Chinonchewo: A Tragic Hero Of Okonkwo

Towards the end of Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo decided to take his own life due to the changes in his tribe caused by the white missionaries. This makes it harder to distinguish if the colonists were responsible for Okonkwo’s death and the diminishing of the Ibo Tribe. However, these colonists are gradually pushing an agenda to the Igbo people where Okonkwo is critical against. The collision between two separate beliefs causes various conflicts occurring in Things Fall Apart that eventually causes Umuofia to fall apart. This undermines Okonkwo’s drive to succeed in traditional terms and his desire to be a leader in his tribe.

Along the influence from a leader, and consternation current in the people, more people started to join the Christianity and its government. These people lost their power to fight, Umuofia was not a village any more that practiced wrestling. They who’d taken up the foreign religion and claimed that its own religion was bad. This propose the clan losing agency as its people get drained to the Christianity. “ he has won our brothers, and clan no longer acts like one.”

Within the novel “Things Fall Apart,” the author, Chinua Achebe, explained how a warrior named Okonkwo was a victim of himself. Okonkwo was a victim of tragic events that surrounded his life. These events eventually lead him to his fate. Okonkwo had a father who was weak, and he was a failure in the eyes of the men of the village, Umuofia. Okonkwo’s worst fear was to be the kind of man his father was, so he tried his best not to let his fear become a reality.

With the arrival of the white man, was the spread of Christianity. Okonkwo hated the new ideas. Okonkwo is a very religiously intolerant man, he feels as if his native culture is being destroyed, and wants to protect it as best he can. The white missionaries established churches and won lots of converts, including one of Okonkwo’s sons, Nwoye. Okonkwo is enraged to find this out.

This shows that not everybody believes that Christianity is so great. In Nathan’s head Christianity brings justice to the Congo but to the Congolese, Christianity only brings more injustice to them. Nevertheless Nathan’s ignores their thoughts and beliefs and continues to try to force Christianity on

Papa Nnukwu is the grandfather of Kambili, and is hated by his son, Kambili’s father, because he is a traditionalist and shows Kambili love and warm spirit. Her dad destroys the painting out of hate for his father and beats Kambili to attempt to stop her from being influenced by Papa Nnukwu. The painting really belongs to Kambili’s brother, but she takes the blame and Papa abuses her for it. Kambili usually would of been quiet and fearful of her father, but instead she protects her brother. This is an instance of a change in values and thinking, as she chose to protect her brother over her.

This displays the fear that the author had for his father. When reflecting over the poem, John J. Mckenna stated, “The author replaced the rather benign ‘kept’ with ‘beat’ thus making the situation more ominous, more negative” Roethke’s father worked manual labor and had a strong physique. This means that he might’ve been too rough with his son at times, but not intentionally to hurt him. That is one of the reasons Roethke feared his father slightly. Another change Roethke made to the poem was the gender of the child.

He thinks that anyone who is not like that is weak The main reason why Okonkwo is a tragic hero is that of how weak his chi is. The chi takes a big important role in the novel because according to the Igbo people, anything something goes wrong with a person it is because of there bad chi.in the beginning of the book, Okonkwo seems to be the one that has the best chi and has everything going for him at the time. In the beginning of the book the reader is meant though think that Okonkwo will overcome anything that is thrown at him because of his chi. This is shown in the novel when

One illuminating incident, where Papa finds his children in possession of a “heathen” painting and destroys it, not only symbolizes the discovery of

Infact, He deeply fears nothing but himself just because he don’t want to have the feminine and weak qualities like his father Onoka. He is compelled to kill of his step son (Ikemefuna), just

Not only are the converts outcasts, but they 're also men of title. Missionaries have now organized their own government, along with a district commissioner. This leaves Okonkwo in skepticism that his once strong clan is beginning to weaken. "Okonkwo was deeply grieved[...]. He mourned for the clan, which he saw breaking and falling apart, and he mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had so unaccountably become soft like women."

In other words he bends to pressure even though he isn’t ready to be saved. This leads to another theme in the story – sadness. He is heartbreakingly sad for not seeing Jesus and for lying to his aunt. “But I was really crying because I couldn 't bear to tell her that I had lied, that I had deceived everybody in the church that I hadn 't seen Jesus, and that now I didn 't believe there was a Jesus anymore, since he didn 't come to help me.

Likewise, Richard is compelled to fight back against his relatives punishment, especially when he “ lunged at [Aunt Addie] with [a] knife” (108). In this occurrence, Richard is accused of lying by Aunt Addie and he does not want to be beat with a switch, so he fights back. After years worth of accusations and brutal discipline, Richard finally stands up to his family because he can not take it any longer. Additionally, Richard refuses to accept the black and white codes. Blacks are suppose to be uneducated workers that obey every word that the whites say to them.

The theme manliness was developed through Okonkwo’s actions. For example, in the book, the narrator said, “...Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought of weak”(61). This action that the narrator reveals to us, shows us that Okonkwo feels that he needs to kill Ikemefuna to prove his manliness. This is one example of a bad decision/action Okonkwo made because he was afraid of being thought of as weak.