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Analysis Of The Tragic Hero In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

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The Misfortune of a Tragic Hero Many literary works incorporate the concept of a character that makes an error of judgment or attains a fatal flaw that leads to their collapse. This creates a vision for a tragic hero who portrays significant and intemperate actions and ideas. Not only does a tragic hero reveal their behavior and thoughts, they exhibit how virtuous they are, a significant flaw they reveal and their reversal of fortune. Their heroic characteristics merit them with the approval and compassion from the audience, but their imperfections eventually drive them to their ruin. Many events play into a story creating the importance of a tragic hero and their demise. In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo 's noble status, warped ideals of masculinity, and the unfortunate turn of events in his …show more content…

Okonkwo’s virtuous status helps to show his nobility, how his background guides his responsibility and his vigor for power. He earns fame from taking part in great fights and procuring great privileges. Okonkwo “had won fame as the greatest wrestler in the nine villages. He was a wealthy farmer” (pg. 7). Okonkwo is seen as a great wrestler who has earned his honorable reputation from the respect he attains for his strength and wealth. He is admired as a strong man capable of doing great things. This makes the audience understand how revered he is due to his profound and noble status. Furthermore, Okonkwo portrays a capability to conquer and hold honorable positions that make people admire him even more. Crowning it all Okonkwo “had taken two titles and had shown incredible powers in two inter-tribal wars” (pg. 7). Not only is he respected by his tribe, his significant

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“A tragic hero is a character that is noble and well-respected, but he has one tragic flaw that causes him to fall from greatness. This error will physically and spiritually wound the tragic hero, eventually causing his death. In the end, the tragic hero sees and understands his doom, as well as the fact that his fate was brought about by his own actions. He is then able to accept his death with honor. A tragic hero’s death will generally gain a sympathetic emotional reaction from his fellow characters and from the audience.”

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The five characteristics of an “Archetypal” tragic hero that I chose to describe Okonkwo would be the following: a noble stature, a tragic flaw, a free choice, his punishment exceeds the crime, and the hero has increased awareness. Okonkwo as a noble stature begins with the introduced in the beginning of the novel as being someone who “As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat” during a fierce wrestling match (1). Amalinze the Cat was previously undefeated and “their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights” to celebrate Okonkwo’s wrestling victory (1). At the conclusion of Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo has increased awareness when he realizes that his way of using brute

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Prompt 2 Okonkwo is driven by his hatred of his father and the fear he will become like him. Okonkwo saw his father, Unoka, as a coward and is ashamed to be his son. Everything that Okonkwo does is meant to set him apart from the legacy of his father. First, this is evident in his beating of his wives and even his aggression with his children. He is trying to show his strength and ensure he is not portrayed to be like his father: powerless and incapable.

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Okonkwo Before Colonialism

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In most fairy tales and novels a humble male role is used to dictate the normality of writing. In “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo, a strong male role is not only that, a lead character, but he is also cruel and prone to violent tendencies In the novel Okonkwo experiences harsh changes when the white men first came and at the beginning of colonialism. In “Things Fall Apart”, Achebe uses Okonkwo to display the negative change in everyday Igbo culture after colonialism. In this novel by Achebe, before colonialism was introduced, Okonkwo was a known masculine member of Umuofia.

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In “Things Fall Apart” Achebe gives background information on Okonkwo saying “He was a wealthy farmer and had two barns full of yams, and had just married his third wife.” (5). This quotation from chapter one demonstrates that Okonkwo’s nobility of prosperity is revealed by his success’ from his early years and forward. The villagers within Okonkwo’s clan love and honor him for his personal achievements, and he

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He was too proud to let his tribe give up their warlike history. He was to proud and self-assured to accept his son's choices. Okonkwo is a sad character whose pride has constantly led him down the crooked path. Achebe shows that being proud isn't a constructive thing for the future. That development can only occur when pride is put aside, and people think logically instead of

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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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Among those of the same culture, individuals who are adaptive and open-minded can be successful when there is cultural collision. When the Igbo and European cultures collide, Okonkwo gradually spirals out of control, losing everything he values and his own sense of self. From the beginning of the novel, Achebe depicts Okonkwo as a virile warrior and a successful farmer within the Igbo tribe. Reacting with violence to anything he considers “womanly” or “weak”, “He was a man of action and man of war” (10). Because of his reputation as a warrior he is highly respected by his community.

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Eventually, after numerous hardships, Okonkwo earns his success and obtains several barns and wives. This symbolizes wealth and power which were what Okonkwo had been working for all his life. Moreover, Achebe portrays Okonkwo as a fierce warrior and is also represents him as a model clansman in the society:

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The post colonial novel, "Things fall apart" by Chinua Achebe depicts its protagonist Okonkwo as great person who falls into the world of chaos to find his own place through his strength and achievements. Okonkwo in few parts of novel touches the traces of epic hero while in other parts touches the tragic hero characteristics. However Okonkwo 's suicide in the end turns the table to reader to view him through different lens than epic hero or tragic hero. According to Aristotle in his poetics, the tragic hero is an intermediate person who is filled with tragic flaw(hubris /hamartia)

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Change In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

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Everyone as a human being has experienced some form of change in our life, big or small, and it has a lasting effect on who they are and how they act. In Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’, change is a forward facing theme of the whole story, we see change in all forms occur throughout the book; the arrival of the white men and their changing of the igbo culture, the tearing apart of Okonkwo’s family by religion and traditions, and the change that occurs within Okonkwo himself when he realizes he cannot prevent change from happening in the community and culture he loved. Change is destructive in ‘Things Fall Apart’, especially to such a magnitude as we see in the story, it is destructive to communities, to families, and especially to individuals.

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