Things Fall Apart
Okonkwo, the main character in Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart, was a tragic figure. Though he strove to be a good, moral man, his fears and inflexible nature caused him to step out of line with his culture's definition of a good man. Every time he did so, he was in some way chastised or prodded back in the right direction, until finally he went too far and ultimately broke from his society entirely."Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness." His father, Unoka, was a poor, lazy, gentle soul who was regarded by the clan to be a failure. He died without title and massively in debt. "Unoka was never happy when it came to wars. He was in fact a coward and could not bear the sight of blood." This did not sit well with Okonkwo. "Even as a little boy he had resented his father's failure and weakness..." When Okonkwo matured, this resentment blossomed and caused Okonkwo to be "...ruled by one passion - to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved." So Okonkwo hated gentleness and idleness, which he saw as weakness and laziness, and cowardliness and peace, which he drove out by becoming a harsh and domineering man prone to violence and war. "...[I]
He heard voices asking: 'Why did he do it?' He wiped his machete on the sand and went away. Okonkwo knew how to kill a man's spirit. But Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half-way through, not even for fear of a goddess. Okonkwo's flaws, his inability to conquer his fear, and his inability to bend, to admit to any weakness, finally caused him to stand alone. He is the way he his, and will not admit that he is wrong. He discerned fright in that tumult. This time, however, the entire clan is there, and recoils from him. When the clan gathers together to discuss their option, the white man dispatches messengers to break up the meeting. Unfortunately, Okonkwo's nature does not allow him to change. Okonkwo could not stand that he had become exactly what he feared, a failure. Without looking at the man Okonkwo had said: 'This meeting is for men.
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