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Essay on Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Essay on Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Essay on Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
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The fall of a character To commit suicide is a very drastic and desperate way of showing that there is no hope left. In All things fall apart, written by Chinua Achebe, the maincharacter Okonkwo reaches a point were he is left with no other option. His village in West Africa is, as the title of the book suggests, falling apart mainly because of imperialsim and the arrival of ”the white man” which causes the tragic ending for Okonkwo. His suicide was a reaction to the changes in the Igbo society but mostly a result of his personality and therefore also the history with his father. To begin with, Okonkwo had deep fatherly issues which results in him never being able to show weakness. In the book it is described how everything he does is quite contrary to his father’s actions since these were something to be ashamed of and Okonkwo thought of his father as an efulefu, meaning worthless man. He does everything in his power to become nothing like him resulting in a high social status, a big family and enormous amounts of crops. Therefore when the white men come and Okonkwo realizes that no one in the village will fight back he loses everything he belives in, in a way becoming his father which is one of the reasons to his tragic end. …show more content…
For instance, he kills his adopted son and when this affects him emotionally he refuses to accept the fact that he is sad and feels ashamed. When he reflects on the situation later he thinks of it as silly and embarrising. In the end, this trait of his, made it easier to commit suicide than show how terrible he felt about the village and his life falling
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.
“Then everything had been broken” Okonkwo felt sorrow for his village after seeing what the white man did to it. Seeing his village fall under the control of the white man, his religion, and Government was one of the factors that caused Okonkwo to fall into a deep depression. Not only this but his son Nwoye betraying him and his cultural beliefs for the white man’s beliefs. Before the white man came Okonkwo was seen as strong, confident, and fierce man during colonialism this image faded of himself and he started to lose confidence of himself.
...remain strong against the tide of change, but he appears to be the only one. When he kills the colonial official in the end, it is one last attempt to 'save' his tribe from the weakness and influence of the white man. No one else backs his attempt however, so Okonkwo, in desperation, chooses the most dishonorable death possible, suicide, rather than allow himself to be handed over to the 'weak' white man. In my opinion, i wouldn't think that Okonkwo would give up the Igbo tradition to be part of the white men religion; that’s why he killed himself because he thought he was the only one following the Igbo “steps” and he knew that nobody is on his side no more. What Okonkwo would handle his situation better if he would probably gave the "new changes" a shot and if he doesn't like it, then probably just run away and make his own community, since he is tough and manly.
“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
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 out 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 not to look weak like his father, but in the end he took the cowards way out, suicide.
One of the most commonly asked questions about the novel Things Fall Apart is: why did Achebe choose a tragic hero, Okonkwo, as the main character in the story. According to Nnoromele, “A hero, in the Igbo cultural belief system, is one with great courage and strength to work against destabilizing forces of his community, someone who affects, in a special way, the destinies of others by pursuing his own. He is a man noted for special achievements. His life is defined by ambivalence, because his actions must stand in sharp contrast to ordinary behavior”(Nnoromele). In my opinion, he chose this type of hero to show the correlation between Okonkwo’s rise and fall in the Igbo society to the rise and fall of the Igbo culture itself. Many commentators have come up with various reasons for Okonkwo’s failure in the novel. Some say that it is just his chi that causes him to be a failure; however others believe it is because he is incapable of dealing with his culture deteriorating before his eyes. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo’s character as a tragic hero is a result of his chi, inability to cope with the destruction of the Igbo culture, and ultimately, his own suicide.
Okonkwo is “a man of action, a man of war” (7) and a member of high status in the Igbo village. He holds the prominent position of village clansman due to the fact that he had “shown incredible prowess in two intertribal wars” (5). Okonkwo’s hard work had made him a “wealthy farmer” (5) and a recognized individual amongst the nine villages of Umuofia and beyond. Okonkwo’s tragic flaw isn’t that he was afraid of work, but rather his fear of weakness and failure which stems from his father’s, Unoka, unproductive life and disgraceful death. “Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness….It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.” Okonkwo’s father was a lazy, carefree man whom had a reputation of being “poor and his wife and children had just barely enough to eat... they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back.” (5) Unoka had never taught Okonkwo what was right and wrong, and as a result Okonkwo had to interpret how to be a “good man”. Okonkwo’s self-interpretation leads him to conclude that a “good man” was someone who was the exact opposite of his father and therefore anything that his father did was weak and unnecessary.
