Okonkwo's Three Wives In Things Fall Apart

Even during a time of peace and love, Okonkwo cannot hold himself back from dealing out a harsh punishment to his wife. He does not care about traditions or his religion as much as he cares about being strong or making a point. This plays into the theme of Man vs. Society by showing how Okonkwo goes against the expectations of the tribe and the theme of Self-Made Man by showing how he treats the world around him to better himself. Okonkwo’s first thoughts are not that he should just be calm because of the time; they are ones of violence because that is how he has reacted to every situation. He actually forgets all about the holiday that was occurring then because of his anger. It should be noted that even when his other wives confront him to remind him about the sacred peace, he continues to beat his wife because he is not one to quit once he starts making an example out of

In things fall apart Okonkwo had the fear of becoming his father who was lazy and unsuccessful. Okonkwo didn’t give up when he didn’t inherit seeds from his father to start his farm. Instead, he begged Nwakibie for seeds and started his own farm from the ground up. Okonkwo could have let his fear turn him into a lazy unsuccessful person but in lieu of his fear he didn’t let it impact his working life in a negative way. He decided to be proactive and to get things done on his own, further proving that he was determined to be a great farmer, unlike his father.

Toil has a negative connotation as it refers to hard work without cessation. While Okonkwo was serving his punishment in exile, Obierika brought word to Mbanta about the government the white men had brought with them. In this government, the District Commissioner oversees the judging of “men who had offended against the white man’s law” (174). The court messengers were the ones who had to do hard work: they, nicknames “Ashy Buttocks,” were responsible for fetching the defendant and forcing prisoners to work (175). When Okonkwo finally returns to Umuofia, the District Commissioner continues to do his facile task of judging the Ibo people and dishing out punishments. To describe the District Commissioner’s work as a toil is an overstatement.

Okonkwo feels as though his seven year exile was a waste of time, so he plans on

Okonkwo’s fears affected his life by making him a hard worker, merciless, and causing his downfall. To start with, Okonkwo’s fear of becoming like his unsuccessful father drove him to be a hard worker. The narrator states, “Fortunately, among these people a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father. Okonkwo was clearly cut out for great things” (Achebe 8). Okonkwo soon became a wealthy farmer with three wives, and has a barn full of yams.

Okonkwo thinks he is the owner of his household and he shows no mercy to anyone who angers him. “He ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives…lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness.” (Achebe, Chapter 2, p.8). Okonkwo beats his children and wives because of his temper which is influenced by the Igbo society; he puts on a hard exterior because he is afraid of being weak and unsuccessful. At one point, he attempts to kill his second wife with a gun because he thinks she is the cause of a tree’s death. In order to prove his power and strength, without thinking of the consequences, Okonkwo beats his youngest wife during the week of peace - a week when the village celebrates peace and who ever disrupts the peace will be punished by Ala, the earth goddess (Lycos, online). “His first two wives ran out in great alarm pleading with him that it was the sacred week. But Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half-way through, not even for the fear of a goddess.” (Achebe, Chapter 4, p.21). Okonkwo lives in a male dominant society where men are pressured to be strong and successful; because of these influences, Okonkwo develops an inner

Okonkwo had a very tough childhood as he hated being the son of a lazy and improvident father, causing him to hate anything related to his father. A similar comparison can be made of his wife Ojiugo as “Okonkwo was provoked to justifiable anger by his youngest wife, who went to plait her hair at her friend’s house and did not return early enough to cook the afternoon meal”, showing that Ojiugo is just as irresponsible as Okonkwo’s father Unoka. Many comparisons can be made of Unoka to Ojiugo which has made Okonkwo resent their irresponsibility.

