Masculinity In Things Fall Apart

In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, a man named Okonkwo is a strong, hard-working man who is always pushing himself to succeed in life. He does this because he doesn’t want to be like his father. He thinks of his father as a failure, so he is determine to do the opposite. “Unoka, the grown-up, was a failure. He was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat. People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid it back” (p.5). Unfortunately, this led him to being aggressive and violent, “Without further argument Okonkwo gave her a sound beating and left her and her only daughter weeping. Neither of the wives had dared to interfere beyond and occasional and

Hamlet is very caring, but his emotions took over and he began to become very indecisive. He tries to assert his masculinity by revenging his father’s death, but everything ends up backfiring on him. Okonkwo’s plan had also backfired on him. After years of being in excile, Okonkwo came back to his tribe to discover it being taken over. “Umuofia had indeed changed during the seven years Okonkwo had been in exile. The church had come and led many astray. Not only the low-born and the outcast but sometimes a worthy man had joined it” (p.174). Okonkwo was not pleased with this, “Okonkwo’s head was bowed in sadness as Obierika told him these things” (p.175). He wants to get revenge and get his tribe back, but the people of Umofia didn’t agree with his plan, “Our own men and our sons have joined the ranks of the stranger. They have joined his religion and they help to uphold his gobernment. If we should try to drive out the white men in Umnofia we should find it easy. There are only two of them. But what of our own people who are folling their way and have been given power” Obierika states (p.176). He gets so frustrated, kills a man because of it, and ends up willing

Seeing him act like he’s gone mad, finding out the truth to his fathers death, and seeing the one he loves dead must have been extremely difficult to deal with. It is so descriptive that you feel his emotions. Reading about him going through that, and not controlling his emotions at times, makes you scared for him because it shows that he is unstable. Okonkwo also evokes pity and fear. When his exile is up, he is very excited to return home and earn back his title, only to find things being completely different then how they were when he left. You pity him when reading it because he had everything he was going to do planned out and was very disappointed with what he saw. “The first thing he would do would be to rebuild his compound on a more magnificent scale. He would build a bigger barn that he had had before and he would build huts for his two new wives. Then he would show his wealth by initiating his sons into the ozo society” (p.173). He evokes fear when he beats his wife and when he acts irrationally and kills the messenger without