From birth Okonkwo had wanted his son, Nwoye, to be a great warrior like him. His son instead rebelled and wanted to be nothing like Okonkwo. Okonkwo would not change so that his son would idolize him, as he had wanted since his son's birth. He chose not to acknowledge his son's existence instead. This would weigh heavily on anyone's conscience, yet Okonkwo does not let his relationship with his son affect him in the least bit.
Okonkwo is not all that he may seem; as there is more than what meets the eye. Okonkwo is the primary protagonist within the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Okonkwo is a cruel yet kind man who has everything yet has nothing, which in turn creates a sympathetic character. A character such as Okonkwo has many facets; or masks if you will. Then we have his many influences: the Ibo culture; his father Unoka and of course his own personality. 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.
Growing up a poor boy in a poor country is hard. When you dad’s the village fool, it makes it even worse; your sense of worth is low, and you must fight every day to rectify the mistakes of your father and prove your own worth basically reestablishing your name as one of truth and goodness. You must work twice as hard for half the reward as Okonkwo does to establish himself as a different person than his father. Making the choice to be a different man; he made good business decisions, worked tirelessly and raised his children with a strict set of rules he never had. Motivated purely by the ceaseless though of being better than his father, or at least being perceived as better. Being so focused and narrow-minded you can lose sight of the importance of your family and their wellbeing, leading to everything falling apart.
Their beliefs are completely opposite each other because of Okonkwo's need to fulfill his own pressures and ideal image, which he burdens himself with. Certain characteristics he holds which his father does not is seriousness, determination, and brutality. Okonkwo cannot move on from his past, instead he forces his future to be effected by his past, which results in his emotional separation from others around him. Oknonkwo describes his father as "lazy, improvident and quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow.
Because Okonkwo did not want to follow in his father’s footsteps as a lazy, gentle, and poor man, he decided to create his own legacy. Some may consider this honorable; but as Okonkwo’s character evolves, it is clear that he is crippled by his own desire to escape his father’s shadow. He envisioned his father as weak but his own mindset in turn has weakened him in many areas. This is the narrative in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. The generational traits impact the characterizations of each individual in such a profound way. Okonkwo may have hated the legacy his father left behind but there was no where for him to run away from the bloodline that flowed so heavily through him.
Okonkwo was ashamed of him and did everything possible to never end up like his father. When the narrator stated, “With a father like Unoka, Okonkwo did not have the start in life which many young men had. But he threw himself into it like one possessed. And indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father’s contemptible life and shameful death” (pg. 18). The.
Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, follows the tragic life of Okonkwo, a man who suffers a miserable fate due to the fear of failure that controls every action he makes. Though the fear of failure acts as motivation to become a successful and respected man at first, it later cripples Okonkwo in such a way that failure ultimately defines his life. Okonkwo is constantly afraid of being a victim of weakness and desperately tries to remain a strong and unyielding man. It is his overwhelming fear of weakness that causes things to fall apart in his life, as his attempts to avoid failure and weakness eventually lead to the ultimate defeat: his shameful suicide.
Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart, uses the changes in African tribal culture brought about by European colonization to illustrate the evolution of the character Okonkwo. As Okonkwo leads his life, his experiences, personality and thought are revealed to the reader. The obstacles he faces in life are made numerous as time progresses. Okonkwo's most significant challenge originates within himself. He also encounters problems not only when in opposition to the white culture, but in his own culture, as he becomes frustrated with tribal ideals that conflict with his own. The last adversary he encounters is of the physical world, brought upon himself by his emotional and cultural problems. The manner through which Okonkwo addresses his adversaries in Things Fall Apart creates the mechanism that leads to his eventual destruction.