Okonkwo Chapter 22

Okonkwo soon learns about this and confronts his son, Nwoye about his secret meetings, Okonkwo soon becomes enraged and disowns his son after hearing about his experience not before abusing him of course. This action causes an effect which ultimately leads to Okonkwo’s downfall. Okonkwo enraged by the spread of Christianity within his own village self-proclaims war on the “white man”. Okonkwo eventually was detained as a result of his actions towards the “white man”. After he was released from detainment Okonkwo killed a courier and began to truly understand he was a rebel without a cause as his fellow Tribesmen would not help him with his internal struggle. Okonkwo knowing, he would be caught and executed for his crimes, instead decided to ultimately end his own life by hanging himself. Okonkwo’s major downfall in the story was his inability to co-exist with the white man and began his own personal vendetta against the Christian missionaries. Throughout the story the main essential theme Achebe tried to relay to us would be the fact that even though individuals may be of different religions, skin color, and have different personalities there is a realization that

In Things Fall Apart, when the missionaries first come to Umuofia, Okonkwo is very adamant in resisting their ways. He refuses to conform to them and holds fast to his traditional beliefs. He believes that Christianity is “womanly” and his own practices

The evangelists are very accepting, as they take in the osu, outcasts from the clan. They offer salvation along with freedom, which Nwoye has been searching for for a long time. However, because of Nwoye’s action, Okonkwo disowns him. Later, when Obierika goes to visit Okonkwo, he finds that “Okonkwo [does] not wish to speak about Nwoye.” Moreover, Okonkwo tells his other children that “if any one of [them] prefers to be a woman, let him follow Nwoye” (Achebe, 172). Okonkwo then asks himself how he could have “begotten a woman for a son” (Achebe, 153). According to Okonkwo, Nwoye has become weak because he has joined another religion. Since Okonkwo believes he is the most masculine man in Umuofia, it is unbearable that his child turned out to be such a failure. This unbearable change in his family creates a ripple effect of events that become worse and worse for Okonkwo.

The Christian church had finally won him over with their answers to questions he had been asking his whole life. All that was left was to cut the ties with his old life, with his father. But his father was the one to make the first move. After learning of his sons visit to the church Okonkwo grabbed him by the throat in a misguided search for a reason why. “Nwoye struggled to free himself from the choking grip” (page 151) Even when he has fully lost his son to the new religion, Okonkwo still tries to use violence to mold his son into what he perceives a man should be, which illustrates the nature of their relationship. It had always been fueled by anger on Okonkwo's part and fear on Nwoye's. It takes people screaming at him to let his son go for Okonkwo to finally give up, but this attack was the last straw and he was finally able to free himself of his father. "But he left hold of Nwoye, who walked away and never returned.” (page 152) Though Okonkwo did not learn from this experience, Nwoye did. He learned that his father's violence and anger could no longer control him, and that there was an escape available, though it was an escape to another culture that he most likely did not fully believe in either but at the very least, this one did not have Okonkwo. "Nwoye did not fully understand. But he was happy to leave his father."(page 152) Okonkwo's goal had always been to make Nwoye 'manlier' as he was afraid of the shame having a feminine son would

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.

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

Once the egwugwu went to confront Mr. Smith for the killing of one of their members, Mr. Brown’s ignorance and rudeness were revealed even greater than before when he refused to leave the grounds when asked. Because of the reputation and the friendships that were built by Mr. Brown, Mr. Smith was treated with the same respect when confronted by the spirits. Unfortunately, Mr. Smith still would not go and respect the wishes of “the spirits and leaders of Umuofia” despite their kindness regarding the situation at hand. Although “Mr. Smith stood his ground… he could not save his church” (pg. 191) and the hands of the egwugwu tore apart the hard work Mr. Brown put into the church in Umuofia before having to leave both physically and

A character with a tragic flaw is one who consistently makes a particular error in their actions and this eventually leads to their doom. Okonkwo, a perfect tragic character, is driven by his fear of unmanliness, which causes him to act harshly toward his fellow tribesmen, his family and himself. He judges all people by how manly they act. In Okonkwo’s eyes a man is a violent, hard working, wealthy person and anyone who does not meet these standards he considers weak.

