Happiness In Humility In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

For all of his desire to be strong, Okonkwo is caught up by the constant fear of being perceived as weak. He is afraid of failure and afraid of being considered weak. This fear drives him to do whatever he can to not become a failure like his father which ironically contributes to his death. While Okonkwo was a strong and important figure in his tribe, he had to keep his reputation that way by making some hard decisions. One of them was when he had to kill Ikemefuna, a young boy from the neighboring tribe. Okonkwo started accepting the decision to kill Ikemefuna because he started to call Okonkwo father. He had to keep his own valor intact and kill the boy to prevent himself from showing any weakness, but deep down, Okonkwo was really upset because of what he did which was ironic, “’When did you become a shivering old woman,' Okonkwo asked himself, 'you, who are known in all the nine villages for your valor in war? How can a man who has killed five men in battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.'" (Achebe 65). He continued to roll downhill when the white man comes to try and convert Okonkwo’s tribe. Okonkwo responds by killing one of the messengers that were sent. This cause Okonkwo's own tribe to question his actions. “"Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape.

Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart” chronicles the life of Okonkwo, a strong man whose existence is dominated by fear and anger, and the Ibo tribe, a people deeply rooted in cultural belief and tradition. As events unfold, Okonkwo’s carefully constructed world and the Ibo way of life collapses. The story of Okonkwo’s fall from a respected and feared leader of the Ibo tribe to an outcast who dies in disgrace dramatizes his inability to evolve beyond his personal beliefs, affecting the entire Ibo tribe beyond measure. The “things” that fall apart in Achebe’s novel are Okonkwo’s life – his ambition, dreams, family unity and material wealth – and the Ibo way of life – their beliefs, culture and values.

White men bring Christian religion to the village and with it comes European laws and culture. While some aspects of this new religion and government may be positive, Okonkwo fails to see this. He does not want to break tradtion nor does he wish to think of his ancestors or himself as being wrong, and will not accept any new ideas of government or religion could be better than the old ways. Okonkwo finds himself unable to adapt to changing times and chooses to be violent rather than compromising because he believes that is the manly thing to do. A messenger comes to speak with the Umofians and as soon as he starts to speak Okonkwo kills him with his machete. "He knew that Umofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messangers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action" (Achebe 205). Having support from his clan he soon realizes that he is no longer able to live within his changing society and commits suicide by hanging

This was depicted such as the abandonment of twins in the forest by members of the community. Also Okonkwo mentioned that his father, Unoka was beggar, valueless person and he held no titles in Umuofia society. Okonkwo also criticized his father that if a beggar were allowed to take a title in Umuofia, it would distort the foundation as he created. Thus this response predicted Okonkwo’s reaction to the numerous events to end of the novel. Okonkwo was sent exile for seven years as punishment for killing a member of Umuofia. His friend, Obierika described him as “a man who thought about things”. Okonkwo never think about the traditions he follows as in fact he continue to suppress everything his father

Okonkwo desires nothing more than to become a man “resting on solid achievements”, or achievements displayed through strength, hard work, and wealth (Achebe 1). He desires nothing more than to become a man unlike his father. His violent and peaceful actions displayed throughout Things Fall Apart depict his success and compelling faith in Umuofia’s traditions. By deciding to take his own life, Okonkwo courageously reveals to the people of Umuofia that a tradition dominated by fear and weakness, which opposes the society’s already established customs, would lead to their downfall. His death acts as the last resistance before Umuofia falls to the colonizer.

The Missionaries continue to gain converts and accept people that in Igbo society are seen as outcasts. Okonkwo hates this change that it occurring in his society, and eventually his frustration boils over, once again causing Okonkwo to commit an act of violence. Although this time, that violence is towards himself. Okonkwo is found hanged in his compound, having obviously committed suicide. Obierika then tells the Commissioner, “That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia.

The missionaries conflict with everything Okonkwo believes or values. The missionaries are so outlandish to Okonkwo that his first reaction is just to laugh at them. This is shown on page 147, paragraph 4, “ At the end of it Okonkwo was fully convinced that the man was mad. He shrugged his shoulders and went away.” Okonkwo later begins to understand the threat the missionaries pose to his society and passionately speaks for forcing the missionaries out of Umuofia. However when his people will not listen to him, he feels like he is forced to take matters into his own hands. This is shown on page 204, paragraph 7,” Okonkwo’s machete descended twice and the man’s head lay beside his uniformed body”. The Ibo people do not join in on the violence as Okonkwo had hoped, which contradicted with Okonkwo belief that the Ibo were warrior people. This final loss of Okonkwo’s core beliefs is what shatters Okonkwo’s final sense of identity as a man. As Okonkwo is no longer any of the things he has come to identify himself as, and Okonkwo blames the missionaries for this, his final response to the missionaries is to take his own life. Okonkwo's death is shown on page 207, paragraph 3 “ Then they came to the tree from which Okonkwo’s body was dangling, and they stopped dead.” When Okonkwo identity was ripped from him he no longer saw a point in living and his fight with the

Okonkwo’s belief regarding how men must behave, overemphasizes Okonkwo’s masculinity, and does not allow for any self-reflection or change for himself. It is the fear of looking weak, or feminine, that causes his own destruction after his return to Umuofia. Okonkwo is upset by the changes in the village by the white people while he was exiled from Umuofia. Achebe describes his feelings as, “he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia who had so unaccountably become soft like women” (183). The ideal of extreme masculinity makes Okonkwo upset about the changes in behavior of men and his village while he was gone.

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

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.

Some clan members, however, do rebel and burn some of the preachers’ shelters. This results in a big meeting, both European and African. At the gathering the tribe members are told to decease from any future acts of destruction or rebellion. Expecting his fellow people to support him, Okonkwo kills their leader with his machete. However, when the crowd allows the other Europeans to escape, Okonkwo realizes that his clan is not willing to go to war. Soon after the murder, Okonkwo prideful character, and inability to accept defeat, results in his suicide.

Okonkwo achieves respect and high social status through his own heroic efforts despite being left with nothing but the dishonorable reputation of his “lazy and improvident” father. Toiling in the fields, enduring droughts, exhibiting fearless on the battlefield, and fueled by a burning desire to succeed, Okonkwo becomes a hero in Umuofia. Okonkwo’s success stems from his hard-work and perseverance, which he achieves in spite of his father’s shortcomings. He “lay[s] the foundations of a prosperous future” by slowly and painfully working like “one possessed” in order to escape “his father’s contemptible life and shameful death.” Okonkwo, so “possessed” with escaping the lingering reputation of his father, does anything in his power to earn

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

The missionaries that inhabited Umuofia caused many problems for Okonkwo because of the structure they brought with them. Okonkwo is a painfully structured man. If something is not right with his schedule, like when Ojiugo did not make him his diner, he becomes irrational. Okonkwo always has a plan which seems to always have to change. Just when he figured he would have the highest rank he could achieve in his tribe, his gun explodes and kills a fellow clansman so that he has to flee to his motherland for seven years. Okonkwo then devises 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.