Fate and Free Will in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart Essay

Okonkwo name is well known throughout the nine villages for his great wrestling ability. Okonkwo is the pride of the igbo tribe in Nigeria this is around 1900s. Okonkwo is a very prideful man who lives in fear of not becoming the man his father was, He seems to be so caught up in being the total opposite of his father that he does not live his own life and do whats in his heart. Okonkwo 's father Unoka had no personal achievements he was a man who was in debt to many people and failed as a farmer, But Okonkwo 's “fame rested on solid personal achievements” (pg 1). Okonkwo was a great farmer and had no debts to pay. In all ways that Okonkwo could be he was the complete opposite of his father.

In Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, the beliefs of an afterlife and spirit world were strong factors in the daily events of an Ibo person’s life. These beliefs controlled their actions and thoughts all the time. The Ibo believed in not only personal spirits, but also in a supreme deity, the Creator of the world and the Ibo, as well as the minor gods and entities of the spirit world. To the Ibo, it was customary for one to approach a great and powerful man through his servants. Sacrifices were made to the minor gods and spirits, but when these fail to bring about the desired result, the Ibo went to the Supreme Deity for final intervention.

Nnoromele writes: “His life is defined by ambivalence, because his actions must stand in sharp contrast to ordinary behavior” (Nnoromele 84). Then the article goes on to say Okonkwo fits this description: “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 destines of others by pursuing his own” (Nnoromele 84). Okonkwo is the epitome of how a strong Igbo man should behave as it is listed in the book and in the article. However, this man is actually the average characteristic of an Igbo man in his father’s culture rather than his. And as many people know, typically the older generations are much stronger on the emotional and physical level than the people of the new generation in any culture. Okonkwo fits the characteristics of an average man in his father’s culture because his father’s culture was much stronger than his. He grew up watching all of these men around his village and aspired to be them because he didn’t want to be weak like his father. Nnoromele addresses the opposing view of some critical readers: “Many blame it on the fragmentation of the Umofia society and the destruction of its cultural values by the colonial powers” (Nnoromele 84).While many critics see Okonkwo as weak because he killed himself in the end and people who commit suicide are

Chinua Achebe in the book Things Fall Apart, explains Okonkwo’s battle with failure. When experienced the changes of Umfia he couldn’t live, with he makes a tragic ending. Okonkwo was the one the Ibo tribe looked up to because he was a “fearless” warrior. Okonkwo was driven to be better than his father. Okonkwo was a successful farmer by taking good care of his crops. When the missionaries came in and brought changes, Okonkwo struggled with the changes. Okonkwo’s biggest challenges was when he realized the white man changed everything. Okonkwo proved his strength to the tribe in many ways.

In Things Fall Apart, we are introduced to Okonkwo, a great warrior and an influential clan leader. Okonkwo acquired his position through hard work and the desire to not be like his lazy father. He constantly tries to avoid being like his father, so he operates under the philosophy that one cannot be a man if they are lazy. This philosophy leads to discontent with members in his family and community who act lazy or woman like. Therefore he develops a quick temper against them.

The story first starts out with descriptions of Okonkwo’s father, “… lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow.”(Achebe 3) Okonkwo’s father Unoka was a man who enjoyed the pleasures of life, not so much the work that achieved such pleasure. He was a frequent debtor owing up 1000’s of cowries to various village people, leaving his family constantly impoverished and starving. This caused Okonkwo to mature at a young age. With his father idle and not up to work it was left up to Okonkwo to look after their farm and family. Also during this time when Okonkwo was still a boy he overhead people calling his father an agbala which not only meant woman but also a man with no title. From that moment on he decided to hate everything his father stood for, gentleness and idleness. After his father died Okonkwo became a renowned wrestler and a wealthy farm owner through his never ending determination and hard work.

In Things Fall Apart, the Igbo culture is depicted to be a civilized society with a strong sense of morality, emphasis on wisdom, and stable religion despite being a primitive society and misogynistic virtues. However, as the novel progresses it becomes evident how their sense of “morality” is truly flawed due to corrupt leaders and bias ethics that is revered by society. Nwoye’s conversion to Christianity implies the idea how even people born into Igbo culture can see it is corrupt and run by immoral cultural traditions. The Igbo culture does demonstrate civilized forms of dealing with societal issues. In order to stabilize the hatred that would have rushed due to Okonkwo’s accidental killing of Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s son, “The only course open to Okonkwo was to flee from the clan (Achebe 74)”.

