Fear In Things Fall Apart

In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the theme of the power of fear

In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo is known in his village for being a strong, ruthless man. He prides himself on his many achievements and titles and feels that a man is nothing without his pride and ego and is seen in the novel as the up keeper

“The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart…Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”, W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming. This quote is the foundation with which Chinua Achebe built his novel, Things Fall Apart, where the main character Okonkwo encounters an abundance of issues that challenge not only him, but also others close to him as well. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe uses Okonkwo’s eldest son, Nwoye, to display how the corruption found in a culture paves the way for devastation for some and salvation for others. Okonkwo is a strong man in the Ibo culture that fact is indisputable. As a young boy he was able to defeat the most notorious wrestler in the village, and Okonkwo demonstrated incredible drive to success despite shortcomings that were dealt his way.

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." (H. P. Lovecraft) In Chinua Achebe's novel "Things Fall Apart" the theme of fear is constant and persistent. It is shown through a great and respected warrior named Okonkwo. While he is wealthy, with many wives, and some high titles within his clan he is still plagued with his fear. He fears the unknown,

One thing I learned about fear is that it can basically act for us. With fear humans can make critical decisions that they wouldn’t dare make without fear edging them on. A story that particularly shocked me was the story of a young woman named Kelly. She followed her

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.

Fear is a distressing state of mind aroused by impending danger, evil, and even mental pain. The idea of fear is greater than fear itself. It is an emotion that we subconsciously create, it is the emotion evoked by the idea of believing illusions, lies and false information. Fear is what drives us to execute actions that we would never normally do, unrestrained from the presence of fear we act with morality, thought and discipline. In Things Fall Apart written by Chinua Achebe, fear is evident throughout Okonkwo's life. The fear of being anything close to his father Unoka, the fear of acting anything other than a man and the fear of adjusting to anything other than his own social customs is what

When the word “MAN” is used, most people think it means strong, fearless, hardcore, and so on, but there is more to a man. In Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe it can clearly be observed that there is more to Okonkwo than he shows. Although Okonkwo is perceived as “The Fearless Man”, he does fear. Okonkwo has a fear of being weak. Because Okonkwo has a conflicted personality, “The Fearless Man” in him tends to overshadow the other sides of Okonkwo.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a story about a man named Okonkwo who lives in the village of Umofia in the Igbo Society of Nigeria. This man faces challenges unimaginable as he strives to become the opposite of his father. The article was well put together and established clear points. However, when the author noted that critics think that Okonkwo’s suicide was due to the weakness of him as an individual. My point of disagreement in the article is the fact that critics think Okonkwo’s suicide and failures are due to the weaknesses of his character. I disagree with this because Okonkwo was a confident and powerful man. The only flaw in his character is that he was too proud and too rude to most of his people. However Okonkwo is the epitome

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

“…His [Okonkwo’s] whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness…It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father” (13).

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.

Fear played a big role in Things Fall Apart. Mainly fear was seen ruling Okonkwo’s life, but also a couple of the other inhabitants of Umuofia. It was seen in many situations dictating the characters’ actions. Each of the character’s actions then led up to the understanding of the theme in Things Fall Apart, fear can dictate choices.

Everyone wants the world to morph around their beliefs. We selfishly desire that the people around us mirror our own actions, but most of us know that this wish is unrealistic. But in Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is a prideful man who does not understand this reality. He bases his entire family, tribe, and life on the idea of dominant masculinity, threatening to crush out the weakness and femininity in anyone he meets. This unstable mentality eventually leads to the destruction of his tribe, family, and self, and this is why things truly do fall apart.

The theme of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is that life is shaped more by outside events than what is inside you. Okonkwo is a man grappling with adversity and trying to define and walk his own path according to his own wisdom. Okonkwo rejects his father, and lives his life to be as different from his father as he can. Okonkwo is trying to determine his fate, yet the thing he wants to be least like he becomes which parallels his society’s struggle to navigate the changes of colonisation and not conform to it.There are multiple major events in the novel where, despite Okonkwo’s efforts, he fails to control his life by the sheer power of will and creates more similarities between him and his father than there otherwise would have been.