Okonkwo's Loyalty

Which is more important; defending one’s honor, or defending one’s home? In many cases it can be one in the same and one’s home often becomes the framework for one’s identity. Chinua Achebe introduces the idea of defending both one’s honor and one’s home with his story about the colonization of Nigeria in the late nineteenth century. In his novel, Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe shapes Okonkwo’s internalized identity utilizing the tribe’s patriarchal culture and his father’s failure. Okonkwo’s identity causes him to feel threatened and, as a result, is hostile towards the colonizers.

The tribe Okonkwo lives in is very much a patriarchal society, and Okonkwo’s father did not live up to the tribe’s expectations in that regard, which is why

It is also vital for men to be physically strong so that they will be successful warriors and held in high regard to the clan. Okonkwo strives to be the strongest and the most successful. Growing ample seed-yams is, to the tribe, a sign that a man is very successful, and therefore a respected clansmen. Okonkwo, however, takes these principles to the extreme. He is a prominent figure in his tribe. He is a successful farmer, has many wives, and has “two titles and had shown incredible prowess in two inter-tribal wars” (Achebe 8). He appears to be the perfect man in comparison to his father. Unoka, who “had taken no title at all and [] was heavily in debt” (Achebe 8). Unoka’s failure in life motivated Okonkwo to fulfill every tribal expectation for success. Okonkwo wants to be the complete opposite of his father, who was labeled as agbala due to his faults. In order to achieve this, Okonkwo takes every value of the tribe and radicalizes them to ensure that he accomplishes all of them because “his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness … lest he should be found to resemble his father” (Achebe 13). Okonkwo is

His identity of an insecure yet reputable tribesmen leads him to fight for himself and his tribe when the white men show up. His final decision to take back his power and end his life before the white men could speaks to Achebe’s purpose in writing Things Fall Apart. Okonkwo’s recapturing of his honor by taking his own life is a symbol for Achebe’s purpose of telling the story of colonization from the victim’s perspective. Achebe is the first to recount the events from the side of the “primitive, uncivilized” continent of Africa. He is recapturing the honor of his people and his country by taking the power of literature and turning it into a message that Africa is not what we believe it to be, and that we need to see the whole story before we make conclusions, which the colonizers failed to do upon arriving in