Okonkwo's Characters In Things Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe

Okonkwo life is “dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness” (Achebe 13). When Okonkwo was a boy, his playmates teased him calling, saying that his father was agbala. Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, was lazy. He did not work on his farm; he died in great debt. He did not acquire a single title. He did not have a barn to pass down to his son. Unoka is a type of man who is scorned in Umofia. He is seen as weak and effeminate. As Okonkwo grows older, he is determined not become a failure like his father. His father was weak; he will be strong. His father was lazy; he will be hard-working. Okonkwo earned his fame by defeating the reigning wrestling champion. Okonkwo diligently plants yam, building a successful farm. He builds himself an obi, has three wives and many children. His fame “rested on solid personal achievements” (Achebe 3). Okonkwo will not let one womanly trait sully his reputation. Therefore, he “hate[d] everything that his father Unoka had loved” (Achebe 13). One of these was gentleness. Okonkwo refuses to show any signs of emotion, except his temper. He

In the novel, Things Fall Apart, written by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo is a sympathetic character and unsympathetic character in regards to his family relationships with his adopted son, Ikemefuna, his daughter, Ezima, and his father, Unoka, as a result of he appears to genuinely care about his family; but, the pride within himself prevents his expression of such pride and concern openly.

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

In the beginning, Okonkwo feared being like his father, he raised his family and built up his life by his self because he did not want to be like his father. “He had no patience with unsuccessful men. He had had no patience with his father.” (pg. 1 TFA) the book said. He wasn’t very fond of his dad; his dad did not own much and had a lot of debt with everyone. Okonkwo did not want to grow up like his father; “In his

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

Okonkwo is initially introduced as a proud, hardworking, successful warrior. He is described as "clearly cut out for great things" (6). But he is the son of a ne'er-do-well father; though genial and inoffensive, Unoka must certainly have been considered a failure. He is lazy and does not provide for his family. Not only is this disgraceful, but life-threatening as well. He is dependent on other members of the clan and must have been considered unsuccessful. Okonkwo chafes under such disgrace and his success is a consequence of his desire to be everything his father is not; society's vision of an exemplar citizen. The fact that Okonkwo is able to rise above his poverty and disgraceful paternity illustrates the Igbo's acceptance of individual free will. But Okonkwo's fate and his disharmony with his chi, family and clan are shown to cause his ultimate disgrace and death.

Determination is one of Okonkwo's most outstanding characteristics. Because of his undying obsession to be unlike his father, Okonkwo is determined to be exactly what is father is not. Since childhood, Okonkwo has been ashamed of his father, because according to the clansmen Okonkwo's father did not meet the standards that the men of that time should have met. Unoka, Okonkwo's father, never had a real job/title. He didn't become a warrior because he hated the sight of blood, which according to their society made him a coward. He often borrowed money from the clan, and hardly repaid them the loan. However, he was not a complete waste of a person, he was talented in music and conversation, and was also thought to be a gentle person. As we see in the novel, Okonkwo was very much the opposite of his father. He had a job/title, he had a large family, he was a warrior, and he never needed to borrow excessive amounts of money from the clan. All of Unoka's Characteristics, even the good ones, Okonkwo didn't want to possess them. It was his ignorance along with his flaw that led him to his ultimate fall.

Okonkwo the son of the useless and unimportant father Unoka strives to become rich and successful in the Ibo, unlike his father who was simple, poor and always was in debt from all of the people around. Okonkwo tries to

First, Okonkwo starts off as a poor child, as shown when the book states, “Okonkwo did not have the start in life which many young men usually had, he did not inherit a barn from his father. There was no barn to inherit” showing that Okonkwo and his family were penurious, compared to others in the Igbo tribe (Achebe 16). Eventually, through his hard work and effort, he became a noble leader, which emphasizes his role as a tragic hero. Throughout the story Okonkwo goes through many challenges, but “In the face of futility, however, he maintains his nobility of character”(Gaydosik).

Okonkwo's father, Unoka, was "a failure," "a loafer," and "People laughed at him" (1426). This would bring great shame to any man as it did for Okonkwo. In Umuofia "a man is judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father" (1427). In Umuofia "achievement was revered." Okonkwo became obsessed with the need to prove to everyone that he, unlike his father, was a man

When Okonkwo accidentally kills a person, Okonkwo had committed the female crime of the possible male/female crime. This is a very intriguing event that happened because Okonkwo in a way acted like a woman, which is the exact opposite of what he wanted to do in the course of his life. Ever since he was young, he didn’t want to be anything like his father, who was known by everyone as agbala. (A.k.a. woman or someone who has taken no title). Someone had explained to Okonkwo what an agbala was: “…when a playmate had told him that his father was agbala.” (Achebe, 13). From this point on, Okonkwo would have done anything in his power to be a man and to somehow take a title for himself in his community, unlike Unoka. However, he shows complexity

In the above passage, the author addresses the epiphany Okonkwo has about his disgraced son. “Living fire begets cold, impotent ash.” (Achebe 153). This is how the author described Okonkwo’s sudden realization about his son using the imagery of a powerful fire smoldering down to ashes. Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son, abandoned his life in his village of birth to join a Christian ministry, a decision that was greatly frowned upon by Okonkwo and his people. This decision which Okonwko views as effeminate causes him to realize that his own fiery and strong demeanor could not have produced anything less than useless ash, which is proved by his Nwoye’s life decisions. Additionally, the personification “in sympathy the smoldering log also sighed” (153) emphasizes

Okonkwo, as seen in Chapter One on pages 3 to 8, was a man born into the unlucky fate of having a father like Unoka. Unoka was a lazy and incompetent man who died an

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

Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, was the opposite person that Okonkwo wants to be. He was poor, only had one wife, had no titles, and hated fighting. By being born into Unoka's home Okonkwo had to start completely from scratch: “Okonkwo did not have the start in life which many young