Weakness is Looked Down Upon in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

It is another to sympathies for a man who believes he is powerful and respected by many when in reality, he is feared by his own family and that is another reason that leads Okonkwo to his downfall. He started positive, motivated but down the line, Okonkwo treats his wives and children very harshly. When the author mentioned, “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children” (pg.13). This is not power but a weakness when Okonkwo uses power to rule his own house, detaching himself from the emotional connection with this family rather than being frightening to live with.

Nwoye and Okonkwo relation is complex having many different stages but just like Okonkwo and his father it become pieces. Nwoye and Okonkwo relation at the beginning was ruled by fear;Okonkwo had little to no problem using violence to reprimand his son to do work when he(Okonkwo) thought his son was being lazy. Leaving Nwoye feeling like a sad faced youth as he doesn’t know how to make his father happy since Okonkwo was a strong man that didn’t appear feminine. ”Okonkwo’s first son, Nwoye, was then twelve years old, but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient Laziness. At any rate, that was how

Okonkwo however, demonstrates insecurities that drive his entire being - all of the successes and prosperity he has achieved are driven by his fear of becoming a reflection of his father, who was deemed a weak, lazy and feminine man. As a result of this fear Okonkwo resorts to keeping his emotions within himself and only allows himself to express anger, which he believes demonstrates strength, which he no doubt

Nwoye looked up to him as an older br... ... middle of paper ... ...ssibly many more ways than one which is violence. This novel also shows a lot of symbolism. In all the novel is about an African tribesman named Okonkwo who deals with a feminine father, lazy son, disobeying daughter, and what seems to be three unresponsive wives. He obviously really hates the feminine qualities in a man that is why he is so disrespectful to his father and is so hard on his son. If he was not trying to hide his feminine side I think he would not be so harsh and abusive towards his three wives.

No one likes to be told how to live, especially if they do not wish to follow a certain custom. In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe talks about Okonkwo a successful, strong young man that is controlled by fear of weakness and failure. This great fear came due to his father. His father Unoka was a “lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow” (Achebe 4). Therefore Okonkwo fear was resembling his father.

Okonkwo is feared by his family members due to his aggressive nature. He is not very open and friendly with his wives and children which creates barriers in the family. His social life is wrecked. “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his children… But they dared not complain openly.” (Achebe 13) Men in the Ibo culture are given more importance and authority over the women.

Okonkwo’s fear leads him to treat members of his family harshly, in particular his son, Nwoye. Okonkwo often wonders how he, a man of great strength and work ethic, could have had a son who was “degenerate and effeminate” (133). Okonkwo thought that, "No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man" (45).

His gun exploded and killed Ezeudu’s son. Okonkwo was then banished for seven years, and from there everything started to fall apart. Things Fall Apart and Okonkwo both evoke many emotions; fear, pity, anguish, compassion, and hope. There is a great deal of compassion when his own son went against, him and there is hope that the Ibo culture will stay in tact even though you know the outcome of the white man coming in contact with the Ibo culture. According to Aristotle, tragedies use many metaphors.

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. Beginning Okonkwo’s malevolence for his father is all consuming; he ridicules men for almost

He is faced with many challenges as a young child, including his father, which relates directly to his fall later in the book. This sense of abandonment is present throughout the novel during Okonkwo’s life. Through the repetition of the noun “fear,” the speaker emphasizes Okonkwo’s true reality, his fear of nothing but himself. Despite all of Okonkwo’s pugnacious manliness, he is ruled by fear – a profound fear of being deemed weak and feminine, like his father: “Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear,