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Okonkwo's Cultural Collision

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What if you were Okonkwo? How would you deal with the situations and mistakes Okonkwo made? Dealing with different doings and beliefs can be quite a task. What does cultural collision mean to you? How would you feel if somebody came into your town and took over? Okonkwo’s sense of identity was challenged with the introduction of Western ideas into the Ibo culture. Okonkwo started out in the novel as a clan leader, but the cultural collision of the British colonists and Ibo people affected Okonkwo to the point of exile. The reasons for Okonkwo’s change in their sense of identity included him taking the role as a clan leader, having 3 wives, and the murders he committed in his village. ‘’Obierka, who had been gazing steadily at his friend’s dangling body, turned suddenly to …show more content…

Okonkwo vows to be a better man then his father was. Secondly, Okonkwo has ten children and three wives and is abusive to one of them.And finally, Okonkwo dealing with the three murders he committed which led to him being sent off out of the village and him no longer being a clan’s leader, and not being able to come back to the village until his seven years out of the village is up. I’d say to be Okonkwo, it would be a tough and stressful job. He made mistakes and did things he couldn’t take back.’’ It is a crime against the Earth goddess to kill a clansman. There are two types of crimes, male and female.Okonkwo has committed a female crime because the murder is an accident. Nethertheless, he is forced to flee from the clan. He may return after seven years’’.He had three wives and ten kids, and having to leave the village, he had to take his three wives and ten kids with him and provide all of them with food and homes. Okonkwo struggled with the changes taking place in his

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Okonkwo tries to fight the changes made by the Western people. Okonkwo’s response to the Western people trying to bring Western ideas into the Ibo culture are simply trying to fight back at the Western people with violence. Okonkwo is a strong and fierce leader, but throughout the story, he is challenged by the Western people and the cultural collision because Okonkwo is supposed to be the leader of Umuofia. Okonkwo is supposed to fight back for his village and not stop until he gets it done. In the story Achebe quotes, “He was a man of action, a man of war.

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558 Words | 3 Pages

Okonkwo is ashamed of his father, Unoka, and aims to be nothing like him. When the book starts talking about him and his father, it mentions how he never got the start in life that others normally inherited from their fathers. “With a father like Unoka, Okonkwo did not have the start in life which many young men had. He neither inherited a barn nor a title, nor even a young wife.” (pg.18) In the tribe, having no title was considered as being a ‘woman’.

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697 Words | 3 Pages

A man's place was not always there, waiting for him. As soon as he left, someone else rose and filled it. ”(127) . Although okonkwo knew that after his exile coming back he wouldn't be in the same standing that he was at when he left, ”He had lost the chance to lead his warlike clan against the new religion”(126) he just wanted to be able to help drive the new comers out. With the newcomers coming in and changing things you can only imagine how okonkwo felt knowing how he felt not being important to the clan and having no say in what they could

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1027 Words | 5 Pages

When Okonkwo first returns back from his exile and hears the news of the white man in Umuofia, his anger increases that no one is trying to fight them. Even after his friend Obierika tells him about how the village Abame was destroyed by similar white missionaries Okonkwo simply thinks “Abame people were weak and foolish. Why did they not fight back... We would be cowards to compare ourselves to the men of Abame” (175). Okonkwo 's aggression blinds him to the dangers of rebelling against the white man, that he is willing to risk the destruction of his whole village just to satisfy his ideology of respecting his religion.

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646 Words | 3 Pages

In the text, “ The only course open to Okonkwo was the flee from the clan. It was a crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansman, and a man who committed it must flee from the land. The crime was two kinds, male or female, Okonkwo had committed a female. He could return to the clan after seven years” (Achebe 124). If Okonkwo was not there , the young boy would still be alive and Okonkwo would still be in Umuofia , his fatherland and had all of his items.

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719 Words | 3 Pages

12/14/15 George Orwell 1984 Could you be controlled without knowing so? George Orwell’s dystopian fiction 1984 is a gripping warning about the dangers of totalitarian politics and compliance to such political systems. Through the trials of main character Winston Smith living in Orwell interpretation of the future, modern day London totalitarian superstate called Oceania, Orwell’s write his precautionary trial. I believe Orwell wrote this book to warn us about certain characteristics that we possessed as human beings that could lead us into such a dystopian world as the one presented in 1984. Power, total power given to such a political system is what drives this novel.

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In the foreword of the second edition of Lord of the Rings, Tolkien stated that he “cordially dislikes allegory in all its manifestations. ”1 If one looks at that statement outside of its context, it appears one would be mistaken to read Lord of the Rings as being a Catholic work, since Catholicism is never explicitly mentioned. However, in that same paragraph, Tolkien extols the value of applicability, and considers it distinct from the allegory which is the “purposed domination of the author.” In this light, we can see Tolkien was not talking about allegory “in all its manifestations.” “Allegory” simply means to speak of something else, and thus includes “applicability.”

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Additionally, Okonkwo disrespects his wives and children “by constant nagging and beating” (Achebe 13) in order to seem masculine. Okonkwo tries to not be like his father on the inside, yet his actions show otherwise therefore, these conflicting ideas makes Okonkwo a complex character throughout the

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965 Words | 4 Pages

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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1346 Words | 6 Pages

The novel narrates the life of Okonkwo. The latter was very successful in everything he undertook. The opening lines of the novel clearly demonstrate his success. He had three wives and eight children. His life, however, starts to shatter little by little through a series of events, leading him to being exiled for seven years from his village.

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855 Words | 4 Pages

Okonkwo’s values are restricted to physical strength, power, and prosperity, and when the Europeans suddenly arrive, the cultural convergence prompts Okonkwo to respond with even more violence. While the majority of his tribe, including his son Nwoye, is open to considering

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3073 Words | 13 Pages

It [was] an offense against the Earth, and a man who commits it [cannot] not be buried by his clansmen” (Achebe 207). At the end of his life, Okonkwo committed an offense against the Earth and his village. Although he had achieved material success with his farm and cultural success with his titles, he did not truly achieve his own definition of success, which was becoming a

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951 Words | 4 Pages

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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917 Words | 4 Pages

Being the only one left who wants to overthrow the missionaries, Okonkwo is driven to kill himself. Many of the things Okonkwo does in his life tend to make things worse for him. Okonkwo’s actions before and after the cultural collision he experiences when

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769 Words | 4 Pages

Okonkwo In literature, there are many characters that stand out and show that they have a variety of qualities about them. In Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is one character that presents character traits from both the negative and positive sides of him. Okonkwo is portrayed to be a warrior who wanted to become somebody strong and looked up to, but also possesses less favorable qualities. He, however, does not let any one trait dictate his whole personality; he is written to be a well-rounded character.

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