Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
Igbo traditions essays
Igbo s culture, tradition, values and norm
An essay on: the igbo tradition
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Igbo traditions essays
Igbo s culture, tradition, values and norm
An essay on: the igbo tradition
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Igbo traditions essays
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.
In Umuofia, Okonkwo has a high title, earned by demonstrating his achievement in his city. He is recognized everywhere for being a great wrestler who beat Amalinze the Cat. In chapter one, it says that “He brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat” (Achebe 3). Okonkwo made it his goal to demonstrate himself powerfully to the community because his father, Unoka, was the opposite. The emotional, lazy, gentile, and unsuccessful Unoka was interested in music and drinking, and he didn 't try hard to make a name for himself.
Bull of Pope Eugene IV shows his approval of Portuguese expansion into the Atlantic in a document that uses the same language as was used in the Crusades. Both the Portuguese expansion and the Crusades were rooted in religious foundations. In the document concerning the Portuguese expansion the Pope references the suffering Christ experienced in His earthly life and death. He states that as Christ suffered, so should humans should expect to suffer. The goal of the expansion was pronounced to be the spread of Christianity and the eradication of infidels.
Upon Okonkwo’s return to Umuofia, he recognizes noticeable changes. The white men have built a church and founded a new religion among the people and subjected to follow their rules. As a man of violence, Okonkwo wants to fight the Christians until they leave. His people, on the other hand, have accepted the new ways. It’s evident to Okonkwo that these white men were clever to invite themselves into the tribe and take advantage of the Ibo people’s curiosity.
He is a successful farmer, has many wives, and has “two titles and had shown incredible prowess in two inter-tribal wars” (Achebe 8). He appears to be the perfect man in comparison to his father. Unoka, who “had taken no title at all and [] was heavily in debt” (Achebe 8). Unoka’s failure in life motivated Okonkwo to fulfill every tribal expectation for success. Okonkwo wants to be the complete opposite of his father, who was labeled as agbala due to his faults.
Okonkwo wants Nwoye “to be a great farmer and a great man” however, Nwoye is showing signs of laziness like his grandfather Unoka. Since, Nwoye was starting to be lazy, Okonkwo would “correct him by constant nagging and beating.” Okonkwo thought beating him was teaching him to not be lazy and be a great man. However, it just made turn and push away. Okonkwo’s relationship with Nwoye “is turning father hating into a new trend into the family.”
Do what you are told woman, Okonkwo thundered and stammered. When did you become one of the ndichie of Umuofia. And so Nwoye’s mother took Ikemefuna to her hut and asked no more questions.” Okonkwo treats his wives as servants, demanding that they do whatever Okonkwo pleases without questioning him. Not only speaking to her as belittling her, but calling her by woman.
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.
Okonkwo was a big supporter of physical and verbal abuse in his home, especially towards his wives and Nwoye. To Okonkwo, physical abuse was another language. This is how he spoke, and punished, on the occasion of the abuse, and how he had handled the situation. Women was treated poorly in Umuofia because men believe that they were weak and in inadequate. “ Even as a little boy Okonkwo had represented his father 's failure and weakness, and even now he still remembered how he had suffered when a playmate had told him that his father was Agbala.
Nwoye reminds Okonkwo of his father, a disappointment to the clan, causing a tense relationship between the two because
He got power through his ideals. He also obtains fame through the Igbo culture. In the Igbo tribe there are wrestling games and because of that “Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond.” (Achebe 1). This is the Okonkwo before the white men come.
Okonkwo longed to become the
He was always revered as warrior in the clan. However, when the Goddess Chielo comes for Okonkwo’s daughter, he is described as pleading with the Chielo, and begging her to come back in the morning, because the child, Ezinmea had been up late due to an illness and was fast asleep in her mother’s hut (Achebe, pg. 100). Chielo, insisting Okonkwo hand over the child, and everyone could witness how truly powerless Okonkwo was to the goddess. Okonkwo’s tolerance and acceptance of the goddess demonstrates perfectly how the female’s power is stronger, than any man’s power are in the Ibo
His fear of weakness and failure is derived from his father, Unoka’s failures, which ignite Okonkwo’s misogynistic views. Throughout his lifetime, Okonkwo associates femininity with weakness because of Unoka, who was called an “agbala” or woman by the people of Umuofia. Since women have this reputation for weakness, Okonkwo lives with constant fear that he will be given the same title as his father. Okonkwo’s first son, Nwoye’s effeminacy reminds Okonkwo of his own father. He says, "I have done my best to make Nwoye grow into a man, but there is much of his mother in him ."(Achebe, 66).
Fear is the core cause of the dramatic shift of lifestyle for both Okonkwo and Nwoye. Through the management of reputation and the avoidance of their father’s likeness, Okonkwo and Nwoye built new lives for themselves. Okonkwo sought power and authority to prove his masculinity and make up for Unoka’s reputation as a weak man. He did this to the point where manliness became his character. Fearlessness and violence were masculine qualities that in Igbo culture signifies strength and influence.