Things Fall Apart, Animal Farm, And Frankenstein, By Chinua Achebe

Beloved, by Toni Morrison, and Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, are masterpieces of literature that use different components to criticize society and explore the nature of humankind. Some of the main characters in the novels – Sethe and Beloved, and Victor Frankenstein and the Monster – have intricate relationships based on love, hatred, remorse, and mainly vengeance. The gothic thematic of each novel is demonstrated through elements that explore the setting of most scenes, as well as the nature of human behavior. The characters who were unnaturally brought to life, Beloved and the Monster, serve as catalysts for the development of the narrative, and have profound effects in all remaining characters.

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 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, author of Things Fall Apart, once said: “A man who makes trouble for others is also making troubles for himself”. This concept can be seen in the development of Okonkwo as a character throughout the book. Creating plenty of trouble for others, but ultimately creating the most trouble for himself is possibly the plot for the entire book. Generally, the creation of trouble is not a value that is appreciated in any culture, especially in Umuofia. Okonkwo breaks many of the boundaries and social norms within his culture; his tendency to be immature and unaccountable combined with being very self-concerned and the defiance of elders creates an interesting mix adjacent to the cultural standards.

Okonkwo's first and most prominent flaw is his fear of becoming a failure. It is greatly influenced by his father, but Okonkwo takes his fear to the extreme. Okonkwo's father was a very lazy and carefree man. He had a reputation of being "poor and his wife and children had just barely enough to eat... they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back." (Achebe Page: 5) In Umuofia, a father is supposed to teach the children right and wrong, and in this case, the lessons were not taught, but self-learned. Okonkwo had to rely on his own interpretations of what defined a "good man" and to him that was someone that was the exact opposite of his father. As a result of his own self-taught conclusions, Okonkwo feels that anything resembling his father or anything that his father enjoyed was weak and unnecessary. Because of his fear to be seen as weak, Okonkwo even strikes down a child that calls him father: "(and as the machete came down] Okonkwo looked away. He heard the blow... He heard Ikemefuna cry 'My father, they have killed me!'... Okonkwo draws his machete and cuts him down, he does not want to be thought weak." (Achebe page:61) The fact that he kills the child shows that the way that he thinks is wrong, that reputation is more important than the life of a child. Although it is a shame to be

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 strives all of his life to become a stronger, more powerful, and a successful individual. He wants to do this because his father was a slack and lazy person who lived most of his life in debt and had no titles to his name. People often looked at his father as a women figure for the few achievements he redeemed. Okonkwo never wanted to be like his father and it eventually got to the point where he became fearful of becoming like him. Achebe uses the power of fear as a theme of to show how much it can devastate one’s

Achebe uses Okonkwo’s relationship with his father to show how one person can affect a person their whole life. Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, did not give Okonkwo the start in life that most of the young tribesman do, and all of the village looked down upon him. In one instance Unoka had gone to consult the Oracle of the Hills and the caves about his meager harvest during the year. As he began his story the Oracle interrupts him and declares that “You, Unoka, are known in all the clan for the weakness of your machete and your hoe. … Go home and work like a man”(Achebe 17-18). In this encounter Unoka loses some of the respect that the tribesman, and his own son had for him. (Unoka’s Death?) From the beginning Okonkwo knew he did not want to grow up like his father and worked hard to generate a prosperous future. He had to work extremely hard, would do

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.

According to Achebe, the main character detested his father at a very young age, “Even as a little boy he had resented his father’s failure and weakness, and even now he still remembered how he had suffered when a playmate had told him that his father was agbala.”(28) The Igbo tribe in Things Fall Apart uses the term an “agbala” which is used to describe “woman”. Okonkwo considered his father to be weak, effeminate, poor, disgraceful, and always in debt to his fellow tribes people. Okonkwo’s life revolves around the deep fear of becoming a failure and adopting the image of his father. Due to this self rooted perception of failure there are indications that he tries to rise above his father’s legacy.

Throughout the book Chinua Achebe illustrates Okonkwo’s relationship with his father, Unoka, to be a negative, tenuous, and non-existent. At the beginning of the novel the reader can already start to tell the opposition of the two characters when Achebe introduces them. Unoka is portrayed to be, “tall but very thin and [have] a slight stoop. He [wears] a haggard and mournful look except when he was drinking or playing on his flute” (3). Unlike his drunken and lazy father, Okonkwo, “was tall and huge, and his bushy eyebrows and nose gave him a very severe look” (1). Okonkwo was fierce and strong while on the other hand is father was lazy, weak, and feminine. The reader can tell that Unoka and Okonkwo were extremely different which plays a

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.

Things Fall Apart, written by Chinua Achebe, depicts the life of a clansman of Umuofia, known as Okonkwo. Okonkwo was one of the wealthiest and respected men of his tribe. He gained respect as a great wrestler in his clan, and worked to surpass his father, Unoka’s image, which had been sullied by unpaid debts, and his work-shy attitude. Unoka was no man to Okonkwo, for Unoka had not taken any titles in his clan, therefore, he was nothing more than a woman in Okonkwo’s eyes. In such a patriarchal society being called a woman was disgraceful, and Okonkwo wanted nothing to do with anything womanly, and in turn he wanted nothing of his father, including any traits he carried, righteous or not. Okonkwo’s twisted view of masculinity and lack of compassion creates high expectations. When Okonkwo begins to see that his clan, family, and he himself cannot reach his expectations of strength, he will have nothing the turn to, but the noose that fate has made for him. The Igbo proverb “The thought that led a man to truncate his own existence was not conceived in a day” applies to Okonkwo’s suicide, which had begun with his twisted ideology of masculinity. The thoughts that led Okonkwo to commit suicide originate within his perception of weakness tied to his father; he sees this weakness in his son, in his tribe, and in himself. Okonkwo is disappointed in his son Nwoye for becoming so much like Unoka, he is ashamed of his clan for conforming to the views of the Christians, and he is

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.