Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, follows the tragic life of Okonkwo, a man who suffers a

Upon an initial reading of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, it is easy to blame the demise of Okonkwo’s life and of the Umofia community on the imperialistic invasions of the white men. After all, Okonkwo seemed to be enjoying relative peace and happiness before then. He did have a few mishaps; one of them resulted in him being exiled for eight years. Nonetheless, he returned to his home town with high spirits and with prospects of increased success. However, everything has changed. The white men have brought with them a new religion and a new government. Okonkwo’s family falls apart. The men in his village lose their courage and valor; they do not offer any resistance to the white men. Consequently, Okonkwo kills

An increasing amount of contemporary literature traces its origins back to the early works of Greece. For ages, humans have fascinated themselves with the impossible notion of perfection. Unrealistic expectations placed on those who were thought to be the noblest or most honorable individuals have repeatedly led to disappointment and frustration, either on the part of those particular individuals or those they influence. Classic characters, like Odysseus and Oedipus for instance, exemplify the excess of some positive character trait, like pride or honesty, which ironically leads to their personal misfortune.

Okonkwo becomes furious, kills a messenger, and then commits suicide in order to avoid being captured by the white men. Okonkwo cannot accept the evangelists, as they have made him lose his power and control over the community and his son. The change in Okonkwo’s life is negative as it makes Okonkwo desperately look for solutions, although there are none. His internal struggle with change leads him to kill another human and himself out of inability to do

Okonkwo wrestles with his fear that any sign of weakness will cause him to lose control of his family, position in the village, and even himself. Like many heroes of classical tragedy, Okonkwo’s tragic flaw, fear, also makes him excessively proud. Okonkwo’s downfall is a result of the changes created by the coming of the British Colonisers to Igbo. The introduction of the Colonisers into the novel causes Okonkwo’s tragic flaw to be exacerbated. Okonkwo construes change as weakness, and as a result of his interpretation, Okonkwo only knows how to react to change through anger and strength. He derives great satisfaction, “hubris” or proud arrogance, from the fact that he is a traditional, self made man and thinks that to change would mean submitting to an outside force (Christianity).

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,

This novel is the definitive tragic model about the dissolution of the African Ibo culture by Nigerian author, Chinua Achebe. Okonkwo, a great and heroic leader, is doomed by his inflexibility and hubris. He is driven by fear of failure.

His tragic downfall truly begins when his is sent away because of an accidental murder of a boy. Okonkwo and his family are exiled from the tribe for seven years and Okonkwo is stripped of the fruits of his hard work. While he is away the white missionaries move into the village. They preach against the culture and its violent ways, causing Okonkwo to become saturated with rage. Seven years later, Okonkwo is able to return. He plans to reestablish himself and his position with the help of his family. However, Umofia is not as it once was. The white men have moved in and dismantled the tribe with their laws and government. Okonkwo wishes to fight, but the clan does not agree with his suggestion. After realizing the fate of the village, Okonkwo chooses to take his life. He would rather die than watch everything he had worked for fall apart because of weak people. His tragic flaw, a fear of weakness, is so strong it destroyed him.

For all of his desire to be strong, Okonkwo is caught up by the constant fear of being perceived as weak. He is afraid of failure and afraid of being considered weak. This fear drives him to do whatever he can to not become a failure like his father which ironically contributes to his death. While Okonkwo was a strong and important figure in his tribe, he had to keep his reputation that way by making some hard decisions. One of them was when he had to kill Ikemefuna, a young boy from the neighboring tribe. Okonkwo started accepting the decision to kill Ikemefuna because he started to call Okonkwo father. He had to keep his own valor intact and kill the boy to prevent himself from showing any weakness, but deep down, Okonkwo was really upset because of what he did which was ironic, “’When did you become a shivering old woman,' Okonkwo asked himself, 'you, who are known in all the nine villages for your valor in war? How can a man who has killed five men in battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.'" (Achebe 65). He continued to roll downhill when the white man comes to try and convert Okonkwo’s tribe. Okonkwo responds by killing one of the messengers that were sent. This cause Okonkwo's own tribe to question his actions. “"Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape.

