Okonkwo's Suicide In Things Fall Apart

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The Reason Behind Okonkwo’s Suicide
What drives people to kill themselves? There are many answers to this question, and in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, readers find an answer to it. Although many things lead up to Okonkwo’s suicide, his main motivations were the major changes and losses in his life which prompt him to contradict his own beliefs and kill himself. He made the decision to kill himself when he recognized that he no longer had a place to belong.
The first breaking point for Okonkwo was when his life started to go downhill for accidentally killing a clansman. Because of this, he was sent into exile and forced to flee to his motherland. He was left with nothing. When Okonkwo reached his motherland, he “was given a plot of ground on which to build his compound, and two or three pieces of land on which to farm during the coming planting season” to restart his life (Achebe 129, 130). This was a major change in Okonkwo’s life, and changes in a person’s life can lead to suicide. In the real world, readers can find an example of change leading to suicide in the article “Manager Commits Hara-Kiri to Fight Corporate Restructuring” by Sheryl WuDunn. When “Mr. Noka was demoted and his pay was cut,” he had undergone a significant change in his life that lead him to commit Hara-Kiri, a ritual …show more content…

Feelings of worthlessness, anger, hatred, and a sense of not belonging is what came from this. These feelings play a role in why people kill themselves. Things Fall Apart revolves around Okonkwo and his clan, and when his clan started “breaking up and falling apart,” Okonkwo changed (183). This change allows readers to better understand Okonkwo’s personality, his actions, and his feelings. His suicide also shows weakness which contradicts Okonkwo's belief that a true man should never be feminine or

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