Things Fall Apart Superstitions

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

In the novel, “Things Fall Apart”, Okonkwo, who lead the major role in the story, was characterized by fear and very weak thoughts in his personal life. He doesn’t want his home at Umuofia to be familiar in the change of time and progress. The isolation of his organization in the Umuofia community is considered as worth and meaningful in his own life instead. Okonkwo is very much drifted towards external forces due to stress affiliation with his father since his childhood. When the organization in society of Umuofia altered, his methods and self-assessment failed to adapt to this alteration. So he could not adjust to function his ways into a new environment and thus his fears slowly started to collapse everything around him.

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.

Following Okonkwo’s seven year exile, the village Okonkwo once knew has changed due to the influence of Christianity and the influence of the British missionaries and officers. Okonkwo’s initial reaction is to arm the clan against the Colonisers and drive the British people out of Igbo.

In Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe employs imagery, symbolism, and themes to reveal the story of Okonkwo. Throughout the novel he weaves in these things to really tell us the tale.

tribe to be a week of peace Okonkwo beat up his third wife because she

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.

In the novel Things Fall Apart, the use of violence in Ibo culture was fairly frequent, especially among the men in the village. In the Ibo village of Umuofia, it was obvious that the men rule the household with a heavy hand, meaning if they felt a beating was necessary they would carry it out with full force. In chapter four of the novel, Okonkwo’s youngest wife decided to plait her hair at a friend’s house. When she did not come home early enough to cook the afternoon meal and failed to ask another wife to feed her children, Okonkwo decided to take it upon himself to give her a hefty beating. The fact that it was supposed to be the Week of Peace did not stop him. The reality that the men take it upon themselves and are expected to control

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.

Throughout the book “Things Fall Apart”, Okonkwo has always been an issue. He has made many mistakes using violence before and has had consequences for all of them. Some of them were worse than others. The violent actions that Okonkwo has done like when he killed the clansman’s son or when he killed Ikemefuna, has developed the theme of respect and reputation. Killing Ikemefuna was definitely one of the biggest moments of violence that Okonkwo has made.

Okonkwo strives to not be compared to his father, which means that he must work hard, provide for his family, be brave, and be as masculine as he can. As a result he obtains a high title in his community in which he earned by fighting and defeating Cat in a wrestling match. Okonkwo also has three wives, and shows off his wealth by building three huts for them to live in along with his own. He would work “During the planting season Okonkwo worked daily on his farms from cock-crow until the chickens went to roost.” (Achebe 13) to make his living. The people of the Idgo culture values work ethics in the field because that is how they profit and become successful. Agriculture is highly valued as they state they depend on the universe for survival. Even when Okonkwo was exiled he still found work to do in the fields and

The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe tells the story of Okonkwo, an African man of great importance in his clan, being forced to face a loss of his titles and prestige in exile, and the arrival of British colonists. Things Fall Apart focuses on a central idea of change and coping with it. In the beginning of the book Okonkwo is established as a character who is very capable of overcoming adversity, as shown by his becoming a man of great titles even though he had a lazy father and started with nothing. All of part one of the book is dedicated to establishing what is normal for Okonkwo and his clan and just how important and high ranking he is. In this part he also faces an important change in his life. He is given a child to look after

Things Fall Apart is an example encompasses the life, nature, and traditional culture of Africans. Chinua uses Okonkwo, a fierce and champion fighter, to show how Africans led their life with regards to the way they observed traditions, lived in harmony with each other and worked hard to provide food for their families. For instance, when the gods desire the life of Ikemefuna, the village boy whom the Umuofia village had been given in a debt settlement

In the beginning, Achebe states that, “Fortunately among these people a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father” (Achebe 8). This quote is a solid structure in defining what this book is truly about. Okonkwo was not to be judged by his father's lack of integrity, and incoherent thinking abilities, but by whom he is. Reputation plays a key role as a theme in this novel, along with Okonkwo’s fear of following his father’s footsteps and the internal conflict that comes along with Okonkwo’s battle with himself and to keep the tribe united.

“In response to Conrad's stereotypical depiction of Africans, Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart through the point of view of the natives to show Africans, not as primitives, but as members of a thriving society. Things Fall Apart follows Okonkwo's life as he strives for prestige in his community. When European missionaries come to Umuofia, Okonkwo's clan, Okonkwo tries to protect the culture that the missionaries would destroy in the name of "civilizing" the natives. However his rigid mentality and violent behavior has the opposite of its intended effect, perpetuating the stereotype of the wild African in the eyes of the