Examples Of Dialectical Journal For Things Fall Apart

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

This is the modern, everyday life of many unfortunate people. For People of all ages. You can hear on the news about wives and children and even husbands who were killed in acts of rage and domestic violence. Even though I am unable to relate to this certain passage, I was still touched and I actually felt sympathy for these fictitious characters.

Okonkwo's fear of being perceived as weak tragically leads to him to be unnecessarily violent and excessively prideful. These two fatal flaws lead to Okonkwo’s own emotional isolation, and his inevitable downfall. Driven by the fear of being seen as weak and emasculated, Okonkwo exhibits hyper masculinity and rage. Although this behavior initially leads to success in the patriarchal society of Umofia, rage is his greatest bane: it masks his compassion and pusillanimity. Onkonkwo’s obsession to never appear feminine is driven to the extreme. He denies affection even to his own family, “never show[ing] any emotion openly, unless it be the emotion of anger. To [Okonkwo] show[ing] affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength.” (pg. 28). Okonkwo whose “whole life [is] dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.” (pg. 13) suppress his compassion in order to appear important and manly. Ironically this creates a stark juxtaposition between his own fear and his position as an alpha male. Rather than being masculine and courageous, Okonkwo just creates tension within his family and within himself. The pinnacle of this extreme hypermasculinity is when Okonkwo ignores the wisdom of the elder Ezeudu, and violently kills his “son” Ikamafuna: “As the man who had cleared his throat drew up and raised his machete, Okonkwo looked away. He had heard Ikamafuna cry “My father, they have killed me!”

My personal interpretation of this selection is that no matter how good, rich, powerful, or beautiful you may be, there is always someone who is better than you. You can try and try for many years, (where as many and most people try for their entire life) to be the best, but sadly you will never be the best no matter how good you end up being in the long run.

There are multiple details that stood out as particularly true to life in my view. One was the nariartator that it is telling the story/ his view point main character mentions what check out aisle number. It mentions how the three girls looked. The character payed attention to how the girl that seem to be the leader was walking saying “she came down a little hard on her heels, as if she didn’t walk in her bare feet much” this quote helps you picture how the person and might help picture what the girl was walking like. He gave details to where he was and what he was doing when the three girls was doing. He mentions that “I’m in the third check-out slot with my back to the door so that I didn’t see them until they had reach the bread” this helps the reader to set up an mental image of the store as they are reading.

Thank you the M-1 Marvels for allowing me to be apart of the huddle this week!

Paragraph 1 tone : He seems nervous about this trip He says ,“We’ve all been up since midnight, starting our predive checks after a couple of restless hours of sleep, and the whole team is running on adrenaline. These are the roughest conditions I’ve dived in so far on the expedition” The way he says that they’ve been up the whole night doing checks without sleep and how this is one of the roughest conditions he has dived in so far just gives the sense of nervousness if he will make the challenge.

Pg 379- “In Sugamo prison, as he was told of Wantanbe’s fate, all Louie saw was a lost person, a life now beyond redemption. HE felt something that he had never felt for his captor before. With a shiver of amazement, he realized that it was compassion.”

1) “They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment” (O’Brien 20).

B. The exile Okonkwo faces only adds more to his anger and bitterness. Okonkwo’s alienation causes him to have a pessimistic outlook, focusing more on what has been taken from him.

Okonkwo has a distorted view of what being a man is compared to his clan. He associates masculinity with being aggressive and the only emotion he shows, is anger. He never thinks before he acts, he acts head strongly and savagely. In his eyes, his dad is a failure and a disgrace to the Ibo culture. He strives to be the complete opposite of his father.

There were several instances when the characters are given a chance, or experienced humaneness from a stranger. For example, when Gabi was chosen to help Herr Furst, a German engineer, pave roads, Furst noticed the conditions Gabi faced and decided to help Gabi out even if it meant he would be punished for it. He left part of his meal for Gabi almost daily, so that Gabi would have something with nutritional value to eat. According to Gene himself, to this day, he credits his survival to this man, even though he does not know his actual name or anything about him. In another instance, when the girls were walking through the town to their factory, they would often be mocked or made fun of by the townspeople. One day, a man stood up for them, and this gave the women,

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

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).

Different countries have people that hold many different views and beliefs. In Nigeria the Igbo area is located in the southern area of the country. And within this area is Umuofia, which is where the Ogidi tribe lives. These people have beliefs that rest strongly on religion and faith in god. "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe takes a look at the life of an African tribe that has been isolated from the outer more technologically advanced world where science has become a part of religion proving that certain things live sickness are not caused by evil spirits. But the African tribe has no knowledge of this and they live in a society where there traditions, beliefs and there forms of communication differ from are own.