The Relationship between Fear and Hatred

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1. Fear and hatred have a simple, yet sometimes illusive relationship. Numerous people, including Shakespeare, have defined this relationship to be that hatred originates from fear. In the first five chapters of Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo’s seemingly unrelated fear of weakness generates his unequivocal hatred toward unfortunate recipients. Okonkwo has a “fear of failure and of weakness” (13), which is exemplified by his father who “was in fact a coward and could not bear the sight of blood” (6). This sufficiently explains Okonkwo’s deeper “fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father” (13). When trying to find the opposite of weakness to differentiate himself from his father, Okonkwo resolves “to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness” (13). Consequently, Okonkwo’s hatred of the various interpretations of weakness, failure, and anyone who embodies them signals his underlying fear that he may “be found to resemble his father” (13). Although not nearly as elusive, this relationship between fe...

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