What Is Okonkwo's Alienation In Things Fall Apart

In the book, Things Fall Apart, there was a warrior from the Umuofia tribe whose name was Okonkwo. Even though he was a great fighter his temper leads to his demise. This aggressiveness not only affected him, but his entire family as they were sent off to exile for seven years. During this period Nwoye, the oldest son, realizes that the experience in exile even though extremely difficult benefitted him far greater than he could ever anticipate. While there he was able to reflect over his life up to that point and the time allowed him to consider the path he might wish to take from here. Most of his life he struggled with becoming a man and the laws of his clan. Nwoye’s challenging and eye opening experience in exile helped him to realize another way of living which he seemed to find more purpose.

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

Okonkwo ended up in exile due to his behavior as a consequence during this time he refused to get intoned with a more feminine characteristics because to him that was not the way things were and views his ancestor’s way of doing things as wrong. Okonkwo tries his masculine leadership once more by trying to start a war until he realizes that villagers are not standing behind him in his idea to go to war. Soon after the District Commissioners find Okonkwo dead in his compound, he had committed suicide by hanging himself, which is one of the biggest sins of them

“Unoka, the grown-up, was a failure” (Achebe 4). As Okonkwo grows up, he realized his biggest fear and fatal flaw is the fact that he desperately did not want to end up like his father, disrespected and very emotional. Therefore, Okonkwo fears weakness and open shows of emotions, so he contains himself and only shows anger, as he associates it with manliness. He is so scared of becoming his father and changing his ways that he resorts to beating people to show his dominance. “And when she returned he beat her very heavily” (Achebe 19). In this quote, Okonkwo beats his youngest wife, Ojiugo, for not returning soon enough to cook the afternoon meal. Since he decided to act without thought, he beat his wife in the Week of Peace, where no one is to be harmed. This causes a great unrest between Okonkwo and his chi, or his inner spirit, and gradually leads to his downfall of luck and

Okonkwo had a lot of flaws. He was stuck on having a good reputation and raising the best family he could. He feared for his children to become like his father and his wives to become lazy. He got mad frequently and took it out on his family if they did anything wrong. But one of his flaws were involved with the killing of his adopted son Ikemefuna. A group of elders had gone with Okonkwo and Ikemefuna to a forest, where one of them swung their machete at the poor boy and destroyed. Ikemefuna ran to Okonkwo for help, but “dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down” (61). The man was afraid of being thought of as weak. Then again, he had always had a tough image around others. Of course, accidents happened quite a lot for Okonkwo because he accidentally killed a higher up in the village during Ezeudu’s funeral and “he could not return to the clan after seven years” (124). He had to start all over with his family and return to his motherland. Life was never fun for Okonkwo. Hard work and strict punishment was basically what he was known for. So when Okonkwo and men from Umuofia went to visit the District Commissioner, they were taken as prisoners and whipped along with being shaven until a certain price was paid. Once they were released and they went home, people in the village were accepting until “nobody else spoke but they noticed the long stripes on Okonkwo’s

He had no patience with his own father” (page 6). Okonkwo sees himself more powerful and more wise than any other man in the village could be. He often disrespects the clans gods by disobeying their commandments for peace. A great example of this is when Okonkwo beat his wife for little to no reason. Okonkwo was looking for any reason to beat his wife or disobey the religious rules “Okonkwo, with no work to do had been walking aimlessly in his compound in suppressed anger, found an outlet.” (page 37). Okonkwo will do anything to maintain his self molded figure of his character being characterized by strength of power. Okonkwo will go to any extent to keep his character. While reading Things Fall Apart the reader see Okonkwo going to extremes when he killed his son Ikemefuna. The reader can see he loved and cared for and had a strong connection to Ikemefuna and for him to to kill him without thinking twice shows the

The destruction of Okonkwo was revealed slowly throughout the books. He started to make some poor decisions, which became the beginning of his downfall. He killed Ikemefuna just because he didn’t want to be thought weak. He made unwise decisions to only appear to be strong and manly to others in the village. He did not realize how he lost so much from living that way. When, Okonkwo kills Ogbuefi Ezedu’s son, the real tragedy begins. Other tragic heroes usually have a steadier downfall, but Okonkwo had a direct fall in society due to this event. This puts his family into exile for seven years. After a short period of time, white missionaries arrive to Umuofia. When “The

Okonkwo is a man who has to have things his own way. In the novel, there is a scene where his second wife, Ojiugo, did not make him his afternoon meal. Okonkwo, in an act of anger, started to beat his wife heaviley. His other two wives begged for him to stop beating Ojiugo, as it was the Week of Peace, a sacred Igbo holiday. However, “...Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half-way through, not even for fear of a goddess” (Achebe 30). Despite believing that he may be punished by a god, Okonkwo did not stop beating his wife. Unoka was a more compassionate man than Okonkwo, he was also stubborn. Unoka was lazy and fiscally irresponsible. He spent what little money he had on alcohol and didn’t

In the novel Things Fall Apart the main character, Okonkwo, makes a lot of decisions that lead to his downfall. Okonkwo is a fierce man who always has to show his dominance no matter what. He doesn’t tolerate disrespect, so he beats his wives and anyone who decides to go against him. Also he is afraid of looking weak in front of his clansmen so he does something he will regret in the book. All the decisions he made throughout the book catch up to him in the end.

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

Passion and responsibility are very peculiar nouns. Passion is an extreme measure of emotion usually driven by selfishness. Responsibility is a task or chore that is usually influenced by the environment. In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Okonkwo is a popular warrior within his tribe. Okonkwo is a man driven by passion, but he must follow responsibilities with they are necessary.

Within the land of Africa there lies a tribe called Umuofia. Throughout the tribe you will come across many fields of yams and a man who is a strong, fearless leader named Okonkwo. In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo’s identity is challenged when missionaries and Western influences enter his tribe. Before the Western influences were introduced to the Ibo culture Okonkwo showed many characteristics that expressed his feelings and actions towards other characters as a whole. One of his main fears was being weak and a failure like his father, Unoka “who was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow.”

In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, many characters take part in creating a predicament that ultimately leads to the main character’s end. Unoka, the deceased father of Okonkwo, does not have any physical presence throughout the novel. And yet he still dictates this main character’s behavior throughout the novel, and had he been alive, would have contributed towards a healthier relationship between the Igbo people and those that came from Britain. In the novel, when the Christians began spreading their religion, it is stated that “None of [God’s] converts was a man whose word was heeded in the assembly of the people.

Okonkwo’s participation in the slaying of his adopted son, Ikemefuna is a pivotal moment in Things Fall Apart. It is a moment of horror that cannot please Ani, the great earth goddess, the center of community, the ultimate judge of morality for the clan. It is a moment that changes the course of events, a moment eerily paralleled in the death of Ezeudu’s son. It is a moment that ultimately causes Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye’s to abandon his ancestors and become a Christian. It is a moment when the center of community life, the need to honor blood ties and the need to respect the earth goddess, can no longer hold. It is a moment when things fall apart.

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,