Things Fall Apart Okonkwo's Relationship

Throughout Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo forms relationships with people that are both expected and surprising. Okonkwo is far from an expert at positive relationships. His interaction with his family alone alternates between angering, heartbreaking, occasionally sweet, and sometimes just plain annoying. Okonkwo seems to believe that strong positive relationships are feminine and weak, especially if this relationship is with one of his wives. Despite this, Okonkwo has a deep, if rarely acted upon, love for his family and his village, and he wants both to have a successful future. He also has a few close relationships with select individuals. The warmest and most interesting of these relationships are with his daughter, Ezinma, and his friend, Obierika.

Throughout his life, Okonkwo goes to the furthest extreme to avoid be associated with any “womanly attributes.” Anything that his father loved and extolled such as celebrations, relaxation, and mercy were considered to be feminine by Okonkwo. Due to this, Okonkwo is pleasantly surprised to realize that Ezinma is somewhat similar to him in personality. Throughout the book he wishes repeatedly that she had been born a boy and when she is taken into the forest to the cave of Agbala by the prophetess we see him truly worried. Most likely, the main reason he has such a close relationship with her is because she is not a boy, despite his deepest wishes. After all, if she was a boy he would have had high expectations from her birth and would have been constantly comparing her to his father. Because she was a girl, he had no real beliefs that she would amount to anything. Instead, she consistently pleasantly surprises him and therefore brings him a joy and satisfaction that others