Compare Okonkwo and Gatzby

The Great Gatsby and Things Fall Apart

In this world there are heroes and villains. Neither Gatsby nor Okonkwo are good or bad. Okonkwo seems bad early on, when he beats his wives; he does however show compassion when he goes after Ezinma. Gatsby does something illegal, but everything he does is for Daisy. Their fatal flaws blind both Gatsby and Okonkwo. Okonkwo’s hubris is that he believes in the Umuofian dream of a perfect society, while Gatsby believes that he is able to erase the past. Their fates are worse than they deserved, Okonkwo is banished from Umuofia after accidentally killing someone and Gatsby does not have the love of Daisy, as he believes. Both Okonkwo from Things Fall Apart and Gatsby from The Great Gatsby are tragic heroes.

In Things Fall Apart it seems as if Okonkwo is bad, as he beats his wives and children, he does however show compassion. One night Chielo comes and takes Ezinma to her cave. Okonkwo stays when Ekwefi, against what everyone else says, goes. “When he thought he had waited long enough he again returned to the shrine. But the Hills and the Caves were as silent as death. It was only on his fourth trip that he had found Ekwefi,

. . .

View the whole essay, without interruption

” (Achebe, 1959, 112) Okonkwo must be a man without fear, and he pretends not to have any feelings, but he shows love when he goes after his daughter.

Both Okonkwo and Gatsby are haunted by their Hubris. But she and Tom had gone away early that afternoon, and taken baggage with them. Gatsby has a lot of money, and he achieved it through illegal means. “’Can’t repeat the past?’ he cried incredulously. ’ Obierika, who had been gazing steadily at his friend’s dangling body, turned suddenly to the District Commissioner and said ferociously: ‘ That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. We shall make sacrifices to cleanse the desecrated land. “I called up Daisy half an hour after we found him, called her instinctively and without hesitation. He was then forced to flee from Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be buried like a dog…. Okonkwo’s fatal flaw is that he puts too much belief into the Umuofian society and its ways.

“’I found out what your “drug-stores” were. When they do that they he sees that his perfect society is no longer perfect. ‘He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter.

Approximate Word count = 940
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Simply subscribe to view this paper, and 100,000 others.