Chinua Achebe 's Things Fall Apart

In the novel, “Things Fall Apart”, Okonkwo, who lead the major role in the story, was characterized by fear and very weak thoughts in his personal life. He doesn’t want his home at Umuofia to be familiar in the change of time and progress. The isolation of his organization in the Umuofia community is considered as worth and meaningful in his own life instead. Okonkwo is very much drifted towards external forces due to stress affiliation with his father since his childhood. When the organization in society of Umuofia altered, his methods and self-assessment failed to adapt to this alteration. So he could not adjust to function his ways into a new environment and thus his fears slowly started to collapse everything around him.

The destruction of Okonkwo was revealed slowly throughout the books. He started to make some poor decisions, which became the beginning of his downfall. He killed Ikemefuna just because he didn’t want to be thought weak. He made unwise decisions to only appear to be strong and manly to others in the village. He did not realize how he lost so much from living that way. When, Okonkwo kills Ogbuefi Ezedu’s son, the real tragedy begins. Other tragic heroes usually have a steadier downfall, but Okonkwo had a direct fall in society due to this event. This puts his family into exile for seven years. After a short period of time, white missionaries arrive to Umuofia. When “The

Ezeudu, a respected elder in Umuofia, speaks to Okonkwo about the tribe’s plans to kill Okonkwo’s son, Ikemefuna. Although Ikemefuna isn’t his biological son, Okonkwo is instructed to “not bear a hand in his death”(Achebe 49). Okonkwo listens and understands the wise advice, but, when Ikemefuna’s murder begins, Okonkwo’s morals overpower his ethics. As a member of Umuofia swings at Ikemefuna with his machete, Ikemefuna reaches out for help from his father, Okonkwo, who “drew his machete and cut him down”(53). Although Okonkwo was instructed to stay inactive in Ikemefuna’s death, his value of power fueled him to take action.

The disparity between Okonkwo’s true motivations and his warped motivations lead Okonkwo to behave in ways which shocked other members of Umuofia with his apparent disregard for others, but which made sense to him as he saw weakness and Unoka in alternatives. When Ezeudu, a respected elder in Umuofia, informed Okonkwo that the village Oracle called for the killing of Okonkwo’s adopted son Ikemefuna, he asked Okonkwo not to take part. However, Okonkwo not only accompanied them,

Perhaps it becomes clearer how much of an accomplishment it is to stay oneself in unforgiving circumstances when it is shown how it can feel like it is best to just give up. At the beginning of Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is a stern man who had to support himself from a very young age, and through his tireless work, rises up the ranks to become one of the greatest man in the Igbo village of Umuofia. Okonkwo, because of the lazy and carefree nature of his father, Unoka, has very rigid, harsh beliefs about strength and responsibility. During and after his seven-year exile from Umuofia brought on by an accidental killing, he notices a slow change coming about with the arrival of Christian missionaries from Britain, looking for converts. Eventually, the church established there becomes large enough to threaten the Umuofian religion and disrupt the villagers’ lives. Okonkwo’s identity is closely tied to his life and status in Umuofia, and the ideals

In the novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo’s shame for his father, Unoka, motivates him to be everything his father wasn’t. As a result, Okonkwo hides behind masculinity and conceals his emotions, in hope of escaping weakness. Stubborn and impulsive, Okonkwo makes rash decisions to uphold his reputation, which affects his tribe and his family. Okonkwo’s constant fear of resembling his father takes over his ability compromise and causes him to suffer from depression, the “loss” of his son, the loss of

After a village elder had found what crime Okonkwo committed, he told Okonkwo that, “you are not a stranger in Umuofia. You know as well as I that our forefathers ordained that before we plant any crops in the earth, we should observe a week of peace in which a man does not say a harsh word to his neighbor” (30). The elder proceeded to give Okonkwo instructions on how to attempt amends with the goddess. After a single action was taken, his proceeding efforts were nearly non-existent. Any attempt to fix the situation were minimal, as were efforts to learn from his mistakes. Furthermore, Okonkwo advances to partaking in the death of Ikemefuna. The relationship between the two is complicated, but is closest description is that of a boy and his step-father. Killing Ikemefuna is not an evil against the earth, as beating a wife during the week of peace was, but a crime against himself. He is unhappy with himself, and still does nothing to fix his ways, continuing on to single handedly killing a boy at a funeral. Although accidental, Okonkwo was still the man behind the gun. “It was a crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansman, and a man who committed it must flee from the land….he could return to the clan after seven years” (124). Okonkwo had no choice but to leave for the seven years, perhaps upon his return

