How Does Okonkwo's Identity Change

Okonkwo had a very negative response to the cultural collision the white men brought to the village, do you know why? In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, a great man called Okonkwo goes through difficult times as many obstacles come in his path to lasting greatness. When the white men start preaching about Christianity Okonkwo starts to loss his sense of identity because he’s used to people listening to him as he was once one of the great leaders of Ibo and everyone was now listening to the white men. While the men continue to preach about Christianity Okonkwo response is to refuse it, he doesn’t want to be a part of it. His consequences because he refused to changed ended with him losing his life and his son.

But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness.” Many people believed that Okonkwo was such a cruel man because of the wall that he put up. This affected his family because he still continued to act tough with his wives and most of his kids, there was only one of his children that saw his soft side and that was Emzina, his daughter. He also thought a lot about one of the people he killed, which showed that he wasn’t the tough guy that everybody thought he was, but no matter what he refused to show any signs of weakness to avoid being like his

He is impulsive. He acts before he thinks. He often offends the igbo peoploe and their traditions as well as the gods of his clan. When the white man brought Christianity to Umuofia, Okonkwo felt that the changes are ruining the Igbo culture. This is his tragic flaw, the inability to accept change. For him, hard work and effort were the true way of living and if you didn’t have any of those you were not worthy for his acknowledgement.

“How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us? The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has a put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” (20). As Okonkwo is telling obierika about the white man making the village ‘fall apart” and Okonkwo knows his power is coming to an end as much as he hates and can see it he is questioned also by his few followers left is he is afraid of

Everyone wants power in this world. More money equals more power, which means more responsibility. Throughout the entire story Okonkwo is constantly putting his tribe first for respect and his reputation. After his exile everything Okonkwo has ever lived for changed dramatically. He was looking for a way to be accepted again and as he showed would do anything to get back. Redemption plays an important role in “Things Fall Apart” because without redemption there is no way to prove you’ve learned from your mistakes.

Okonkwo has become determined to climb his way back up the social ranks after have been knocked to the bottom. “He was determined that his return should be marked by his people. He would return with a flourish, and regain the seven wasted years. Although this determination took his mind off of things, he still remembered the tragedy of Nwoye. “At first it appeared as if it might prove too great for his spirit. But it was a resilient spirit, and in the end Okonkwo overcame his sorrow. He had five other sons and he would bring them up in the way of the clan (172).” Okonkwo goes as far as to say “Now he is no longer my son or you brother (172).”

Okonkwo soon learns about this and confronts his son, Nwoye about his secret meetings, Okonkwo soon becomes enraged and disowns his son after hearing about his experience not before abusing him of course. This action causes an effect which ultimately leads to Okonkwo’s downfall. Okonkwo enraged by the spread of Christianity within his own village self-proclaims war on the “white man”. Okonkwo eventually was detained as a result of his actions towards the “white man”. After he was released from detainment Okonkwo killed a courier and began to truly understand he was a rebel without a cause as his fellow Tribesmen would not help him with his internal struggle. Okonkwo knowing, he would be caught and executed for his crimes, instead decided to ultimately end his own life by hanging himself. Okonkwo’s major downfall in the story was his inability to co-exist with the white man and began his own personal vendetta against the Christian missionaries. Throughout the story the main essential theme Achebe tried to relay to us would be the fact that even though individuals may be of different religions, skin color, and have different personalities there is a realization that

The clan was like a lizard, if it lost its tail it soon grew another.” (page 171). This quote proves that Okonkwo was no longer considered a man within his tribe after being exiled he was considered nothing more than just someone who brings immense sorrow to his family no longer being able to be a provider shows why his family left him and how he could not continue being with his wives. This fall from his high graces continued with the arrival of the white men as he refused to adapt to his quickly changing and foregin surroundings, causing him to become an outcast within his

This is an example of the difference in personal beliefs among family. Some may say that the book is about the differences in beliefs between the Africans and the colonizers, but it is more than that. It is clear that it was Okonkwo's personal beliefs and not necessarily the views of the people of Umuofia which guided him in what he did. One of these is his reliance in the strength of anger. Although he felt strongly in the beliefs and customs of the Ibo people, there are several occasions in which Okonkwo made a decision to disobey the customs in order to live out his own personal beliefs. For example, in chapter four, Okonkwo is yelled at by Ezeani, the priest of the earth goddess, for beating his wife during the sacred week of peace. Okonkwo did not feel remorse for his actions and probably thought of it as a sign of strength and manhood. Okonkwo was always worried about being seen as weak. One good

