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Features of African American Literature
Features of African American Literature
Features of African American Literature
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Prior to Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” the overwhelming majority of books written about Africa had been from a modern European standpoint. In the novel, Achebe describes the struggles of European colonization of Africa through an African’s eyes, which came to be one of the greatest African literary works of all time. Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero is an impressive figure who falls due to a fatal flaw. Also, this hero should be someone the reader can relate to and evokes empathy in the reader, and lastly the tragic hero should be faced in making very tough decisions. In “Things Fall Apart”, the main character, Okonkwo, is a tragic hero because of his great relationship he is able to build with the reader through the beginning …show more content…
Though Okonkwo’s rise to becoming a lord of his clan was sudden and glorious, a ongoing internal battled brewed in Okonkwo. “One passion that Okonkwo had was to hate everything that Unoka had loved. One of these things was gentleness” (Achebe ____). Expanding on the quote above, Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, was a peace loving man who did not seem to do much except add on his already gargantuan fees to the village. Despising his father, Okonkwo swore to indefinitely be polar opposites to what his father was, avoiding and abolishing weakness and failure throughout his life, therefore furthering the relationship Okonkwo shares with the reader. According to Aristotle, a tragic hero is one who “often suffers more than they deserve” using this, Achebe tugs at the readers’ hearts to make them feel the embarrassment and agony Okonkwo experiences when he accidentally killed someone and was banished from the tribe for seven years. Throughout the first half of the book the reader makes bonds to Okonkwo as the character that will then be broken chains soon to come
Okonkwo is known throughout Umuofia to be extremely masculine. He rarely shows signs of fear or weakness. This is because Oknokwo promised himself he would be the complete opposite of his father Unoka. Unoka had passed away ten years prior to when the story takes place but he has always been remembered as a weak, lazy, poor man who could barely provide for his family. He was always in debt and didn't care to work, he would play his flute all day everyday if he was able to. "People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back" (5). Unoka was the laugh of the town and Okonkwo would never allow himself be that.
According to Webster’s dictionary, a tragic hero is a protagonist that is otherwise perfect except for flaws that are intrinsic to his or her character, which often leads to his or her demise. In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo, the protagonist was unlike tragic heroes such as Oedipus, Iago and Beowulf, because he was not born into nobility, but had to rise to fame and earn respect through his exceptional stamina, hard work and his historic unrivaled success at defeating the famous Amalinze the Cat. Like Beowulf and Oedipus, Okonkwo shares traits that are characteristic of a tragic hero. These traits exposed his mortal fear of failure, his fear of weakness and his fear of becoming like his father who was lazy and poor. Okonkwo also possesses an unwavering pride and an irrepressible anger. Fear, pride and anger are some of the traits of a tragic hero that were inherent in Okonkwo, and this paper will seek to explore how these traits contributed to his downfall Okonkwo’s connection of manliness with rage, ferocity and recklessness eventually leads to his downfall. Okonkwo finds it difficult to accept the changes the Missionaries have brought to Umuofia. The missionaries changed the way the people of Umuofia think, leading to an irreversible division among the people.
Okonkwo’s first and most distinctive flaw is his fear of failure. Many people would agree that this flaw is driven by the fear of becoming his father, but Okonkwo takes this fear too far. Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, was known for being a very lazy and carefree man. He also had notoriety of being “…poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat.” (Achebe 5). A big tradition in Umuofia is having a father who is supposed to teach his children right and wrong. In Okonkwo’s case, these lessons had to be self-taught. Okonkwo had to commit to his own understandings of what defined a “good man” and to him that was the exact opposite of his father. Because of his fear to be seen as weak, Okonkwo even murders a child that calls him father. Ikemefuna was sent to live with Okonkwo because someone was murdered in a nearby village. An example of Okonkwo’s ill-hearted actions are shown in the following quote: “As the man drew up and raised his machete, Okonkwo looked away. He heard the blow. He heard Ikemefuna cry, ‘My father, they have killed me!’ as he ran towards him. Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak.” (Achebe 61). The fact that he kills Ikemefuna shows that his reputation is more important than the life of a child. Okonkwo’s fear permits him to receive more respect from his tribe, but only because it inclines him to do better than anyone else.
For Okonkwo, all things are measured against the traits of his father. To be successful means to be manly. And manliness implies action, physicality, structure, and seeing things in black and white. He is respected for his accomplishment and hard work, but others notice "Okonkwo's brusqueness in dealing with less successful men." (p. 26) To him, they are not men at all. They are weak; as weak as women. And anything to do with idleness and pleasure equate with weakness. "And so Okonkwo was ruled by one passion- to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness." (p. 13) Purposefully, Okonkwo has formed the formidable fortress with which he deals with the world.
