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Character analysis essay on okonkwo
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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.
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.
Okonkwo is a very strong man who is looked up to by many. He ruled his home with an iron fist. Okonkwo was the man who first opposed the british. Okonkwo decided to not follow the british and the christians even to the point of hitting his own son when he found out he changed religion. "Answer me," roared Okonkwo, "before I kill you!"
Okonkwo grieves the changes he missed during exile. “He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking up and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women” (183). Obierika is not as upset about the British arrival as Okonkwo, but merly helps identify the theme of how the Igbo mis-interpreted the motives of the British missionaries, and allowed them to build a church and start converting Igbo tribesmen to their religion, and tearing apart the tribes. Then the British send a messenger to ask the leaders of Umuofia to stop their meeting against the missionaries, and Okonkwo kills the messenger. This is where he realizes that the rest of the village doesn’t want to fight back against the British.
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's pride leads him to resist change and reject the white missionaries who come to Umuofia. This resistance leads to his downfall because he is unable to accept a new way of life. This shows how pride can lead to downfall when it prevents people from adapting and accepting new ideas. "A proud heart can survive general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone" (Achebe 30).
Okonkwo is an admired warrior of the Umuofia clan. When he was young, he received honor from his village by beating Amalinze the Cat in a wrestling contest. His father is Unoka, who disliked the sight of blood. Unoka was constantly in debt, which meant that his family often were hungry.
Okonkwo is the main character in the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. Okonkwo has done many questionable things and he has a very unique mindset and there is no doubt that he is a flawed man. But there is evidence that he is also a good man. So I think that Okonkwo is both a flawed man and a good man. In chapter four of Things Fall Apart Okonkwo’s youngest wife Ojiugo went to a friends house to plait her hair and did not return early enough to cook the afternoon meal so when she got home he beat her very viciously.
(Achebe 176). This quote foreshadows the inevitable Okonkwo, the hot-headed leader rules with an ample iron fist. He believes that violence is always the answer and showing weakness is not an option. He wants to seem like the strongest person in the tribe to erase the negative connotation that his father Unoka left behind as the past leader. The novel’s main character, Okonkwo, is perceived as a tragic hero because of his unconventional leadership practices
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.
Okonkwo’s instinctively violent nature, dedication to his tribe, and dedication to his manliness makes him at fault for his tragic fate. Okonkwo strived to be everything his father, Unoko, wasn’t. Unoko was gentle, lazy, and unsuccessful. Okonkwo strives to be the opposite. He is stoic, strict, and wealthy.
He discerned fright in this. He heard voices, “Why did he do it?”(Achebe 205). As we can see Okonkwo began to see confusion and disorder in Umuofia and was frightened by this. He thinks since Umuofia won’t stand up and fight to protect and preserve their culture and tradition that he would take it into his own hands hoping he would be seen as a hero and be accepted again by the Umuofia people, but by doing so he loses even more respect. We can now see Okonwo’s true identity here as not a leader, but as a selfish person
Okonkwo is shown at times to be abusive, stubborn and tempered, because of this it can be assumed that Achebe uses Okonkwo to analyze the human condition. The son of the lazy Unoka, Okonkwo, has the main goal of living up to his village's standard of manliness. In so doing, he rejects everything in which he believes his father stood up for. Since he does that, Okonkwo prioritizes his own goals and at times gets too caught up in himself which ends up hurting the people he loves in some way. An example of this can be shown through
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.
Okonkwo’s sense of identity is challenged by the relationship of his father, Unoka, and his adopted son, Ikemefuna. Unoka is not the typical role model for anyone because “when Unoka died he had taken no titles at all and he was heavily in debt” (8). Unoka’s death did not bring good to his name due to his debt and the lack of titles. This shows why Okonkwo doesn’t want to be like his father, who in the ibo culture has no dignity due to the lack of titles. This makes Okonkwo become tough and respected because “he was not afraid of war.
