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Things Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe

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In the same way every character is going to have a fatal flaw, backstory, etc. they 're also going to have an inner driving force. Characters ' driving force is what authors use to rationalize their characters ' actions and explain the reasoning behind them whether it 's ignorance or an incorrect belief. No one character is evil just for the sake of being evil and no one is without fault. Every character is just doing what they think is right. The protagonist of the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, a man named Okonkwo, lives in the Umuofia village of Nigeria in western Africa during the early 1900s, pre-european rule, and he is no exception. He is unlikeable and unsympathetic in many ways and it 's easy to argue that his driving force and fatal flaw are one in the same; hubris. But I beg to differ, on many occasions Okonkwo proves it 's not pride driving his actions but rather cowardice. This cowardice is manifested from his internalized misogyny, leads him to make many bad decisions, and though he rationalizes his actions to be what are expected of him it is shown that they aren 't synonymous with his societies ' values.
Throughout the book Okonkwo continually chooses bad courses of action. The beginning of the book establishes the root cause of Okonkwo’s misogyny. The following quote reveals that Okonkwo is not an inherently cruel character- nor is he intentionally trying to be harrowing, but rather his callous demeanor stems from what he found to be a

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