Compare and contrast Okonkwo and Unoka (Things fall apart - Chinua Achebe)

Okonkwo life is “dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness” (Achebe 13). When Okonkwo was a boy, his playmates teased him calling, saying that his father was agbala. Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, was lazy. He did not work on his farm; he died in great debt. He did not acquire a single title. He did not have a barn to pass down to his son. Unoka is a type of man who is scorned in Umofia. He is seen as weak and effeminate. As Okonkwo grows older, he is determined not become a failure like his father. His father was weak; he will be strong. His father was lazy; he will be hard-working. Okonkwo earned his fame by defeating the reigning wrestling champion. Okonkwo diligently plants yam, building a successful farm. He builds himself an obi, has three wives and many children. His fame “rested on solid personal achievements” (Achebe 3). Okonkwo will not let one womanly trait sully his reputation. Therefore, he “hate[d] everything that his father Unoka had loved” (Achebe 13). One of these was gentleness. Okonkwo refuses to show any signs of emotion, except his temper. He

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 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

tribe to be a week of peace Okonkwo beat up his third wife because she

Unoka is Okonkwo’s father, he is a very lazy man and has amassed many debts. Okonkwo is very ashamed of Unoka and seems to hate him very much. Achebe states

Okonkwo is initially introduced as a proud, hardworking, successful warrior. He is described as "clearly cut out for great things" (6). But he is the son of a ne'er-do-well father; though genial and inoffensive, Unoka must certainly have been considered a failure. He is lazy and does not provide for his family. Not only is this disgraceful, but life-threatening as well. He is dependent on other members of the clan and must have been considered unsuccessful. Okonkwo chafes under such disgrace and his success is a consequence of his desire to be everything his father is not; society's vision of an exemplar citizen. The fact that Okonkwo is able to rise above his poverty and disgraceful paternity illustrates the Igbo's acceptance of individual free will. But Okonkwo's fate and his disharmony with his chi, family and clan are shown to cause his ultimate disgrace and death.

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.

Throughout the book Chinua Achebe illustrates Okonkwo’s relationship with his father, Unoka, to be a negative, tenuous, and non-existent. At the beginning of the novel the reader can already start to tell the opposition of the two characters when Achebe introduces them. Unoka is portrayed to be, “tall but very thin and [have] a slight stoop. He [wears] a haggard and mournful look except when he was drinking or playing on his flute” (3). Unlike his drunken and lazy father, Okonkwo, “was tall and huge, and his bushy eyebrows and nose gave him a very severe look” (1). Okonkwo was fierce and strong while on the other hand is father was lazy, weak, and feminine. The reader can tell that Unoka and Okonkwo were extremely different which plays a

Chinua Achebe unfolds a variety of interesting connections between characters in the Novel Things Fall Apart. Relationships with parents, children and inner self are faced differently, however the attitude that Okonkwo gave them determined what kind of outcome he generated from these relations. Okonkwo looks at everything through his violent and manly perspective and is afraid to show his real feelings because he thinks that he may be thought out as weak and feminine this paranoid attitude lead him to self-destruction.

People say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Things Fall Apart, written by Chinua Achebe, centers around a man named Okonkwo who despises his late father. The story takes place in an African village during the 1800s. Okonkwo strives to be everything his father, Unoka, wasn’t. The entire village saw Unoka as a man who was lazy and unsuccessful. Okonkwo grew up with the mentality that his father had no redeeming qualities. Now a grown man, Okonkwo hates everything his father was and strives to be everything he wasn’t. However, while they are essentially polar opposites, Okonkwo and Unoka’s lives have a few parallels. Both Okonkwo and Unoka are stubborn in their own ways, are well known throughout the village, and have dysfunctional relationships with their sons.

In Things Fall Apart, the main protagonist, Okonkwo and Macbeth share many similarities in their journey as their lives, quite frankly, fall apart. Both of them are lead by their ambition and desire to be seen as powerful. In their stories, they lose themselves and the respect of their people as they try to maintain their status. Macbeth and Okonkwo differ in that Macbeth is driven by his greed, whereas Okonkwo is standing up for his traditions and values. Both of these tragic heroes actions are greatly influenced by other people and things that lead them down dark paths.

Okonkwo, as presented by Chinua Achebe in the novel Things Fall Apart, wished to be revered by all as a man of great wealth, power and control--the antithesis of his father. Okonkwo was driven by the need to exhibit utmost control over himself and others; he was an obsessive and insecure man.

Another important character is Nwoye, who is Okonkwo's first son. Unlike Okonkwo, Nwoye has no work ethic and is constantly "[causing] his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness" (Achebe 13). Okonkwo tries to beat Nwoye into being more hardworking but it does nothing. Nwoye is more womanly than Okonkwo's because "he [prefers] the stories that his mother [tells]" (Achebe 53). "When a mother-cow is chewing grass its young watch its mouth" is used in the development of the one characteristic both Nwoye and Okonkwo share. The proverb means children learn from what their parents do. Okonkwo follows in his father’s footsteps by not being the father figure his son needs. Nwoye follows in his father’s footsteps by forsaking Okonkwo. Okonkwo forsakes his father, Unoka, because he is weak by showing affection and he “[is]… a debtor” (Achebe 4). Nwoye forsakes his father because Okonkwo is too harsh. Both Okonkwo and Nwoye try to lead very different lives than there fathers. Okonkwo lives the opposite of Unoka by being "a wealthy farmer and [having] two barns full of yams" and being hardworking (Achebe 8), while Unoka "was… a debtor" and "was lazy" (Achebe 4). Nwoye lives the opposite of his father by being "among the missionaries" (Achebe 143), while Okonkwo strongly opposes the church.

Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, was the opposite person that Okonkwo wants to be. He was poor, only had one wife, had no titles, and hated fighting. By being born into Unoka's home Okonkwo had to start completely from scratch: “Okonkwo did not have the start in life which many young