because, Okonkwo started out in the novel as a strong person ; role model, but the cultural collision of the British colonists and Ibo people affected his reputation to the point of him going through a crisis and committing suicide. The reasons for this tragic change in their sense of identity included others looking at him differently & people disliking him . Overall, their response to the introduction of Western ideas shaped the meaning of the work …show more content…
Okonkwo wasn't really respective to the God’s . Like i said in the beginning he felt as if his culture is responsible for his problems in life .Him believing and thinking this is what made his life a tragedy. He felt as if the things he were going through was there fault so he was doing things out of anger and sometimes just because . The reputation Okonkwo is gaining is not a good reputation he’s grabbing the wrong crowd attention. Him acting like this and doing what he is doing costed him his life
...m his own. I felt that Okonkwo’s exile was very much needed for him, because it taught him the true meaning of an extended family, taught him some humility and how to cope with failure which was ostensibly dealt by his own hands. When Okonkwo returned to his original village his alienation hit him hard. His village was completely changed. The Europeans destroyed the Igbo framework that gave Okonkwo his validation. Okonkwo felt alienated from all that once made him a man. This can relate back to our everyday lives because it shows us how important home is and how without it one may not feel the will to live. This goes back to Achebe’s soul purpose of writing this novel, which was to educate the reader on the effects of the devastating European colonization upon Nigeria. The change was so much for Okonkwo to take in. So much so that it was enough to take his own life.
The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a story that opens the reader's mind to an entirely different way of living in a Nigerian village. Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930, perhaps this is why he writes a whole book on a Nigerian village and introduces to us the ways of life for the Nigerian people. From the first page of the book to the last, Achebe allows the reader to enter the mind of the main character Okonkwo. Okonkwo is the leader of his village and is very respected for his many achievements. Although Okonkwo means well for his village, the novel invites the reader to see him has a flawed character who eventually suffers from the consequences of bad "masculine" decisions he makes throughout the book.
Okonkwo is on two ends of a stick. Sometimes he can be shown to be a caring, sympathetic character, but others he is shown as a ruthless person that is very unsympathetic person. Okonkwo is a man of action that would rather solve things with his fists rather than talking it out. He is a great wrestler hailing from the Umuofia clan that has thrown Amalinze the Cat. Okonkwo is also a very good farmer, where he has been able to grow two barns worth of yams. He is someone that doesn’t know how to control themselves when they get angry as he will then resort to violence. Okonkwo’s family relationships make him a sympathetic character because of his caregiving nature and hospitality and he is shown to be an unsympathetic character because of his
A character with a tragic flaw is one who consistently makes a particular error in their actions and this eventually leads to their doom. Okonkwo, a perfect tragic character, is driven by his fear of unmanliness, which causes him to act harshly toward his fellow tribesmen, his family and himself. He judges all people by how manly they act. In Okonkwo’s eyes a man is a violent, hard working, wealthy person and anyone who does not meet these standards he considers weak.
He was in great conflict with the ideas of the white men and the missionaries. Okonkwo saw that their beliefs had not only changed the daily life of the Ibo, but it also changed the people themselves: “He mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women” (Achebe 183). The author uses strong diction to compare the men before and after colonization. This quote also portrays Okonkwo’s opinion towards the cultural collision. He values strength and masculinity immensely because of his fear of appearing weak like his father Unoka. When he describes that the men of Umuofia changed to be soft like women, this shows how much he dishonors the Western ideas and how it has taken over the village. He made an attempt to get rid of the Western influence by urging the tribe to fight like men, but they refuse to. He was determined and still attempted to furthermore encourage the people of Umuofia to revolt against the new culture. He realizes that his attempts to return the village back to the way it was before were futile. He knew that Christianity was tearing his people apart, but knew he was incapable of making change to help his people. Okonkwo then starts to feel hopeless and abandoned by his clan, which causes him to commit suicide by hanging himself: “Obierika… turned suddenly to the District Commissioner and said ferociously: ‘That man was one of the greatest men
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 ideas of masculinity, family values, and his sense of male duty are very antiquated and traditional. When new ideas are presented to him in the form of European religion and culture, Okonkwo, along with many others, fails to open his mind to the change and refuse to compromise. Thus, there is conflict and a shattering of clan values and relationships that have lasted for generations. Neither group is willing to compromise its ideas or philosophy, and thus by the end of the novel it is evident that the clan has been irreversibly altered.