Okonkwo’s adherence to a tradition of cruelty that harms large groups of minorities leads to a pronounced division once Western missionaries establish their church: a church which allows for aspects of life that tribal law did not. His adherence to traditional law and inability to compromise — rigidity in a culture of flexibility — alienates family members, members of his community, and furthers an internal pressure which ultimately helps the pressures of colonialism. Okonkwo’s inflexible interpretation of tribal law, borne of a need to escape his father’s seemingly feminine weakness, leads to morally bankrupt decisions. Unable to settle on a compromise between law and morality, he murders Ikemefuna: although correct in the eyes of law, the action lacks morals, is purely driven by a need for social power and fear of seeming weak. Such personal conflict culminates in intense inner pressure on both Okonkwo’s part and on the part of the community as a whole, leading to a collapse of long standing unity when faced with the external pressure of missionaries, providing a “way out”. This culminates in a scene in which tribal leaders call for an attack on colonialist forces, including other tribal members which have joined the

Achebe uses Okonkwo’s relationship with his father to show how one person can affect a person their whole life. Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, did not give Okonkwo the start in life that most of the young tribesman do, and all of the village looked down upon him. In one instance Unoka had gone to consult the Oracle of the Hills and the caves about his meager harvest during the year. As he began his story the Oracle interrupts him and declares that “You, Unoka, are known in all the clan for the weakness of your machete and your hoe. … Go home and work like a man”(Achebe 17-18). In this encounter Unoka loses some of the respect that the tribesman, and his own son had for him. (Unoka’s Death?) From the beginning Okonkwo knew he did not want to grow up like his father and worked hard to generate a prosperous future. He had to work extremely hard, would do

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.

The missionaries conflict with everything Okonkwo believes or values. The missionaries are so outlandish to Okonkwo that his first reaction is just to laugh at them. This is shown on page 147, paragraph 4, “ At the end of it Okonkwo was fully convinced that the man was mad. He shrugged his shoulders and went away.” Okonkwo later begins to understand the threat the missionaries pose to his society and passionately speaks for forcing the missionaries out of Umuofia. However when his people will not listen to him, he feels like he is forced to take matters into his own hands. This is shown on page 204, paragraph 7,” Okonkwo’s machete descended twice and the man’s head lay beside his uniformed body”. The Ibo people do not join in on the violence as Okonkwo had hoped, which contradicted with Okonkwo belief that the Ibo were warrior people. This final loss of Okonkwo’s core beliefs is what shatters Okonkwo’s final sense of identity as a man. As Okonkwo is no longer any of the things he has come to identify himself as, and Okonkwo blames the missionaries for this, his final response to the missionaries is to take his own life. Okonkwo's death is shown on page 207, paragraph 3 “ Then they came to the tree from which Okonkwo’s body was dangling, and they stopped dead.” When Okonkwo identity was ripped from him he no longer saw a point in living and his fight with the

At this point of the story, Okonkwo is yearning for war against the Christian missionaries. During a meeting with the nine tribes of Nigeria, he was, “sitting at the edge” (Achebe 204). This exaggeration exemplifies the fact that Okonkwo is ready to cause trouble. Consequently, “Okonkwo’s machete descended twice and the man’s head lay beside his uniformed body,” (Achebe 204). His uncontrolled anger led to him physically killing a man. Taking another man’s life just to relieve the built up stress, is an inconceivable way of thinking, and a poor decision on Okonkwo’s part. Without the author’s input of the previous exaggerated statements, the readers would believe that the murder came up from out of the

Okonkwo’s participation in the slaying of his adopted son, Ikemefuna is a pivotal moment in Things Fall Apart. It is a moment of horror that cannot please Ani, the great earth goddess, the center of community, the ultimate judge of morality for the clan. It is a moment that changes the course of events, a moment eerily paralleled in the death of Ezeudu’s son. It is a moment that ultimately causes Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye’s to abandon his ancestors and become a Christian. It is a moment when the center of community life, the need to honor blood ties and the need to respect the earth goddess, can no longer hold. It is a moment when things fall apart.

    A sense of foreboding envelops us from the first. We sense all will not end well for Umuofia. The chill of fear grips us as the world of Okonkwo and his clan truly falls apart. Okonkwo will need all of his power to fight the forces against his world, but tragically he is crippled by the most destructive malady of all, fear of himself. Achebe employs the form of classical Greek tragedy to tell his African tale of the rise and fall of Okonkwo.

In a time of need, Okonkwo decides to improve his exterior image, instead of being the true father that Ikemefuna thought he was. A true father would have put his son before anything else and would have tried to keep Ikemefuna out of such a fatal situation. Lastly, Achebe states, “Obierika, who had been gazing steadily at his friend’s dangling body, turned suddenly to the District Commisioner and said ferociously: ‘That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself’” (208). Okonkwo knows his clan won’t go to war and he does not want to continue to be a part of such a weak clan. Though his life’s purpose was to be nothing like his father, he is viewed as even weaker than Unoka. Since, suicide is “an abomination for a man to take his own life” (207). Through Okonkwo’s actions, the theme is clearly highlighted.