Okonkwo's Character In Things Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe features the character Nwoye, the son of one of the strongest and most powerful men in the village, Okonkwo. Okonkwo is scared of failure because that is what his father became, so he is incredibly harsh on Nwoye. When the western men invade, Nwoye is torn between two worlds: converting to Christianity where he can start a new life, orstaying loyal to his family and village. Nwyoe ultimately makes the choice to go against his father. Due to the arrival of western culture, Nwoye leaves his family, converts to Christianity, and changes his name.

In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe employs imagery, symbolism, and themes to reveal the story of Okonkwo. Throughout the novel he weaves in these things to really tell us the tale.

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a story about personal beliefs and customs, and also a story about conflict. There is struggle between family, culture, and the religion of the Ibo, which is all brought on by a difference in personal beliefs and customs of the Igbo and the British. There are also strong opinions of the main character, Okonkwo. We are then introduced to the views of his village, Umuofia. We see how things fall apart when these beliefs and customs are confronted by those of the white missionaries.

The first of the five traits, hamartia, is defined as the tragic flaw that causes the downfall of the hero. Okonkwo fits this description perfectly as he bears an unmistakable flaw which is his fear of being weak and unsuccessful. Okonkwo’s hamartia causes a lot of issues in his life and it eventually leads to his demise. An exceptional example of Okonkwo’s tragic flaw is when he kills his adopted son, Ikemefuna, because he was afraid of being thought of as “weak”(Page 61, TFA). The second trait, hubris, is defined as excessive pride and disregard for the natural order of things. Once again, Okonkwo perfectly suits this

Okonkwo’s main characteristics as he is depicted in the first few chapters are he is a well respected warrior and determined individual of the Umuofia clan throughout the nine villages and beyond. Okonkwo is a well

Things Fall Apart takes place in a Nigerian tribe such as the one Okonkwo, the main protagonist, lives in. Okonkwo is a very independent, impatient African leader. Throughout the story the tribe Umofia demonstrates many of their religious beliefs, traditions and ways they go about their normal life. In the novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe Okonkwo is affected by Christianity, impacting the way he is accepted back into Umofia or the way he lives.

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.

In the novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is portrayed as a respected and determined individual whose fatal flaw eventually works against him. Throughout the novel the readers are shown that Okonkwo has many of these Characteristics because he is obsessed with the idea of becoming just like his father. This becomes his flaw in the novel that puts him into exile and makes it hard for him to adjust to the changes that were made with in his village.

One of the most commonly asked questions about the novel Things Fall Apart is: why did Achebe choose a tragic hero, Okonkwo, as the main character in the story. According to Nnoromele, “A hero, in the Igbo cultural belief system, is one with great courage and strength to work against destabilizing forces of his community, someone who affects, in a special way, the destinies of others by pursuing his own. He is a man noted for special achievements. His life is defined by ambivalence, because his actions must stand in sharp contrast to ordinary behavior”(Nnoromele). In my opinion, he chose this type of hero to show the correlation between Okonkwo’s rise and fall in the Igbo society to the rise and fall of the Igbo culture itself. Many

The focus of the individual is prominent in Things Fall Apart, a tale of an almost anti-social being in a world dominated by change.  Achebe's main character, Okonkwo, is the window to the dramatization of social, economic, and political change of the nation known as Nigeria.  The focus of the narrative is the struggle of a strong and well respected individual to maintain his own life course, and to differentiate this outcome from the end result of his lethargic father's life.  The story embodies the ideal of embracing the individual's goals and aspirations to yield an outcome

In Things Fall Apart Okonkwo is defeated by forces that are beyond his control because when he goes back to his village he sees that it has changed and is more religious and ends up committing suicide. “Then they came to the tree from which Okonkwos body was dangling and they stopped dead.” The evidence supports the claim because when the commissioners came to Okonkwos compound he was not there. The commissioners were led to a bush were led to a tree on which okonkwos body was dangling. Okonkwo is defeated by forces that are beyond his control because when the commissioner found the tree Okonkwo was hanging off the tree.

Okonkwo’s fear of unmanliness is kindled by his father, who was a lazy, unaccomplished man. Okonkwo strives to have a high status from a young age and eventually achieves it. He has a large family, many yams and is well known throughout the village for his valor. He

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

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.

Everyone has goals in life ,and strives to complete these goals throughout the course of their lives. Although it may be challenging to accomplish these goals, a person needs to know when to stop pushing themselves. In the novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, a stubborn man who lives in an African village strives to be the alpha male among everyone he knows. Okonkwo, once a great man, fell because his father's influence, his personality and the invading British.