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Suicide In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

1355 Words6 Pages

Sri Sri once said and I quote, "Suicide is one of the most foolish things a person can ever do. It is only through the body that you can dispel the agony and get rid of the misery. Instead you destroy the very instrument by which you can get rid of agony." In the novel "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo who is described as a "tall and huge man" who goes through the never ending battle of trying to be the most successful person he can be. Nevertheless as the titles implies Things fell apart and Okonkwo surrendered his life upon a tree. Even though Okonkwo had an overflowing amount of success in his life he still allowed the negative to encapsulate his mind which can be seen through the use of internal conflict, flashback, themes, foreshadowing, and irony. What happens when you take away a person’s only pride and joy…what else is there for that person to live for? Through internal conflict we are able to see Okonkwo’s life fall apart because of the desire to be the very opposite from his …show more content…

Okonkwo killed himself because he knew that he couldn 't beat this new Christian culture that was rising rapidly within his village. The realization of the new culture undermining the manly clan and himself caused a shift in Okonkwo as seen in chapter 21 when he "mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart… who had so unaccountably become soft like women", yet according to the book Okonkwo had never ushered a tear before. Okonkwo came to a devastating reality that he couldn 't defeat his enemies and if you cannot defeat your enemies you are seen as weak according to the ways of the village. Thus the internal conflict that he was going to be like his father proved dominant. To know that all the work and sacrifices he made to be as manly as he possibly can be was being diminished by these 'weak ' white men was enough to drive him to

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Okonkwo's Change In Things Fall Apart

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Towards the end of Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo decided to take his own life due to the changes in his tribe caused by the white missionaries. This makes it harder to distinguish if the colonists were responsible for Okonkwo’s death and the diminishing of the Ibo Tribe. However, these colonists are gradually pushing an agenda to the Igbo people where Okonkwo is critical against. The collision between two separate beliefs causes various conflicts occurring in Things Fall Apart that eventually causes Umuofia to fall apart. This undermines Okonkwo’s drive to succeed in traditional terms and his desire to be a leader in his tribe.

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Okonkwo becomes like this because of his father. His father was lazy and dies a dishonorable death and leaves nothing for his family. Okonkwo fears becoming like his father, an agbala. The effect of this is beneficial for Okonkwo. The way he turns out makes him a great man and because of this, he obtains the third highest title in his tribe.

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From being nothing in his village he rises to be a great, honorable, successful leader of umuofia. He also has a tragic flaw of being weak, failure and having fear that leads him to fail at things several times because of his fears. All of these failures then lead him to his suicide. Finally, he finds his own tragic fate because of his murder of the missionaries court messenger during his villages meeting. Though Okonkwo's life started out as one of the most successful and leading men of Umuofia but because of his violent and impulsive characteristics, even the most successful and well-respected man can fall from his

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In the book “Things Fall Apart“ Okonkwo is a very strong man and from time to time he starts showing his true self. He has a lot of responsibilities and other things he has to do around the living environment and interact with lots of people. Okonkwo changes from being that strong man, to a man who feels like his tribe is not with him when he wants to go to war with the missionaries. For someone like Okonkwo a lot of people looks up to him and while in the tribe Okonkwo beats his wives and children. Not good behavior for someone who is supposedly looked at as strong.

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Cultural Collision In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

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Things Fall Apart Everyone has its own unique perspective on certain things. In doing so, one must interact or collide with another throughout life. In Things Fall Apart, the author, Chinua Achebe, attempts to communicate the concept of cultural collision while depicting the life of the Igbo tribe. He creates two main characters with contradicting characteristics and responses to a cultural collision in order to strengthen the theme:

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The hatred that he had for his father he carried with him throughout his whole life. That hatred turned into him killing Ikemefuna and the messenger. Ikemefuna was thought of as a son and he killed him in fear of being considered weak in front of his clan members. That weakness was thought of his weakness which was considered a failure. At the end of the story Okonkwo ends up being just like his father which is ironic because he strived to be nothing like him.

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