Lung And Okonkwo In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Different Environments, Similar Behavior Patriarchs, men are the leaders and the women are less than the men. Some tend to be powerful and others tend not to be. However, one does not know, unless they experience it. Wang Lung and Okonkwo had similar ideals. Wang Lung and Okonkwo both grew up with fathers that did not work very much, they treated their spouses poorly. However, they grew up in different environments. Both Wang Lung and Okonkwo had similar ideals, but grew up in different environments. Both Okonkwo and Wang Lung grew up with fathers that did not contribute much not only to their jobs, but to their family as well. Okonkwo’s dad, Unoka, who was a failure and an outcast to Igbo society. “Unoka, the grown-up was a failure.

Okonkwo had three wives and Wang Lung had O-lan, his wife and he had to mistresses Lotus and Pear Blossom. With having multiple women in their lives, they were not all treated fairly at times. Okonkwo mistreated his second wife, Ekwefi. “Okonkwo’s second wife had merely cut a few leaves off it to wrap some food, and she said so. Without further argument Okonkwo gave her a sound beating and left her and her daughter weeping” (Achebe 38). “The wife who had just been beaten murmured something about guns that never shot. Unfortunately for her, Okonkwo heard it and ran madly into his room for the loaded gun, ran out again and aimed at her as she clambered over the dwarf wall of the barn. He pressed the trigger and there was a loud report accompanied by the wail of his wives and children. He threw down the gun and jumped into the barn, and there lay the woman, very much shaken and frightened but quite unhurt. He heaved a sigh and went away with the gun” (Achebe 38-39). At the same time, Wang Lung would put down O-lan’s appearance when Lotus first came to their house. “Now anyone looking at you would say you were the wife of a common fellow and never of one who has land which he hires men to plow!” (Buck 168). “I mean, cannot you buy a little oil for your hair as other women do and make yourself a new coat of black cloth? And those shoes you wear are not fit for a land proprietor’s wife, such as you now

Okonkwo grew up in a village in Nigeria of the Igbo ethnic group. “The Oracle was called Agbala, and people came from far and near to consult it. They came when misfortune dogged their steps or when they had a dispute with their neighbors. They came to discover what the future held for them or to consult the spirits of their departed fathers” (Achebe 16). By having the Igbo ethnic group in the village, they were part of their lives. By having these ceremonies and laws that the Igbo put they villagers always followed them because they did not want to disrespect them by any means. Unlike Okonkwo, Wang Lung grew up on a farm in northern China that was not ruled by anyone or had any laws. In fact, the northern city where he lived was made up mostly farmers like Wang Lung. “In Anhwei, where Wang Lung was born, the language is slow and deep and it wells from the throat” (Buck 106). “And where Wang Lung’s fields spread out in slow and leisurely harvest twice a year of wheat and rice and a bit of corn and beans and garlic” (Buck 106). By growing up in the north it gave him a different perspective of how it was like living in the south. “He lived in the rich city as alien as a rat in a rich man’s house that is fed on scraps thrown away, and hides here and there and never a part of the real life of the