Tragic Hero

Okonkwo is a prideful man who does not like admitting when he is in the wrong, because he is like this he decided he would take his fate into his own hands. Okonkwo was so upset that he killed himself. He thought that by killing himself, he would control his own destiny instead of letting the Europeans control him. “I will never let a white cheeked man control my life.” (Achebe 96). This is ironic, because suicide in the Ibo tribe is known as sin, and is a cowardly way to die. Okonkwo's life ambition was to prove himself as a man and to show the clan and tribe members that he was nothing like his “lazy feminine father” (Achebe 18) but when he killed himself nothing that he did his whole life really mattered,

To begin, Okonkwo is shown to be a self made, well respected member of the Umuofia clan. Though, he seems stern, most of his life is dictated with fear. For example,the passage states “ And indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father’s contemptible life and shameful death.”(Achebe,18/1). This helps the reader understand that Okonkwo faces many challenges in life to prove to his village and the people themselves that he is nothing like his father, Unoka and is haunted by the fact that one day he will become a man whom he promised he will never become. The passage states “ Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak.”(Achebe,61/1). This helps the reader understand the reason why

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.

In the play “The Crucible”, we have a great example of a tragic hero as a main character. A tragic hero is a main character of great or noble standing that has a tragic flaw will lead to their demise.

After a village elder had found what crime Okonkwo committed, he told Okonkwo that, “you are not a stranger in Umuofia. You know as well as I that our forefathers ordained that before we plant any crops in the earth, we should observe a week of peace in which a man does not say a harsh word to his neighbor” (30). The elder proceeded to give Okonkwo instructions on how to attempt amends with the goddess. After a single action was taken, his proceeding efforts were nearly non-existent. Any attempt to fix the situation were minimal, as were efforts to learn from his mistakes. Furthermore, Okonkwo advances to partaking in the death of Ikemefuna. The relationship between the two is complicated, but is closest description is that of a boy and his step-father. Killing Ikemefuna is not an evil against the earth, as beating a wife during the week of peace was, but a crime against himself. He is unhappy with himself, and still does nothing to fix his ways, continuing on to single handedly killing a boy at a funeral. Although accidental, Okonkwo was still the man behind the gun. “It was a crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansman, and a man who committed it must flee from the land….he could return to the clan after seven years” (124). Okonkwo had no choice but to leave for the seven years, perhaps upon his return

Upon an initial reading of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, it is easy to blame the demise of Okonkwo’s life and of the Umofia community on the imperialistic invasions of the white men. After all, Okonkwo seemed to be enjoying relative peace and happiness before then. He did have a few mishaps; one of them resulted in him being exiled for eight years. Nonetheless, he returned to his home town with high spirits and with prospects of increased success. However, everything has changed. The white men have brought with them a new religion and a new government. Okonkwo’s family falls apart. The men in his village lose their courage and valor; they do not offer any resistance to the white men. Consequently, Okonkwo kills

Tragedy, like comedy, is in the eyes of the beholder and what makes a particular fictional character more tragic than another can be argued until the end of time. However, despite this, it seems that an undeniable part of what makes a character tragic is their ability to save themselves from their predicament but, for whatever reason, refuse to do so, thus damning themselves to their wretched fate. Likewise, the more obvious this ability, the more control that a character has over their fate, the more tragic their eventual downfall. Moreover, coupled with the preventable nature of the character’s tragic fate, is this fate’s unpredictability, which causes the audience to, even until the very end, have hope that the tragic character will triumph over their predicament. Furthermore, this is all merged with the ultimate insignificance of the tragic character’s demise and how, despite all their struggles, they are eventually rendered wholly irrelevant and forgotten. Hence, the most tragic of the three protagonists studied is Jay Gatsby because his final fate, compared to that of Willy Loman’s or Macbeth’s is the most unpredictable, had the least impact on society, and, ultimately, was the most avoidable.

His tragic downfall truly begins when his is sent away because of an accidental murder of a boy. Okonkwo and his family are exiled from the tribe for seven years and Okonkwo is stripped of the fruits of his hard work. While he is away the white missionaries move into the village. They preach against the culture and its violent ways, causing Okonkwo to become saturated with rage. Seven years later, Okonkwo is able to return. He plans to reestablish himself and his position with the help of his family. However, Umofia is not as it once was. The white men have moved in and dismantled the tribe with their laws and government. Okonkwo wishes to fight, but the clan does not agree with his suggestion. After realizing the fate of the village, Okonkwo chooses to take his life. He would rather die than watch everything he had worked for fall apart because of weak people. His tragic flaw, a fear of weakness, is so strong it destroyed him.

