How Does Okonkwo In Things Fall Apart

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

When Okonkwo was introduced to the cultural change by the British colonial missionaries, he was angry because he felt that the colonial missionaries were trying to decrease the existence of one's manliness. “The white man is clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion”. Now they’ve put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” (Things Fall Apart, Chapter 20, Page 152) With the arrival of the white missionaries, the Igbo religion came to a disagreement upon the religion that's being changed in the igbo culture. Missionaries changed umuofia's religious traditions and turned them against their gods. Okonkwo then starts acting out in random acts of violence, such as killing. To Okonkwo this was, manliness to do that sorrow act. To Okonkwo this was important because he did not want to be like his weak father, therefore, Okonkwo continues to behave this

Following Okonkwo’s seven year exile, the village Okonkwo once knew has changed due to the influence of Christianity and the influence of the British missionaries and officers. Okonkwo’s initial reaction is to arm the clan against the Colonisers and drive the British people out of Igbo.

He couldn’t be the leader of the clan anymore because the white people took over and his people are going along with the white people. Everyone in his culture was changing because the white people came over and started to put their culture into the Igbo people’s head. They tore down the churches without the people permission. This made some of the Igbo people mad but some of them liked the idea and started to change and believe in what the others believed in. Okonkwo was upset with the

Over the course of the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo, a honored and respected warrior, puts strains on his relationships due to his unwillingness to change, and aggressive and prideful behavior. In the beginning, Okonkwo is a respected and honored warrior, but his power doesn’t last the course of the novel, due

They were not a warlike people anymore. “He knew that Umuofia would not go to war … He knew because … they had broken into tumult instead of action.” Achebe added this to show that the Ibo people were not run by fear like he was. When Okonkwo came across something out of the norm his first instinct would be to fight instead of

From the beginning of the novel, Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo changes from being confident to being a hopeless man. After he shoots a boy he is banished to his mother’s homeland for seven years. After that happened he returns to his village and everything has changed, even the culture, he had to change in order for him to fit in the new society. Okonkwo is a hard worker and respected.

In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the character Okonkwo was affected greatly by the cultural collision of the christian and ibo cultures. He could did not want to adapt to the changes and changed greatly because of the changes. Before the cultural collision Okonkwo is a very stern and is not the person that shows his emotions. He is strict with his family and even the slightest thing like a cut banana tree leaf set him off.

Everything in Okonkwo’s life slowly started to fall apart then it grew and grew until everything in his life just broke into pieces. His family has fallen as his son is has turned into a christian, his daughter is left with no strong man to marry and he has killed the one child that he loved. His tribe has fallen apart since some of them have turned into christians and has abandoned their ibo traditions, and the white men have took over and formed their own government. Then finally His mind and spirit started to fall apart, as his fear of being called a coward consumed him and forced him to show that he wasn’t a coward. His fear consumed him so much, that when everything was falling apart, he felt no reason to try and show that he wasn’t a coward.

Okonkwo’s a wealthy respected warrior of a lower Nigerian tribe call the Umuofia clan. Some may say Okonkwo’s world fell apart because of his father, or even the amount of wives he had. One would suggest his world fell apart due to manly values and Christian values. Things exist in Okonkwos mind that he refuses to share with others. This could explain why Okonkwo was so angry and violent throughout the novel, leading up to his death.

Eventually, Okonkwo goes back to whom he once wanted to be disassociated with, his father. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo’s personal decisions of mistreating his clan’s rules and people, and then being rightly punished demonstrates that one chooses their own destiny and causes their success or downfall. Okonkwo goes to beat his wife and disregards the tribe’s rules, knowing that they are in place. Okonkwo threatens to beat

The seven year timespan allows the village members to assimilate to their ideologies as much as they can. The second part also shows Okonkwo’s subtle anger with his village for not wanting to take the white men head on, further foreshadowing that his masculine aggression will be what ruins him in the end. Part three is when things literally fall apart. When Okonkwo returns to his village, everything has changed. Okonkwo is outraged by the takeover, unlike many of his tribe mates, who had been able to gradually assimilate. “There were many men and women in Umuofia who did not feel as strongly as Okonkwo about the new dispensation” (Achebe 178). No one is taking his advice, which only makes him more upset. People are killing sacred symbolizations of Igbo gods with little to no consequences. He did not have the assimilation process the rest of the tribe had, and seeing as he is stubborn and temperamental, he acts without thinking of consequences and kills the white man. This action led to Okonkwo killing himself, since he knew what would happen if the white men were to catch him first. His death resembles the end of the Igbo

Achebe Says “Okonkwo was deeply grieved”. Now when people aren’t listening to him he gets mad. He wants to prove that he can still contribute to the clan. Okonkwo doesn’t understand how to adapt to the

He’s enraged by this “abomination” and shift in his culture that rather than hearing out and making peace with the white men he disowns his son and anticipates a fight with them. It’s a common theme in the book. Instead of reasoning, Okonkwo resorts to anger and violence. He violates the no cruelty policies active during the sacred “Week of Peace.” He contributes to the killing of his step-son, Ikemefuna, out of fear “of being thought weak.”

On the other hand, another characteristic of Okonkwo that causes him to be seen as a tragic hero is his struggle to deal with the crumbling Igbo culture around him. Upon his return to Umuofia from his motherland, everything has changed among the Igbo people. The white men had completely torn apart a culture which at one point seemed to be so strong. Some had even been converted into Christians and almost everyone was questioning their own beliefs. According to Stephen Criswell, when Okonkwo returned, he had a decision to make between standing up for what he believed in and against what he hated, or complying with the white man’s way and being like everyone else in the tribe(Criswell). Unlike the others, Okonkwo would not back down, and that is why he is a hero. The Igbo culture was slowly being destroyed by the