But his whole life was dominated by fear, fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw.” It was this deeply ingrained fear that ultimately lead Okonkwo to his downfall and it’s the same fundamental fear that led to the downfall of his people. The clan’s unwavering pursuit of strength and stability was also rooted in this fear and it was the fear that won out in the face of the European invaders. Okonkwo’s people were unable to change but equally unable to fight for the only way of life they knew. In many ways, Okonkwo was the personification of the Igbo people’s core values. The tragic irony of him being exiled by his own people reveals the fundamental fallacies of their perspectives and foreshadows the fall of both Okonkwo and his village. Nevertheless, they are not portrayed as solely a doomed people nor as unreasonable savages. Although he doesn’t let everybody see it, Okonkwo does a lot for the love of his daughter and his people put unity and family above nearly all

Due to his pride, Okonkwo was true to his religion and sense of identity. By beating Nwoye, Okonkwo realizes that he is losing his sense of identity because his own son, Nwoye “decided to go to Umuofia where the white missionary had set up a school to teach young Christians to read and write” (152). This means that Nwoye has decided to join the missionaries and help the British teach Christianity to others. This matters because Okonkwo has lost his oldest son to the missionaries. This consequence impacts Okonkwo because Nwoye seems to lose respect for him, showing that Okonkwo is losing his sense of identity. However, Okonkwo doesn’t give up, he tries to get his people to start a war against the missionaries by killing the messenger, but “he knew the Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action. He discerned fright in that tumult. He heard voices asking ‘Why did he do it?’” (205). This means that his attempts to encourage the Ibo people to fight and start a war against the missionaries, results in a loss of hope. His people instead of supporting him question why he would do such a thing. Okonkwo finally realizes that he cannot save his village and its traditions no matter how fiercely he tries. Okonkwo himself feels utterly defeated because everything has fallen apart for

Okonkwo thinks that his mother’s clan is too womanly compare to his father’s clan of Umuofia, however even when he returns to his father’s clan after the completion of his exile he is also very much out of place there also. This is due to his obsessive masculinity and also because he just cannot adapt to the changing of times. Okonkwo “had lost his place among the masked spirits in the village” in addition to that “he had lost the chance to lead his warlike clan against the new religion” consequently he lost any voice he ever had and was a “stranger” in his land seeming as nobody appeared to have taken any special notice of the “warriors” return. He speaks with his friend Obierika about the strangeness of his home land saying,

After his seven-year exile, Okonkwo returns to Umuofia to find that the village has drastically changed and divided as a consequence of the Europeans: “the clan had undergone such profound change during his exile that it was barely recognizable” (Achebe, 182). He hoped to regain a position of power but realizes that the white men had been too successful in converting the tribe. Okonkwo will never accept what the British has to offer, instead viewing it as a disturbance. He is not a man of change but a man of ancestry, tradition and strength and this is where he draws his identity from but the arrival of the Christians alienated him from such. He is no longer the respected warrior, farmer and man that he fought to be, after he decided that he will not be the embodiment of his lazy, weak and effeminate

When the new religion is brought over by the white men, Okonkwo strongly opposes to it because he felt that its qualities display weakness and would destroy the Ibo culture. He refused to change and stuck to his old ways, but as more and more of his clansmen convert, Okonkwo sees his world start to crumble. “Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer stand as one” (Achebe 176). His clan slowly divides into two clear-cut sides, but the Ibo people didn’t want to fight back the new religion. As a result, Christianity took over everything, from the government, to the judicial system. Feeling powerless, Okonkwo commits his final act of vengeance and kills a messenger, committing suicide soon after. If the Umoufia had tried to fight back Christianity, they wouldn’t have loss so much power this quickly. This reluctance was due to the absence of

Okonkwo is a strong and confident man who has vowed to never be like his father Unoka. His father was lazy, unsuccessful and carried no titles. The relationship between Okonkwo and his father motivated Okonkwo to gain titles and become successful inside the clan. In this sense, Okonkwo has gained many titles, has three wives, and respected by the clan. Okonkwo chose to feel that identity in the clan was most important, and through this he had become a presence in the clan, noticed by the elders. However after the arrival of missionaries, who had come to convert the clans to Christianity, Okonkwo’s view is completely contradicted by the missionaries. Okonkwo had grown accustomed to members of the clan being ranked by certain tiers, while the