Okonkwo’s father, Unoko was widely regarded as a dishonorable man. He had many debts, he could not provide for his family, and he never did anything prideful. Trying to compensate for his father’s terrible reputation, Okonkwo became the standard for what children in the village should aspire to be. He brought pride to his village when he was 18, was a respectable leader and clansman,a skilled yam farmer, and he provided for his three wives, and their children without fail. He always made his sacrifices, went to the Oracle when necessary, and never caused anyone, especially the Gods, to consider him dishonorable. That all ended when he beat his youngest wife during Peace Week. Things went severely downhill from there Then his friend and close

Okonkwo is well-known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements (Onuemelukwe). The people in the surrounding villages see him as a hero. Okonkwo is respected for his hard work as an achieved warrior of the Umuofia clan. “Okonkwo worked daily on his farm from cock-crow until the chickens went to roost” (Achebe) and never seems to tire from his work. His three wives are not as strong and did not have the same amount of stamina; his children did not take after him either. Okonkwo uses techniques such as beating and nagging to try and change the poor work ethics of his family members (Achebe). “Okonkwo was not a cruel man, but his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.” Okonkwo wanted to be completely opposite of what his father was and live his whole life being

Introduction Throughout the novel "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe, there are several attributes that lead to the demise of Okonkwo. Often times the result of acting on personal emotional impulses can carry with them negative outcomes. Okonkwo was a noble, appreciated man in the nine villages in which tribes had lived(Achebe 1). The traits that gave him that status are believed to have come through both his fear of failure and desperation to succeed (Achebe 4). Unoka, Okonkwo's father, was unsuccessful in the nine villages which led to Okonkow's lack of respect for him and those who do not work hard in the community (Achebe 1).

Okonkwo is a man by every definition. This is his crowning achievement. Where his father before him had failed, Okonkwo emerged powerful, well-to-do and well-respected. He is described as having “no patience for with unsuccessful men. He had no patience with his father” (Achebe 4). As a child, seeing the way in which the people in the village regarded his father, and how Okonkwo had to go without because Unoka did not make any money, Okonkwo resolved to never end up like his father. While Unoka had been lazy, though generally well-liked and creative, Okonkwo was diligent, greatly feared and demonstrated very little tolerance for the arts. Okonkwo perceives everything that his father did as bad, and so his attempts to separate himself from

Based on the precolonial era of Nigeria, Chinua Achebe 's fictional story Things Fall Apart, shares the story of the Igbo culture through the lens of Okonkwo, a hard-nosed tribesman living in the fictional village of Umuofia. Okonkwo is a man who epitomizes masculinity and inner strength, the core values of the Ibgo culture, and shows no mercy when faced with struggle. Although Okonkwo is faced with numerous conflicts, such as the killing of the young boy whom he raised as a son (Ikemefuna) and the seven year exile from his “fatherland” tribe, the intrusion of the British missionaries and colonial administrators who later colonize Africa is the ultimate conflict in this story as it leads to the downfall of Okonkwo, whom resists the idea

Chinua Achebe’s “Things fall apart” is a story about a man named Okonkwo who is successful and physically strong. However, Okonkwo is emotionally unavailable and afraid that he will be seen as weak and that others will compare him to his father. The book’s peak is when Okonkwo does something considered immoral by killing a boy who he had taken in and raised as his own for three years, because he did not want to be seen as weak. Okonkwo is ruled by one obsession and that is to hate everything that his father had loved. Okonkwo’s birthright was fear, fear that he would become like his father. His whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. The irony in the story is that Okonkwo’s life ends much like his father’s

First, the author illustrates the theme in the exposition and rising action of the plot as well as through the characterization of action. The protagonist had a choice in life pertaining to what he wanted to be, he was not “...lazy and improvident” (Achebe 4) like his father. The history of his childhood drove him to become the contrary of Unoka’s principles. He was not a person who “showed emotion openly” (Achebe 28), he was one who was detached from his emotions. He came to the conclusion that “...the only thing worth demonstrating was strength” (28) and he made the choice to be a man who shows no feelings or else, in his mind, he would consider himself weak. All of which indicate that Okonkwo took his own path in life. Many children get few choices in life, but the small choices they make ripple through their life

In the late nineteenth century an unknowing and pure style of life was torn to pieces by the corrupt and power hunger dictatorship known as Christianity. In Nigeria a tribe called the Igbo lived a simple life that will soon be torn apart from the impurities of the Europeans. The Igbo live a life of simple trade and democracy, brutal wars, and a strong belief in their religion. To this tribe many people had the aspect of that the Igbo are capable of doing anything as long as the their gods favor their side, however they were wrong. During the entirety of Chinua Achebe 's Historical Fiction 'Things Fall Apart ' his excellent use of longevity and specific details and events to describe the tribe 's purity and happiness to their religion before the Igbo are torn apart and succumbs to impurity.