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Literary analysis of okonkwo and his downfall
Characters analysis of things fall apart
Essay on okonkwo character
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In the novel, Things Fall Apart, written by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo is a sympathetic character and unsympathetic character in regards to his family relationships with his adopted son, Ikemefuna, his daughter, Ezima, and his father, Unoka, as a result of he appears to genuinely care about his family; but, the pride within himself prevents his expression of such pride and concern openly. The protagonist, Okonkwo demonstrates his sympathetic character solely to himself, personally, and infrequently not in the eyes of others. During the plotting of Ilemefuna’s death, Okonkwo was hesitant to make the boy aware of his fate and also hesitant to take part in his death. “‘I cannot understand why you refused to come with us to kill that boy,’ he asked Obierika” Okonkwo was aware that the adopted boy from an opposing tribe thought of Okonkwo, not only as an authority figure and high-ranking tribal member/warrior, but also as a father—his father. Until the death of Ikemefuna, Okonkwo continued to show Ikemefuna kindness due to feeling that “his son’s development was due to Ikemefuna.” (Achebe 3...
Unlike his father, Okonkwo is a hard worker with little debt and a driven personality. His internal fear leads to his decision to beat his wife during the week of peace and to take part in the mandatory action of killing his beloved son, Ikemefuna.
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.
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.
Overall, Okonkwo is a crucial part to the story Things Fall Apart, for he represents African culture, and helps demonstrate how colonization can change everything. Through this book we see how colonization changed history, and how it is important for groups, tribes, societies to stay together in times of invasion, in order to protect their own customs and traditions; and how crucial a sense of unity would've been for the Umuofian tribe. Okonkwo was the sense of unity of the tribe, doing everything he could could to protect it. His collection of honorable titles, his love for his tribes culture, his drive and passion, and even his booming pride all contribute to his district character, a true hero in my eyes.
While Achebe evokes sympathy and respect for Obierika, the most generous emotion he evokes for Okonkwo is pity.
Whenever Ezeudu, a regarded senior in Umuofia, educated Okonkwo that the town Oracle required the slaughtering of Okonkwo's received child Ikemefuna, he requested that Okonkwo not partake. Be that as it may, Okonkwo went with them, as well as he struck the murdering blow as Ikemefuna gotten out for his insurance. At the point when Okonkwo is later addressed by his companion, Obierika, about not taking an interest, Okonkwo wound up noticeably guarded saying, "'You seem as though you doubt the expert and choice of the Oracle, who said he ought to bite the dust'" (64). Okonkwo related taking part in doing the town's request with the quality esteemed by the group, neglecting his own particular association with the kid. Umuofia's traditions and customs, as he saw them, exceeded his own emotions in the circumstance.
In the novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is portrayed as a respected and determined individual whose fatal flaw eventually works against him. Throughout the novel the readers are shown that Okonkwo has many of these Characteristics because he is obsessed with the idea of becoming just like his father. This becomes his flaw in the novel that puts him into exile and makes it hard for him to adjust to the changes that were made with in his village.
His tragic moments come in the middle or rising of the book and therefore the book comes alive. Okonkwo had bad chi (energy) therefore the smallest things annoyed him. In the book he beats his wife, kills an adopted child and it brings out the determination in him that he can not fail no matter what. Growing up as a child is a crucial aspect in humanity and all children look up to a role model to learn from and it is usually a father figure. In the book, Okonkwo’s role model was his father Unoka.... ...
In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo starts the story as a strong, successful, and well respected man in the village and neighboring lands. He was a leader in the village, he had a large house with plenty of food, and he had many wives and children. After a series of unfortunate events, Okonkwo loses his titles, his house is burned down, and his oldest son leaves him. Okonkwo tries to drive out the missionaries that were tearing the village apart but fails. He realizes the village he loved had turned against him, and he commits suicide.
In Things Fall Apart written by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo is a leader of Umuofia who
Although the reader feels remorseful for Okonkwo’s tragic childhood life. It is another reason to sympathize with 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 wife 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).
The character of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart was driven by fear, a fear of change and losing his self-worth. He needed the village of Umuofia, his home, to remain untouched by time and progress because its system and structure were the measures by which he assigned worth and meaning in his own life. Okonkwo required this external order because of his childhood and a strained relationship with his father, which was also the root of his fears and subsequent drive for success. When the structure of Umuofia changed, as happens in society, Okonkwo was unable to adapt his methods of self-evaluation and ways of functioning in the world; the life he was determined to live could not survive a new environment and collapsed around him.
Things Fall Apart opens with an extremely critical analysis of Unoka, Okonkwo's father. Okonkwo loathed his father untraditional nature and the fact that he saw him as “lazy and improvident and he was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow”(4; ch.1). Fathers, and children, that are unwilling to understand one another and love them despite their differences often run into many conflicts and their relationships grow strained like those in the novel.
The protagonist of the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo, is an african man who lives in shame of his father’s failure in life. Through being shamed all of his life, he became very ambitious to be a success. Okonkwo’s success is built upon an extreme ambition, which ultimately leads to his downfall.