How Is Okonkwo A Sympathetic Character

He shows great love and sympathy for his family and cares for them when his father chose to be idle. He also shows his sympathy to his children, biological or not. His unsympathetic tendencies distance him from the reader, he is violent and threatening. In either circumstance, Okonkwo proves to be a memorable character in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, because of his striking characteristics that show him to neither be a hero nor a villain, but a loving an abusive father.

He was hard on them. “Okonkwo’s first son, Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient

Things Fall Apart is a novel written by Chinua Achebe. In the novel there is a main character called Okonkwo. He lived in Umuofia where he was also known throughout many of the nine villages around Umuofia. In the beginning of the story we see his overwhelming hatred towards his father Unoka. His father died about ten years ago and had not taken any title and was very much in debt.

“But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness”. Due to his father’s lack of work he pushed himself farther and is now pushing his own son nwoye. “Okonkwo’s first son, nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father anxiety for his incipient laziness”. In result of nwoye being lazy okonkwo threatens him to work, not only does he apply it to his first son but the rest of his family to the point where they are scared of his temper. Okonkwo wants his son to be successful and has hopes for him.

He works hard to become a better person rather than his father. He is driven by fear of being like his father. He is determined to not resemble his father in any way. Okonkwo does not want to be like his father that’s why he strive to be the person he is now. His father has nothing going for himself he’s lazy and don’t want to be nothing in life.

Okonkwo was a big supporter of physical and verbal abuse in his home, especially towards his wives and Nwoye. To Okonkwo, physical abuse was another language. This is how he spoke, and punished, on the occasion of the abuse, and how he had handled the situation. Women was treated poorly in Umuofia because men believe that they were weak and in inadequate. “ Even as a little boy Okonkwo had represented his father 's failure and weakness, and even now he still remembered how he had suffered when a playmate had told him that his father was Agbala.

He was too proud to let his tribe give up their warlike history. He was to proud and self-assured to accept his son's choices. Okonkwo is a sad character whose pride has constantly led him down the crooked path. Achebe shows that being proud isn't a constructive thing for the future. That development can only occur when pride is put aside, and people think logically instead of

The author, Chinua Achebe, used Okonkwo as an example of the father/son conflict and how the conflict affects a man’s life. Just because one does not always act like the typical strong, almost emotionless man, that does not mean one is coward. Okonkwo’s thought process leads to his demise because he cannot bear to see the strong willed tribe and culture he has known his whole life fail him: just

Okonkwo constantly struggled to create the same masculine character in Nwoye that he made for himself and constantly found a reflection of his effeminate father, Unoka, in Nwoye. Chapter two describes the relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye in Nwoye’s youth. “Okonkwo’s first son, Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness... He sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating” (13-14). Okonkwo’s efforts to change Nwoye’s resemblance of Unoka were causing their relationship to be pushed apart because of Okonkwo’s violence and Nwoye’s resistance.

Okonkwo was one of the most famous and fearful member not only of his clan in Umuofia but other nine villages as well. He worked hard to become a renowned and prosperous member of his clan and to break away from the legacy of his father Okoye who was referred to as ‘agbala’, a man who has not won any title and was another word for woman. Okonkwo was not an evil man but his life was dominated by fear of weakness and failure which made him extremely violent and aggressive. He hated everything associated with his father- music, gentleness and laziness. But much to the anguish of Okonkwo, Nwoye embodied most of his grandfather’s traits and this enraged Okonkwo deeply.

Okonkwo has a very hard time with his firstborn Nwoye, he’s lazy and Okonkwo asks him to do chores first, but when he sees that he doesn’t, he starts to beat him. “Okonkwo’s first son, Nwoye, was causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness, so he sought to correct him by nagging him and beating him.” It may seem harsh but he never tolerated laziness. Due to his father, he hated the sight of laziness, which is why he’d never want to be like him, or have his kids turn out that way. “He had no patience for unsuccessful men.

Okonkwo father was a coward and lazy and he did his best not to become that. Okonkwo’s tragic flaw is that he wants to be strong, all throughout the book he trying to strong leads him to sadness and overall suicided. A great example would be Ikemefuna, he basically became his second son and instead of showing emotion when Okonkwo participates in Ikemefuna’s murder he just shoves it inside causing guilt and regret All of it because he does not want to be like his father. Another great example is when he was all ready to go to war and at the meeting when a messenger from the missionaries arrive and says stop the meeting. Enraged he kills him before realizing that his clan will not go to war with the missionaries. If he had not try be big and

In the book “Things Fall Apart“ Okonkwo is a very strong man and from time to time he starts showing his true self. He has a lot of responsibilities and other things he has to do around the living environment and interact with lots of people. Okonkwo changes from being that strong man, to a man who feels like his tribe is not with him when he wants to go to war with the missionaries. For someone like Okonkwo a lot of people looks up to him and while in the tribe Okonkwo beats his wives and children. Not good behavior for someone who is supposedly looked at as strong.

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.

Among those of the same culture, individuals who are adaptive and open-minded can be successful when there is cultural collision. When the Igbo and European cultures collide, Okonkwo gradually spirals out of control, losing everything he values and his own sense of self. From the beginning of the novel, Achebe depicts Okonkwo as a virile warrior and a successful farmer within the Igbo tribe. Reacting with violence to anything he considers “womanly” or “weak”, “He was a man of action and man of war” (10). Because of his reputation as a warrior he is highly respected by his community.