He is the greatest wrestler in the land and has four wives and a large land size and farm all of this and no thanks to his father Unoka. Growing up his father was poor and gave him no land and no wife and Okonkwo was forced to start his adult life from scratch. Because of his father Okonkwo fears laziness and everything his father enjoyed. “Even as a little boy he had resented his father’s failure and weakness,[...] a playmate had told him that his father was agbala. That was how Okonkwo first came to know that agbala was not only another name for a woman, it could also mean a man who had taken to title” (Things Fall Apart 12). If he see a sign of laziness in his children a punishment is followed. Because of his father's laziness it motivates him to succeed. This flaw of the fear of weakness and being like his father is one characteristic that makes him a tragic hero. He is a dedicated to the tradition of the Ibo culture and follows the traditions of his culture(reword this). Okonkwo is also ill-tempered he tends to beat his wife's if they do something wrong, once he threaten to get his gun. This can be seen from a statement in the book “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper” (12). Okonkwo can be described as a tragic

The description given early in the novel clearly establishes his character as being a strong and wealthy man who is well respected among the rest of the tribe due to his superior fighting abilities and his influential personality. Having achieved such elite status within the Umuofia clan, Okonkwo appears to be old-fashioned as it is seen in his approach in raising his family and tribal people. However, Okonkwo’s character changes incrementally with the emergence of a boy, Ikemefuna, from a neighboring village, who was brought to him because of his brutal attack against his wife Ojiugo during the ‘week of peace’. Amongst the Umuofia clan, the ‘week of peace’ is a tribal ritual whose conditions are not to complete any evil sins in a certain week span. After having accepted Ikemefuna into the family, Okonkwo experiences a shift in his mental state. Shortly hereafter, he questions this change, which demonstrates his lack of willingness to change which is clearly demonstrated in the book in several different ways like in chapter Eight, Okonkwo proclaims to himself, “When did you become a shivering old woman, you, who are known in all nine villages for your valour in war” (Achebe 56). This represents that his character has become a weaker, less influential individual amongst the nine tribes where he is well known. Symbolically, this depicts a fragile reputation in Okonkwo’s status within the community to which he belongs.

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

Okonkwo’s a wealthy respected warrior of a lower Nigerian tribe call the Umuofia clan. Some may say Okonkwo’s world fell apart because of his father, or even the amount of wives he had. One would suggest his world fell apart due to manly values and Christian values. Things exist in Okonkwos mind that he refuses to share with others. This could explain why Okonkwo was so angry and violent throughout the novel, leading up to his death.

Okonkwo is a man who has to have things his own way. In the novel, there is a scene where his second wife, Ojiugo, did not make him his afternoon meal. Okonkwo, in an act of anger, started to beat his wife heaviley. His other two wives begged for him to stop beating Ojiugo, as it was the Week of Peace, a sacred Igbo holiday. However, “...Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half-way through, not even for fear of a goddess” (Achebe 30). Despite believing that he may be punished by a god, Okonkwo did not stop beating his wife. Unoka was a more compassionate man than Okonkwo, he was also stubborn. Unoka was lazy and fiscally irresponsible. He spent what little money he had on alcohol and didn’t

The road to self-discovery is truly one of the most difficult journeys every person must experience. Although everyone encounters this exploration, not everyone can fulfill it. In Chinua Achebe’s postcolonial novel, Things Fall Apart, the author develops a character who, until the day of his death, cannot be true to his character. Even through Okonkwo’s many hardships, his lack of self-awareness remains in his perpetual need to be viewed as masculine, his abuse towards his family, and ultimately, his suicide. Okonkwo's insecurity in his identity causes him to make ceaseless attempts to validate his masculinity.

Okonkwo was known for his valor in war and his victory against Amalinze the Cat, Okonkwo believed that masculinity can only be shown through his violent action, in order to express his power, he often hit his wives and children, even during the Week of Peace. Nothing seemed to be able to stop him from being violent, because nice or caring personality is considered as weak or feminine. First case was when Ojiugo left without feeding her kid, and such action to Okonkwo was Ojiugo not doing her duty as stated “‘Did she ask you to feed then before she went?’ ‘Yes,’ lied Nwoye’s mother, trying to minimize Ojiugo’s thoughtlessness. Okonkwo knew she was not speaking the truth. He walked back to his obi to await Ojiugo’s return. And when she returned he beat her very heavily. In his anger he had forgotten that it was the Week of Peace” (Achebe 29). The word “beat heavily” implies that Okonkwo did not just beat Ojiugo, instead, it is in the form of domestic violence, the

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