Okonkwo from the novel “Things Fall Apart” is a complex character with complex interactions with other characters, especially with his family. In the novel, he shows a very tough and hard to most of his family members. This tough and hard characteristic is more evident in his interactions with his second wife, Ekwefi and his third wife, Ojiugo were in both cases, his motivations seemed driven by anger and abuse rather than discipline.Based on text form the novel, he seems to be an abusive and violent husband to his wives; giving us readers an unsympathetic feeling towards him. Okonkwo’s second wife, Ekwefi has a part in the novel showing Okonkwo’s violent and animalistic nature. Ekwefi has been beaten and has been shot at by Okonkwo in chapter 3 on page 38 to 39 of the novel. The beating was a result of Okonkwo thinking that Ekwefi has killed the tree, when she only cut some leaves of the tree for wrapping food and the tree is very much alive. …show more content…
On chapter 3, page 29 of the novel, Ojiugo has left her children with Okonkwo’s first wife to plait her hair. When she returned, Okonkwo gave her a heavy beating as seen on page 29: “And when she returned she beat her very heavily.” He has done the beating on a sacred week and did not stop beating her because he not the type of person to stop beating someone halfway through, even in a sacred week. This can be seen in this quote on page 30: “But Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody halfway through, not even for fear of a goddess.” The fact that Okonkwo refused to stop beating his wife even in a sacred week where beatings are forbidden, shows how cold hearted and driven Okonkwo is by his anger and aggressiveness. Most readers are unable to relate or connect to Okonkwo’s violent thoughts and feelings, resulting in a very unrealistic and unsympathetic thought in the readers