Humans are fundamentally savage at some point in their life. It is a natural and subconscious part of human life, as they themselves are animals after all. Humans can be savage towards other humans seen in domestic abuse, or towards animals also seen in animal abuse. Savagery is best depicted in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. The main protagonist Okonkwo, is introduced as a man full of glory, who regards masculinity above all, despising his father who was lazy.…
Okonkwo was a self-made man and created his riches with minimal help from anyone else. He was also held in high esteem within his clan of Umuofia. His estate included his personal hut, huts for his three wives and children, shrine room, storage for yams and kola nuts, and shelter for the family’s chickens and goats. A large earthen wall then enclosed this estate. In addition to the physical riches he held, yams, kola nuts, and livestock, he also had achieved two out of the four tribal titles that a person could hold, and well on his way to attaining the third (Achebe, 1994).…
One might infer that he had the realization that he cannot stop the change that was happening in Umuofia, but that it does not mean he had the enlightenment Aristotle’s definition describes. Nonetheless, Okonkwo was in fact a tragic hero. His fatal flaw of being afraid of weakness and failure caused him to be a violent man. When the white men brought Christianity to Umuofia, Okonkwo was opposed to the new ways. He believed that the changes were destroying the Igbo culture, changes that required compromise and accommodation — two qualities that Okonkwo found intolerable.…
Nwoye’s Identity One day, a stranger that speaks in a foreign tongue wears different clothing, and has a religion based on only one god, walks into town. One must decide whether to accept and make peace with the foreigner or to drive him out of town. In the book Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe presents this situation, as a group of white men bring in western ideas into Ibo society, causing a cultural collision. The cultural collision has positive and negative aspects.…
A Change Must Come: Leaving Traditions Behind African culture is centered around community, tradition and the spirit world. One cannot truly understand said culture without understanding these concepts. In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart he focuses on several issues involving the community and the spirit world to expose people to Africa and its culture. Change is good; however, when one is susceptible to or too accepting of change' that they seemingly neglect or reject that which they have been taught, problems arise. The characters Okonkwo and his son Nwoye epitomize this statement.…
He “mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women” (183). As the only man who still feels as though the clans should rebel and drive out the missionaries, Okonkwo sets himself apart from the clan he once identified with by refusing to modify his principles when more…
“That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself and now he will be burned like a dog…” (208). Even up to his death, Okonkwo seemed to be the only one who was really hit by the missionaries showing up and he stayed completely true to himself in his culture and his religion. He knew it was a disgrace to hang himself in their culture but he couldn 't live with the fact that people were converting their religions to join the white…
How do people react to conflict? Depending on the situation everyone will react differently to different situations. LIke if it is a negative conflict people will react badly. On the other hand though if it is positive conflict people are more likely to react positively. One example of a negative/positive conflict is okonkwo and his desire to be better than his dad.…
In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo was a man who upheld high standards and a high place in the society of Igbo. Okonkwo was the man who all the other men looked up to and wanted to be, until christian missionaries and ruined his life. At least that’s what Okonkwo believes. After they “ruin” his life he changes into a man who doesn’t take responsibility for his own actions and wrong doings. He blames the destruction of his life on the actions of others.…
This fear of weakness drives Okonkwo’s commitment to militancy, and his desire to be a defender of the tribe and the tribe’s way of life. Thus,…
He mourn[s] for the clan, which he s[ees] breaking up and falling apart, and…for the warlike men of Umuofia, who ha[ve] so unaccountably become soft like women” (182-183). Here, Okonkwo struggles to cope with the imposition of British rule. Iguedo operates on a different political and economic level than before and it seems to him that the Ibo people have renounced tradition and weakly submitted to the imperialists instead of exercising their own power. Okonkwo’s fear of effeminacy has become permanent enough that, at this point, he is physically and pathetically saddened by the village’s loss of tradition and…
Along with fear, Christianity was the root of half of the conflicts in the book. “Okonkwo's cousin, Amikwu,” wouldn’t have seen “Nwoye among the Christians” (54). Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son, converted to Christianity because he felt safer among the Christians and away from his father’s madness. Without Christianity existing there, Nwoye would not have left his family for the religion and would have become a breadwinner, like his father, and continued the cycle of patriarchy in Umuofia. Umuofia wouldn’t have begun to fall apart under the newly found control of the white men.…
During his exile Okonkwo is listless, almost paralyzed by his inability to do any work beyond providing for his family. Achebe implies that once Okonkwo is away from his fatherland, his character is effaced, almost obliterated. He can no longer act as a man among men. Instead, he is limited to reaction, especially rage, as he hears stories about the coming of the white men. He calls other men fools for not fighting back, for not retaliating against the Europeans, but his ravings are mostly impotent, unheard cries of frustration that Ibo men are no longer men but women, "clucking like old hens" (153).…
Okonkwo was a rich and respected warrior who brought honor to the Umuofia clan. He was very different from his late father, Unoka, who was weak, sensitive, and ultimately a failure. Okonkwo never wanted to be like his father, and even “as a little boy he had resented his father’s failure and weaknesses” (Achebe 13). This was his tragic flaw, he under no circumstances wanted to be a failure or “resemble his father” in any way (Achebe 13). Among the Umuofia clan “a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father” (Achebe 8).…
In the book, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo is one of the most prideful people. He believes in his values and his culture like no one else. When western colonization comes in and tries to change everyone’s culture to their own, Okonkwo does not take this lightly. Okonkwo is forced to take action on the people from the Western Colonization to try and save his culture. The main cultural conflicts for Okonkwo are; when his son, Nwoye, goes and joins the missionaries, when most of the village flocked to the new church since they did not rely on the Gods for power.…