Excess and deficiency are two distinctly different extremes. However, they are both equally negative. This is made clear in the post-colonial novel, Things Fall Apart written by Chinua Achebe. The reader is introduced to the father and son pair of Unoka and Okonkwo who represent deficiency and excess, respectively. Although they are both noticeably different from each other, the reader can observe plenty of similarities between the two. Unoka and Okonkwo are akin to each other because they have similar relationships with their sons, they have harmful personalities, and they end up alone, isolated from everyone. Their parallels show that a life lived in excess or deficiency both lead to collapse. Unoka and Okonkwo have similar relationships …show more content…
Unoka dies a shameful death on his own in the evil forest, “[Unoka] died of the swelling which was an abomination to the earth goddess… He was carried out to the evil forest and left there to die.” (Achebe 18). Unoka dies shameful and alone. His disease means that he is not buried like most men are and instead, he dies alone in the evil forest. The death of Okonkwo is noticeably similar to that of his father, “they came to the tree from which Okonkwo’s body was dangling… ‘Perhaps your men can help us bring him down and bury him… it is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the Earth’”. (Achebe 207). Okonkwo, like Unoka, dies a shameful death and is not given a proper burial like most clansmen. It is in their deaths that the reader witnesses how a life of excess and deficiency both lead to collapse. Although Okonkwo and Unoka lived lives opposite each other, both their lives end in ways reminiscent of each other. Both die in ways that are considered abominations to the earth and both are buried like dogs. Unoka and Okonkwo’s lives end so similarly, showing how excess and deficiency both lead to