Okonkwo’s fear of unmanliness is kindled by his father, who was a lazy, unaccomplished man. Okonkwo strives to have a high status from a young age and eventually achieves it. He has a large family, many yams and is well known throughout the village for his valor. He raises his family by his mentality of manliness and is ...
Okonkwo is often described as being similar to characters in Greek tragedies. Okonkwo knew that the end of his clan was coming, and that they would do nothing to prevent it from happening. He took his life out of desperation. He had struggled his whole life to become a respected member of his community, and suddenly his world is turned upside down and changed forever because of an accident. Okonkwo sees that he is fighting a losing battle, so he quits. Suicide was one of the biggest offenses that could be committed against the earth, and Okonkwo?s own clansmen could not bury him. Okonkwo?s death symbolizes the end of patriarchy in Umuofia. The last page of the book is from the point of view of the white Commissioner, who notes that he wants to include a paragraph on Okonkwo?s life in his book entitled The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of Lower Niger. Okonkwo?s struggles, triumphs and defeats are all reduced to a paragraph, much like his culture and society will be reduced.
In these few chapters that we read, we have already learned a lot about Okonkwo, his life, and how he shows sympathy to some, but to others he is heartless. Okonkwo is other wise known as an unsympathetic person. Okonkwo is a clan leader of umuofia who holds many titles and is well known among his people. Okonkwo's daily life consists of tending to the three yam farms he has produced and to make numerous offerings to numerous gods and to help himself and his family. Okonkwo's personality is hard driven, since his father did not provide for him and his family Okonkwo had to start man hood early and this led him to be very successful in his adulthood, Okonkwo is an unsympathetic character who only shows sympathy rarely because he believes it's a sign of weakness Okonkwo's family relationships make him a sympathetic character because when his children show signs of manliness or do their jobs right he shows sympathy towards them. He is an unsympathetic character because whenever he get a little mad he has to take his anger out on something and that is usually vented by beating his wife's.
First of all, I feel that one of the main reasons why Okonkwo is considered a tragic hero is due to the weakness of his chi. His chi plays an important role in the novel because, according to Igbo culture, every time something goes wrong it is a result of bad chi. Throughout the beginning of Things Fall Apart Okonkwo seems to be one with his chi and everything seems to be going well. From the beginning the reader is meant to think that Okonkwo can overcome anything that he faces and this his chi is quite heroic up to this point in the story(Friesen).This i...
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.
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.
“With a father like Unoka, Okonkwo did not have the start in life which many young men had. He neither inherited a barn nor a title, or even a young wife. But in spite of these disadvantages, he had begun even in his father’s lifetime to lay the foundations of a prosperous future” (18). Most of his accomplishments were despite his father, whom Okonkwo loathed, but with whom I connected. In the novel, I relate more to Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, a much more laid back character. Like Unoka, I am in love with life, lazy, not worried about tomorrow, and deeply in debt.
While everyone was working on their farm, Unoka did nothing but drink, dance, and just plainly prayed to the gods. Okonkwo was ashamed of him and did everything possible to never end up like his father. When the narrator stated, “With 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 shame of a father like Unoka drove Okonkwo into the passion of being nothing but successful in his life. Everything about Okonkwo had to be acknowledged and respected whether be his family or the people in the village. The true hatred of his father derived his power when the author stated, “Okonkwo was ruled by one passion- to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness” (pg.13). Also, another statement that represents the flaw in Okonkwo is the way he is when it comes to his father, not defeating him or fighting for the father that raised him even thought they were poor, the gesture of lowing your head to the outer of your father’s name in disgrace when the narrator stated, “ … ‘Ask my dead father of he ever had a fowl when he was alive’ Everybody laughed heartily except Okonkwo, who laughed uneasily
Aristotle stated that a tragic hero was to be "a person of high estate, he must fall from that position into unhappiness" (Baines). Aristotle said that a tragic hero must be present in a story for it to be considered a tragedy. This tragic hero must be extremely important in his society, and must eventually be removed of his importance and become unhappy in some way. This element is portrayed in the novel when Okonkwo is exiled from his village where "his life had been ruled by a great passion-to become one of the lords of the clan" but soon after "everything had been broken" (Achebe 121). Okonkwo's transition from prosperity and happiness in his home village to an empty life exemplifies the presence of a tragic hero in the
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.
Okonkwo takes his life as he sees himself a lone warrior in a society of weaklings. This isolation is truly imposed by his decision of how to handle the conflicts which he encounters. His unitary channeling of emotions, cultural inflexibility, and tendency to seek physical confrontation are compiled into a single notion. The idealized vision of a warrior by which Okonkwo lives is the instrument that leads to the climax of Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart: Okonkwo's demise.