Okonkwo and the villagers get into trouble with the District Commissioner and when he learns the his village is not behind him he hangs himself. The Commissioner decides to write a book titled,The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger and will dedicate a paragraph or to Okonkwo's rebellion and death. Fear as one of the major themes of this novel greatly
Due to his inflexible nature, he is destined for self-destruction. In some beliefs, this could also be known as karma, which is the belief that a person's past actions determine their destiny. Okonkwo made bad decisions in order to not be seen as weak, which is his worst fear. Due to his fear, he unknowingly becomes cruel and obsessive, “He [Okonkwo] had a slight stammer and whenever he got angry and could not get his words out quickly enough, he would use his fists” (Achebe 4). His obsession to be seen as strong eventually got so bad that he killed his own son.
Before the arrival of the Europeans, Achebe did a excellent job portraying how the life of Igbo was before they were forced to oppose their own culture. To support this theme, Achebe included detailed descriptions of social rituals within each family, the justice system, religious practices and consequences, preparation and indulgence of food, the marriage process and the distributing of power within the men. Achebe shows how every man has an opportunity to prove himself worthy to achieve a title on the highest level, based merely on his own efforts. One may argue that the novel was written with the main focus on the study of Okonkwo’s character and how he deteriorates, but without the theme that define the Igbo culture itself, we would never know the universe qualities of the society that shaped Okonkwo’s life. The lives of the Igbo people was no different to the actual lives of the Ibos people back in the early days of Africa. Just like in Things Fall Apart, in actual African tribes there was never a ruler. “Very interesting thing about these villages is that there is no single ruler or king that controls the population. Decisions are made by including almost everyone in the village” (AfricaGuide). Using the theme, Achebe educated readers on by mirroring real African life in her
Through these translated proverbs, allegories, and songs, Achebe successfully captures and conveys the unique rhythms and cadences of the Igbo language and portrays how the ‘Ibo’ view their world. The eradication of Igbo customs and the ensuing demise of Okonkwo is a result of the struggle between change and tradition. The impact of these alterations on different characters involves questions of personal status. Having been raised by a ‘lazy and improvident’ father who ‘could not bear the sight of blood’, Okonkwo knowingly adopts opposite ideals. He is adamantly averse towards anything that he perceives as ‘soft’, and thus his tragic flaw lies in his ‘fear of failure and of weakness.’
Okonkwo wanted to become one of the greatest men in the Ibo tribe, but three unfortunate events occur bringing him closer to his end. Okonkwo was a proud, industrious figure who through hard work was able to elevate himself to a stature of respect and prominence in his community. The one major character flaw was that he was a man driven by his fear to extreme reactions. Okonkwo was petrified of inadequacy namely because his father was a complete and utter failure. This fear of shortcoming made him hate everything his father loved and represented: weakness, gentleness, and idleness. Who was Okonkwo, well Okonkwo was a hero and also he...
The colonizers believed that there whole culture was highly advanced and ignored there the religion,customs,and codes of the Igbo. which eventually the village According to Aristotle a “tragic hero” Okonkwo fits very well in Aristotle’s conception of a tragic hero. Okonkwo is “A character
Okonkwo is an interesting character that experiences many changes throughout the novel. He is a self made member of the Umuofia community unlike his father. His father’s cowardliness and laziness never provided for him or the rest of his family. Growing up, he developed a fear of becoming like his father and that is why it became his influence and purpose in life is to live successfully. This is one of the reasons he reaches troubling times along with his Chi. The concept of Chi plays a big role in his destiny and it was can be interpreted two ways after reading the book. It is possible that Chi may have caused his difficulties, but I believe that he caused them himself because of his strong-willed nature.
It is important to note that Achebe was a product of both traditional Igbo society and the colonizing British culture. Therefore, the narrative is influenced by two strikingly opposed philosophies. The tragic hero, Okonkwo, may have been crafted to express, not only the Igbo philosophy of harmony, but the outsider interpretation of a seemingly paradoxical belief system. Achebe's representation of Okonkwo may symbolize the collision of these two conflicting philosophies.