How Is Okonkwo Portrayed As Evil In Things Fall Apart

In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is portrayed as a strong and stubborn man who does not let up his ground. Throughout the novel Okonkwo is able to gain sympathy because of the actions he makes that lead to a troubled end for him. Okonkwo comes from a time where male dominance is how powerful one is as a person, and showing any weakness could lead to the end of his reign. When Okonkwo lets down his guard the author does a great job of showing how vulnerable Okonkwo can be in times of need. Chinua Achebe shows that characters who are portrayed as evil can gain sympathy from the readers by Okonkwo being exiled from his own village, the destruction of his culture, and loyalty to his village until the very end. Okonkwo was exiled from his village

Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye, was one of the first people to turn over to the Christian faith. Okonkwo saw a lot of his father in Nwoye and was very upset to hear that Nwoye was a Christian now; “Now that he had time to think of it, his son’s crime stood out in its stark enormity. To abandon the gods of one’s father and go about with a lot of effeminate men clucking like old hens was the very depth of abomination” (147). Okonkwo lost his son to the Christian faith and was furious he turned away from his culture. Okonkwo gains support of the reader’s at this point because he has raised Nwoye in his culture and now has renounced that culture and faith to go to the Christians. When the Christians have made themselves at home Achebe adds, “But apart from the Church, the white men had also brought a government. They had built a court where the District Commissioner judged cases in ignorance” (174). The reader sees that Okonkwo is completely losing his culture to the Church. Okonkwo was raised under specific beliefs and sees all of these crumble right before his eyes. The Church was one of the final blows to Okonkwo that really made the reader sympathize with