William Zhang Things Fall Apart Section One – Summary Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart narrates about Okonkwo’s life: starting from his background, highlighting his relationships with others, going into his exile, telling about his reaction to Christian influence on his culture, and finally ending with his death. After Okonkwo kills Ikemefuna, Nwoye, Okonkwo’s first son, converts to Christianity. Okonkwo hangs himself when he realizes that the previous warlike culture had fallen apart in the presence of Christian culture. Section Two – Characters/Quotes Okonkwo – “‘Do what you are told, woman,’ Okonkwo thundered, and stammered. ‘When did you become one of the ndichie of Umuofia?’” (14). Okonkwo’s misogynistic attitude and angry nature is shown when he yells at his wife. His stammering, however, also symbolizes his insecurities. …show more content…
Nwoye’s resentment of his father stems from multiple issues, but Nwoye’s conversion to Christianity was symbolically his separation from his father. Okonkwo was also the embodiment of their Ibo culture, which Nwoye found morally questionable after the deaths of the twins and Ikemefuna. Ezinma – “‘You have not eaten for two days,’ said his daughter Ezinma when she brought food to him. ‘So you must finish this’” (63). Ezinma and her father, Okonkwo, have a very close relationship. Multiple times throughout the book, Okonkwo wishes that Ezinma was a boy because she has “masculine” traits such as being responsible and mature. Section Three –
One of the ways that the pressure to be masculine affected Okonkwo was that it made him cruel towards his wives and children. His family was frightened by him and how quickly he would
Nwoye first begins to undergo changes when the missionaries set up a church.Okonkwo is very against the churches due to his religious beliefs, and would be enraged
Okonkwo and Walter may or may not have achieved it, but while their eyes are fixated on their end goals for success and what they are gaining, they overlook their losses. Because of Okonkwo’s fear of being regarded weak, he often acts overly aggressive to demonstrate his masculinity. Examples of his acting aggressive and cruel fills the entire novel. The first incident is his beating of his wife Ojiugo during the week of peace. No violence is permitted during this week, but Okonkwo breaks the laws only to establish his dominance in the house. Afterall, he cannot be “like the man in the song who had ten and one wives and not enough soup for his foo-foo” (Achebe 57). This incident is an indication of Okonkwo’s disregard for tribal laws because of how less they weigh than his masculinity does in his heart. After already losing respect for the Igbo cultures and customs, Okonkwo continues on losing a dear son. Ikemefuna is captured from
In the book Things Fall Apart by chinua achebe, theirs a character name okonkwo who is viewed as abusive, well known, and wealthy. The book consist of okonkwo and his conflicts within his compound. Throughout the book okonkwo will be faced with a lot of challenges.
9. “Okonkwo’s first son, Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness. At any rate, that was how it looked to his father, and he sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating. And so Nwoye was developing into a sad-faced youth.”
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.
Body Paragraph 1: Okonkwo has this prestige masculine image to uphold, at times throughout the novel we see his character break and layer by layer we see more sides of Okonkwo that you would not think were there. Okonkwo puts immense pressure on himself to be the exact opposite of his father. Therefore, we see this very masculine, harsh, stubborn and somewhat overbearing character. Unoka, his father was a failure, drunk and that gives Okonkwo great shame and a terrible fear of ending up like him. Throughout the novel Okonkwo rides a broom which is no surprise, but then we see these breaks in his character, sides of a humane Okonkwo slip out. For instance, his relationship with Enizma. Insert examples from the text of Okonkwo and Enzima- (more
However, he favored his daughter, Ezinma, the most out of all his children. "If Ezinma had been a boy [he] would have been happier." (66) Okonkwo thought Ezinma had "the right spirit"(66) to be a man because she was strong and loyal.
I would describe Nwoye as a very curious and sensitive character. Not everyone is proud of the man Nwoye had become, for example Okonkwo. “ Okonkwo’s first son, Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness.”(13/2). Based on his father's observation you can come to a conclusion that Nwoye was very lazy starting at a young age. As you can see Okonkwo was fairly disappointed on the person Nwoye had turned out to be. Okonkwo and Nwoye never had a great relationship and sums up Nwoye as very naive having none of Okonkwo's traits. “What are you doing here?” Obierika had asked when after many difficulties the missionaries had allowed him to speak to the boy. “I am one of them”, replied Nwoye.”(144/2). Nwoye
Because Okonkwo was never too fond of Nwoye, as he was towards his daughter Enzima or even Ikemefuna a non related child, Nwoye didn’t gain a father son relationship. Nwoye, as a child, knew his fathers tributes and character so tried to not to anger him. This included listening to explicit stories depicting death and violence even though he preferred his mothers stories about animals learning morals. As the time went by Nwoye started becoming more distant with his father. Finally, when the European starting practicing and trying to convert their religion to the Ibo, Nwoye felt something awaken and mesmerizing about them. It was depicted by stating, “He did not understand it. It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow. The hymn about brothers
Following Nwoye’s departure from Okonkwo’s Mbanta compound to become a Christian, Okonkwo sits in his hut and ponders the state of himself and the state of his son, where he has a temporary reminiscence of an old powerful nickname. Achebe tells us,
In the book, Okonkwo's father was a terrible man. He did not care for hard work and instead, kept borrowing money from his friends and neighbors. His father was so bad that when he died, he left Okonkwo no money, just a huge debt to pay off. Okonkwo then decides to be the exact opposite type of person than what his father was. Okonkwo sees his father's laid back nature as 'feminine' which is one of the main contributors to Okonkwo's sexism. It is just like Linda Strong-Leek says, "...it is Okonkwo's seeds of self-destruction, which are deeply concealed in his desire to be the antitheses of his "feminine" father." (Strong-Leek). What Strong-Leek suggests here is that the reason Okonkwo cares so much about feminine actions and his extreme sexist attitude is due to his need to be the opposite of his father who Okonkwo deems 'feminine' because his father was not a strong, hardworking
In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo is a young man of great honor and respect. Okonkwo dwells in Umuofia, a city of brave, young warriors just like himself. The men of Umuofia seem to be in complete control of the city, until they get an unwanted visit from a band of European missionaries. The arrival of these missionaries shatters bonds in Umuofia as well as spoiling old traditions, but also gives some clan members a sense of equality.
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
Okonkwo's fear of being perceived as weak tragically leads to him to be unnecessarily violent and excessively prideful. These two fatal flaws lead to Okonkwo’s own emotional isolation, and his inevitable downfall. Driven by the fear of being seen as weak and emasculated, Okonkwo exhibits hyper masculinity and rage. Although this behavior initially leads to success in the patriarchal society of Umofia, rage is his greatest bane: it masks his compassion and pusillanimity. Onkonkwo’s obsession to never appear feminine is driven to the extreme. He denies affection even to his own family, “never show[ing] any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger. To [Okonkwo] show[ing] affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength.” (pg. 28). Okonkwo whose “whole life [is] dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.” (pg. 13) suppress his compassion in order to appear important and manly. Ironically this creates a stark juxtaposition between his own fear and his position as an alpha male. Rather than being masculine and courageous, Okonkwo just creates tension within his family and within himself. The pinnacle of this extreme hypermasculinity is when Okonkwo ignores the wisdom of the elder Ezeudu, and violently kills his “son” Ikamafuna: “As the man who had cleared his throat drew up and raised his machete, Okonkwo looked away. He had heard Ikamafuna cry “My father, they have killed me!”