Okonkwo Character Analysis

But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.” Many people believed that Okonkwo was such a cruel man because of the wall that he put up. This affected his family because he still continued to act tough with his wives and most of his kids, there was only one of his children that saw his soft side and that was Emzina, his daughter. He also thought a lot about one of the people he killed, which showed that he wasn’t the tough guy that everybody thought he was, but no matter what he refused to show any signs of weakness to avoid being like his

This is an example of the difference in personal beliefs among family. Some may say that the book is about the differences in beliefs between the Africans and the colonizers, but it is more than that. It is clear that it was Okonkwo's personal beliefs and not necessarily the views of the people of Umuofia which guided him in what he did. One of these is his reliance in the strength of anger. Although he felt strongly in the beliefs and customs of the Ibo people, there are several occasions in which Okonkwo made a decision to disobey the customs in order to live out his own personal beliefs. For example, in chapter four, Okonkwo is yelled at by Ezeani, the priest of the earth goddess, for beating his wife during the sacred week of peace. Okonkwo did not feel remorse for his actions and probably thought of it as a sign of strength and manhood. Okonkwo was always worried about being seen as weak. One good

tribe to be a week of peace Okonkwo beat up his third wife because she

We take a look at his personality and see that he had a warrior complex and machismo. For example in the novel on page 158 paragraph six it says “let us not reason like cowards.” His warrior complex turns everything he does like a battle plan. He wants there to be a fight or else they are not doing it right. Okonkwo’s machismo makes everyone else who is not like him not a man. In the book we see this on page 26 paragraph two “this meeting is for men.” He did not want to listen to the man because he was not well known like him and he did not have as many titles as okonkwo did. Both of these traits aided in the way he responded to the new culture.

In the novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo’s shame for his father, Unoka, motivates him to be everything his father wasn’t. As a result, Okonkwo hides behind masculinity and conceals his emotions, in hope of escaping weakness. Stubborn and impulsive, Okonkwo makes rash decisions to uphold his reputation, which affects his tribe and his family. Okonkwo’s constant fear of resembling his father takes over his ability compromise and causes him to suffer from depression, the “loss” of his son, the loss of

Chinua Achebe depicts a head strong warrior, Okonkwo, who holds his beliefs to be self-evident despite the evolution taking place right in front of him in ‘Things Fall Apart’. Since Achebe never clearly paints Okonkwo as purely good or evil, Okonkwo can be viewed as morally ambiguous because his brutal actions come from a place of hurt and he is gung-ho on his culture’s traditions. Moral ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole because Achebe is communicating all people fight an internal battle between good and evil.

In the novel Things Fall Apart, strength and pride are very important aspects of the main character, Okonkwo, however, these traits may sound like excellent traits to possess but because of the way he was raised, Okonkwo harbours many of his emotions under an outer shell of violence, strength and pride. His traits can be shown by looking at where he has come from in his life, for example, Okonkwo has acquired a large amount of wealth in his life because of his hard work and dedication which he also puts towards his family, unfortunately, his family also suffers greatly because of this due to Okonkwo’s high expectations of his children and his violent ways when they do not live up to them. Secondly, Okonkwo possesses hidden emotions that

For all of his desire to be strong, Okonkwo is caught up by the constant fear of being perceived as weak. He is afraid of failure and afraid of being considered weak. This fear drives him to do whatever he can to not become a failure like his father which ironically contributes to his death. While Okonkwo was a strong and important figure in his tribe, he had to keep his reputation that way by making some hard decisions. One of them was when he had to kill Ikemefuna, a young boy from the neighboring tribe. Okonkwo started accepting the decision to kill Ikemefuna because he started to call Okonkwo father. He had to keep his own valor intact and kill the boy to prevent himself from showing any weakness, but deep down, Okonkwo was really upset because of what he did which was ironic, “’When did you become a shivering old woman,' Okonkwo asked himself, 'you, who are known in all the nine villages for your valor in war? How can a man who has killed five men in battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.'" (Achebe 65). He continued to roll downhill when the white man comes to try and convert Okonkwo’s tribe. Okonkwo responds by killing one of the messengers that were sent. This cause Okonkwo's own tribe to question his actions. “"Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape.

He wanted to show that he was not like his father in any way. His father was a poor, lazy, man whom he didn't respect at all. Okonkwo gained respect through being a clansman. The clansmen were the law making body of the village, which everyone had obeyed. They enforced rules and laid down punishment.

Okonkwo’s story portrays the major differences between African culture and the idea that the Western society had on the African culture. Okonkwo is native to the Umuofia tribe and represented this oversized human being who with holds no emotion. All this makes Okonkwo seem very unrelatable and unfriendly, but this is what makes his relationships with the characters in the book so entertaining. For example, Okonkwo had a very negative connection with his father that affected him so much that it brought him to the point where it changed his life and is also the reason why he is so strict with his kids. With the introduction of these missionaries into the tribe, it completely changed the way the tribe acted and ended up bringing Okonkwo to a point where he had to pay the ultimate price. It was all because they couldn’t get along.

Okonkwo’s sense of greatness and leadership was not looked at anymore because of the Western ideas into the ibo culture. How people looked at him like he was a God and Warrior at the same time which came before the White men culture also came in place. He was a brave and strong men

In the novel novel Things Fall Apart, the author, Chinua Achebe, wants the character Okonkwo to be viewed as a highly masculine and strict brute. Throughout the novel there are glimpses of the harsh qualities that Okonkwo possesses that start to break. When Okonkwo is exiled to his mother's tribe, he noticed the vast differences between the two. He noticed how feminine and cowardice their actions are, so he starts to easy up and gets a little sense of when to be how he is usually and when to be how the people in his mother's tribe are. Although he starts making changes to how he is as a person, he quickly realizes how weak it makes him look and how weak his mother's tribe is. When the Christians started moving into his mother's tribe, the people of the tribe wanted discuss or compromise with them, but Okonkwo had other ideas. When talking to the council Okonkwo says, “ Let us not reason like cowards… If a man comes into my hut and defecates on the floor, what do I do? Do I shut my eyes? No! I take a stick and break his head” (158). This quote shows how the author wants

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.

As stated in Chapter Two on pages 13 to 14, Okonkwo ruled his household with a hand so heavy that his entire family lives in perpetual fear of his fiery temper and impatience. Okonkwo is a very rash person and, when in a fit of rage, does not think about the consequences of his actions, which inadvertently leads him to his own downfall. In committing these actions, it is not ludicrous to believe that Okonkwo will later receive consequences due to the immorality of these actions.

The story says, “Okonkwo was deeply grieved. And it was not just a personal grief. He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women,” (Achebe 183). His beliefs in this quote are very different from Appiah’s, they are opposite, contrasting views. Okonkwo’s largest contrast to Appiah’s views is that he refutes to accept change. Appiah argues that culture is built off change and is unavoidable. Appiah wrote, “Cultures are made of continuities and changes, and the identity of a society can survive through these changes,” (Appiah 107). If Okonkwo could have accepted the changed brought upon the village by Mr. Brown, then unnecessary punishment and death would have been avoided. In Appiah’s chapter on counter-cosmopolitanism, he stated, “These counter-cosmopolitans, once more like many Christian fundamentalists, do think there is one right way for all human beings to live,” (Appiah 156). This quote means that some people recognize diversity in beliefs, but do not consider them to be valid or correct by any means. These people believe that their view is the only correct one and nothing else matters. Okonkwo is a counter-cosmopolitan because he shares that exact thought, that his original way is the correct way and that there should never be change. This is why he