Okonkwo, one of the fiercest men of Umofia, had to not only fight against Christianity, but the changes and problems it brought to his village. When Okonkwo’s son gets converted into the new faith and leaves Okonkwo, he holds a bigger grudge against the Christians for taking his eldest son away from him. Apart from all these problems, Okonkwo was exiled for seven years into his motherland and came back to Umofia, where he had tried to regain his position as the Christians coming, Okonkwo went through many changes. He wasn’t very good at change, so many times he found himself in tough situations. In the novel, Things Fall Apart, Achebe uses Okonkwo to show the message that a single character or society’s actions affects another character by Okonkwo disputing with the Christians.

From the very first sentences in the novel we see Okonkwo as this very strong and successful man, he is the epitome of “manliness” In the Igbo society. He became who he was by seeing his father, Unoka, as a failure who held no titles and couldn’t feed his family. Okonkwo was determined to be nothing like him as we can see on page 7 “When Unoka died he had taken no title at all and he was heavily in debt. Any wonder then that his son Okonkwo was ashamed of hem?” This drive to be the manliest man possible led Okonkwo to do some very brutal things like take five human heads in war. He even killed his adopted son, Ikemefuna, in fear of looking weak to his clansmen.

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).

He is a man who sees his purpose as a call to lead his community in order to make it the make it the best it can be, and the way he does this is by following social norms of Umuofia very closely. The society that Okonkwo lives in “appreciates personal success” as it pertains to the “well-being of the whole community”(Obiechina 41). Therefore, if Okonkwo sees something that will better his tribe, then he will do anything in his power to obtain that or accomplish what his leaders want. For example, Okonkwo took in Ikemefuna for years, treating him and thinking of him like a son. Although, when it came time for the tribe to sacrifice Ikemefuna, the leaders of Umuofia witnessed Okonkwo kill Ikemefuna because “he was afraid of being thought weak”(Achebe 61). Okonkwo will go to any extent in order to follow the social expectations of his tribe members. Because of this, he can not control himself when he sees his tribe’s traditions being thrown out because of the missionaries and no one is taking any action to change it. After Okonkwo tries to stand up for his community and is ignored, he hangs himself because he would rather die than witness his tribe be changed forever. The tragedy of Okonkwo “is caused not by his deviation from the norms of his society, but because he tries to adhere to these norms too completely”(Palmer

In his poetic, a tragic hero cannot be an eminently good man. The suffering of such a man will be shocking. The tragic hero neither can be a bad man nor a villain. According to Aristotle, “The tragic hero is a man who is not eminently good and just, yet whose misfortune is bought about not by voice, but by the some error of judgement” (Aristotle, 1978). The misfortune of such a man will lead to downfall. In Things fall Apart, the main protagonist Okonkwo is considered as tragic hero and he has the all the noble characters. Oknokwo was very successful and renowned in his community. He was the leader of Ibo society and he was also a famous wrestler and successful farmer. With these characters of successful in many ways, he was very wealthy man, hold a high position in the community, he had three wives, and is also best wrestler and worrier. He also rules his family with

A tragic hero, as defined by Aristotle is a character who has a tragic flaw and discovers his fate by his own actions. In Things Fall Apart, a novel by China Achebe, Kink can be considered a tragic hero because he meets all of Aristotle’s criteria by being a tragic hero by being a successful and respected leader in Moira, having a tragic flaw, and discovering his fate soon after his action. Aristotle’s idea of a tragic hero requires that the character must be noble or a man of high status. "Kink was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements" (Achebe, 3). Starting as a sharecropper with no inheritance from his father, Kink works very hard and makes his way to a wealthy and respected

As stated in Chapter Two on pages 13 to 14, Okonkwo ruled his household with a hand so heavy that his entire family lives in perpetual fear of his fiery temper and impatience. Okonkwo is a very rash person and, when in a fit of rage, does not think about the consequences of his actions, which inadvertently leads him to his own downfall. In committing these actions, it is not ludicrous to believe that Okonkwo will later receive consequences due to the immorality of these actions.