Still unable to accept and adapt to the change he encounters, Okonkwo uses a method of violence by killing the messenger from the Christians and at last kills himself. Okonkwo’s suicide marks that he finally meets his fate. He stands for his power, strength, and masculinity and has great pride for his achievement. After realizing that he cannot conquer his chi and escape from miserable events, he gives up his life by

To begin, Okonkwo is shown to be a self made, well respected member of the Umuofia clan. Though, he seems stern, most of his life is dictated with fear. For example,the passage states “ And indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father’s contemptible life and shameful death.”(Achebe,18/1). This helps the reader understand that Okonkwo faces many challenges in life to prove to his village and the people themselves that he is nothing like his father, Unoka and is haunted by the fact that one day he will become a man whom he promised he will never become. The passage states “ Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak.”(Achebe,61/1). This helps the reader understand the reason why

Okonkwo has many errors judging the complexity of many big decisions. He also has a major weakness, that being his pride and constant battle-ready state. These end up being a major downfall in his life. Ikemefuna ends up being a part of Okonkwo’s errors in pride when the Oracle decrees Ikemefuna’s death. One blow from a machete didn’t kill him and having seen this, “Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak” (61). This quote shows Okonkwo’s kryptonite, being thought of as a weak person. This would eventually lead to him and five others being captured by the missionaries and brought to a jail. “The six men ate nothing throughout that day and the next. They were not even given water to drink. ‘We should have killed the white man if you had listened to me,’ Okonkwo snarled” (195). This quote shows Okonkwo’s failure to judge just how serious the situation is with him saying what they should have done is listened to him. Both of these events lead Okonkwo down a dark path. While taking some of the missionaries on a path to find Okonkwo, they see his body hanging from a tree. Obierika, a long-time friend of Okonkwo starts to yell at the missionaries, blaming them for his death by saying, “That man was one of the greatest in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be buried like a dog” (208). This quote shows the end of a long chain of events that drove Okonkwo to his destruction of

Okonkwo struggles to show his true feelings in this novel as he fears what the others will think of him. He is the epitome of a masculine man in the Ibo Tribe. If he were to show his true feelings, he would lose a lot of respect from the other villagers and elders. As we have seen throughout the novel so far, Okonkwo commits several savage acts yet he refuses to show his guilt or sensitive side. In chapter thirteen, Okonkwo kills a clansman unintentionally in a freak accident when a shard flies from his gun and pierces a boy’s heart. As punishment, Okonkwo must flee from his village and all of his belongings must be burned in order to cleanse the village. However, through all of this, Okonkwo does not show any emotion. His family weeps bitterly

The description given early in the novel clearly establishes his character as being a strong and wealthy man who is well respected among the rest of the tribe due to his superior fighting abilities and his influential personality. Having achieved such elite status within the Umuofia clan, Okonkwo appears to be old-fashioned as it is seen in his approach in raising his family and tribal people. However, Okonkwo’s character changes incrementally with the emergence of a boy, Ikemefuna, from a neighboring village, who was brought to him because of his brutal attack against his wife Ojiugo during the ‘week of peace’. Amongst the Umuofia clan, the ‘week of peace’ is a tribal ritual whose conditions are not to complete any evil sins in a certain week span. After having accepted Ikemefuna into the family, Okonkwo experiences a shift in his mental state. Shortly hereafter, he questions this change, which demonstrates his lack of willingness to change which is clearly demonstrated in the book in several different ways like in chapter Eight, Okonkwo proclaims to himself, “When did you become a shivering old woman, you, who are known in all nine villages for your valour in war” (Achebe 56). This represents that his character has become a weaker, less influential individual amongst the nine tribes where he is well known. Symbolically, this depicts a fragile reputation in Okonkwo’s status within the community to which he belongs.

One of the most commonly asked questions about the novel Things Fall Apart is: why did Achebe choose a tragic hero, Okonkwo, as the main character in the story. According to Nnoromele, “A hero, in the Igbo cultural belief system, is one with great courage and strength to work against destabilizing forces of his community, someone who affects, in a special way, the destinies of others by pursuing his own. He is a man noted for special achievements. His life is defined by ambivalence, because his actions must stand in sharp contrast to ordinary behavior”(Nnoromele). In my opinion, he chose this type of hero to show the correlation between Okonkwo’s rise and fall in the Igbo society to the rise and fall of the Igbo culture itself. Many

Everyone has goals in life ,and strives to complete these goals throughout the course of their lives. Although it may be challenging to accomplish these goals, a person needs to know when to stop pushing themselves. In the novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, a stubborn man who lives in an African village strives to be the alpha male among everyone he knows. Okonkwo, once a great man, fell because his father's influence, his personality and the invading British.