Perhaps it becomes clearer how much of an accomplishment it is to stay oneself in unforgiving circumstances when it is shown how it can feel like it is best to just give up. At the beginning of Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is a stern man who had to support himself from a very young age, and through his tireless work, rises up the ranks to become one of the greatest man in the Igbo village of Umuofia. Okonkwo, because of the lazy and carefree nature of his father, Unoka, has very rigid, harsh beliefs about strength and responsibility. During and after his seven-year exile from Umuofia brought on by an accidental killing, he notices a slow change coming about with the arrival of Christian missionaries from Britain, looking for converts. Eventually, the church established there becomes large enough to threaten the Umuofian religion and disrupt the villagers’ lives. Okonkwo’s identity is closely tied to his life and status in Umuofia, and the ideals

Okonkwo’s adherence to a tradition of cruelty that harms large groups of minorities leads to a pronounced division once Western missionaries establish their church: a church which allows for aspects of life that tribal law did not. His adherence to traditional law and inability to compromise — rigidity in a culture of flexibility — alienates family members, members of his community, and furthers an internal pressure which ultimately helps the pressures of colonialism. Okonkwo’s inflexible interpretation of tribal law, borne of a need to escape his father’s seemingly feminine weakness, leads to morally bankrupt decisions. Unable to settle on a compromise between law and morality, he murders Ikemefuna: although correct in the eyes of law, the action lacks morals, is purely driven by a need for social power and fear of seeming weak. Such personal conflict culminates in intense inner pressure on both Okonkwo’s part and on the part of the community as a whole, leading to a collapse of long standing unity when faced with the external pressure of missionaries, providing a “way out”. This culminates in a scene in which tribal leaders call for an attack on colonialist forces, including other tribal members which have joined the

     When Okonkwo returns to the village, he finds that the white man has moved in, bringing Christianity with him. This is a struggle that shows Okonkwo’s inflexibility and objection to change from tradition. Eventually, Okonkwo slay’s a man working for the British and ends up hanging himself as a result of his actions. Suicide is forbidden by the clan,

The missionaries conflict with everything Okonkwo believes or values. The missionaries are so outlandish to Okonkwo that his first reaction is just to laugh at them. This is shown on page 147, paragraph 4, “ At the end of it Okonkwo was fully convinced that the man was mad. He shrugged his shoulders and went away.” Okonkwo later begins to understand the threat the missionaries pose to his society and passionately speaks for forcing the missionaries out of Umuofia. However when his people will not listen to him, he feels like he is forced to take matters into his own hands. This is shown on page 204, paragraph 7,” Okonkwo’s machete descended twice and the man’s head lay beside his uniformed body”. The Ibo people do not join in on the violence as Okonkwo had hoped, which contradicted with Okonkwo belief that the Ibo were warrior people. This final loss of Okonkwo’s core beliefs is what shatters Okonkwo’s final sense of identity as a man. As Okonkwo is no longer any of the things he has come to identify himself as, and Okonkwo blames the missionaries for this, his final response to the missionaries is to take his own life. Okonkwo's death is shown on page 207, paragraph 3 “ Then they came to the tree from which Okonkwo’s body was dangling, and they stopped dead.” When Okonkwo identity was ripped from him he no longer saw a point in living and his fight with the

After Ikemefuna’s murder ”My father, they have killed me!” …” Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down.” (61). Okonkwo was scared to be weak, it seems like he associates weakness with felinity. Nwoye becomes closed and understands that he is forever changed. When the missionaries arrive Nwoye joins their side and converts into Christianity. Okonkwo hates that he has a rather feminine son and disowns him. Finally in the end Nwoye gains peace and forgets about his father’s terrible and violent atmosphere.

Okonkwo’s participation in the slaying of his adopted son, Ikemefuna is a pivotal moment in Things Fall Apart. It is a moment of horror that cannot please Ani, the great earth goddess, the center of community, the ultimate judge of morality for the clan. It is a moment that changes the course of events, a moment eerily paralleled in the death of Ezeudu’s son. It is a moment that ultimately causes Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye’s to abandon his ancestors and become a Christian. It is a moment when the center of community life, the need to honor blood ties and the need to respect the earth goddess, can no longer hold. It is a moment when things fall apart.

Okonkwo is a strong and confident man who has vowed to never be like his father Unoka. His father was lazy, unsuccessful and carried no titles. The relationship between Okonkwo and his father motivated Okonkwo to gain titles and become successful inside the clan. In this sense, Okonkwo has gained many titles, has three wives, and respected by the clan. Okonkwo chose to feel that identity in the clan was most important, and through this he had become a presence in the clan, noticed by the elders. However after the arrival of missionaries, who had come to convert the clans to Christianity, Okonkwo’s view is completely contradicted by the missionaries. Okonkwo had grown accustomed to members of the clan being ranked by certain tiers, while the