A tragic hero is defined as a character who is noble in nature, has a tragic flaw and discovers his fate by his own actions. According to the novel Okonkwo is a tragic hero. Okonkwo’s flaws were his fear of being weak and like his father. He looked at his father as being a deadbeat, weak and lazy. He even characterized his father as being woman like.
Turning from a prideful boy to being merciful toward his dead brother. In fact, it all began when his brother was born, “with a tiny body which was red and shriveled like an old man’s” (595). Doodle is weakened and incapable of doing activities normal kids do at his age. The narrator encourages Doodle to keep on pushing, but no sooner does the narrator learn that pushing Doddle over his limitations will sooner or later kill him. The narrator kills Doodle indirectly, as a consequence of the lack of knowledge he has about Doodle’s medical issues, and as said before, being enveloped in pride.
Such an emotion would have destroyed him. They were big, white, armed men. He was small, black, helpless. His subconscious knew what his conscious mind did not guess – that hating them would have consumed him, burned him up like a piece of soft coal.” In the fear that he might have impregnated her, he runs away. This is his coping with it, he runs away just like his father and mother did.
(Acehebe, 1958) Though Okonkwo proves an ambitious hero, he is affected by his internal fear that has ruled his entire life. 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
Things Fall Apart -Chinua Achebe Okonkwo is a man whose fame is spread throughout the nine villages as he wins a competition with ‘Amalinze the Cat’. Okonkwo is a man who fears weakness and failure. He hated everything his father, Unoka, did which by the way was being gentle and idle, so he tended to be harsh just to not appear like his father. He, on the other hand, is a very respected warrior and has a great family, but he tends to get too overconfident in his way of thinking and beliefs. Okonkwo passes lots of life events that make him become very impending to his consequences.
He had gained a great deal of success through his fears, however, Okonkwo’s inability to control his emotions led him to an immediate end. He had always fears to resemble his father -weak, shameful, failure and an abomination- , more so, he died a shameful death just like his
Okonkwo a Tragic Hero What is a tragic hero? According to Aristotle, a tragic hero is a literary, noble character who makes a judgment mistake that eventually leads to his/her downfall. In the book Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is our tragic hero. Okonkwo is considered a tragic hero due to his leadership and eventual nobility, his big reverse as a character, and his tragic flaws that lead to his downfall. First of all, Okonkwo starts off as a poor child, as shown when the book states, “Okonkwo did not have the start in life which many young men usually had, he did not inherit a barn from his father.
Recounting heartbreak, betrayal, and deception, F. Scott Fitzgerald paints a bleak picture in the 1920’s novel The Great Gatsby. Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel, witnesses the many lies others weave in order to achieve their dreams. However, the greatest deception he encounters is the one he lives. Not having a true dream, Nick instead finds purpose by living vicariously through others, and he loses that purpose when they are erased from his life. His constant attempt to find fulfillment through others reveals a bitter truth about him: he will never be fulfilled.
Aristotle described a Tragic Hero as a superior man of lofty class who plays tragic imperfections and discovers his fate by his own proceedings. Similarly, in Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart”, Okonkwo is a protagonist and also considered a tragic hero who commits tragic flaws, experiences a remarkable reversal and recognition, who holds a position of power and prestige in Umuofia but his tragic flaw is his fear of weakness and failure and later discovering his fate soon after his action. Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. Okonkwo’s tragedy did not only involve him and his family, it also involved the whole society. He started as a sharecropper with no inheritance from his father.
Magwitch is set up as a violent monster when we first met him as he threatens seven-year old Pip at his parents grave but we grow to sympathise and even like Magwitch as we explore his character . As with many criminals, Dickens shows that we like to demonize the actions without understanding the circumstances. Magwitch was just stuck in a never ending cycle of poverty and violence that was born of his poverty and starvation leading to thievery. And that lead tried him and labeled him a troubled child when he was too young to understand the consequences of his actions. Eventually he got in legal trouble with a wealthy looking man named Compeyson who got a lighter sentence due to Magwitch being portrayed as a poor criminal and being “recommended to merely on account of good character and bad company”(Dickens 274).