Student X

Class 1206

Things Fall Apart

In Chinua Achebe’s African trilogy novel, Things Fall Apart, it is evident to the

reader that the protagonist of the story, Okonkwo, is obsessed with manliness. This concern

manifests itself in almost every chapter. In every action and every choice he makes, there is

the determination of manlike nature. He gives a strong and aggressive image, washed of any

single behaviour that was his father's, a lazy and titleless man named Unoka. He is driven by

the fear of becoming like his disgraceful father; he aims to become successful and works

really hard, such that he could probably climb up to the highest point, if the accident that put

him into exile did not happen; it gives him a pain in the neck. In his society, success is a

masculine identity and he must work hard to succeed in life. He resists the change and is

afraid to lose his social status that safeguards him. Through the seven years of exile, and the

spread of Christianity, Okonkwo reveals no sign of changing his goal, to become a great man

with admiration and a hold on power. Things Fall Apart shows that despite the mans

respectable reputation, his unbalance on masculinity and femininity, fear of change, and

anger bring about his own collapse.

In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is unable to adjust and balance between the masculine

and feminine sides that later gets him in trouble. Okonkwo is portrayed as a man of great

wealth and power, the antithesis of his father, Unoka. "Males act in the ways they do, not

because of their male role identity, or their level of masculine traits, but because of the

conception of masculinity they internalize from their culture" (Pleck et al., 1993; 14-15),

Okonkwo grows up in the world where the definition of a man is defined by the society, not

from him. Consequently, the accomplishment in the masculinity arena considers socially

accepted male qualities, distinguished from female ones. His first lesson about manliness is
from his father whom does not synchronize with the social standard. It was not his fault but it

was the thing that he learned from his community and his dad. Therefore, everything that

Unoka loved including gentleness and idleness, were never expressed from him. Okonkwo

holds a strong belief that the worst thing you could do is to be a woman while you are a man.

During the kindred meeting in the beginning of Things Fall Apart, he reveals a rude action

by looking down on Osugo, a man who had no titles, that the meeting is for men. This man is

arguing with Okonkwo and a way to shut him up is to kill this man’s spirit, thus, Okonkwo

called him a woman. Moreover, he killed Ikemefuna, a boy whom he has got from the victory

over the neighboring clan, Mbaino, that later becomes his foster son. Ikemefuna lives with

Okonkwo’s family for three years before the Oracle of the Hills and Caves has pronounced

that he would be killed. Even though Okonkwo is warned not to bare a hand on Ikemefuna’s

death, he is afraid of being thought weak, and not only that he accompanied them, he also

killed Ikemefuna who called out for help. It can be emphasized that Okonkwo is a man out

of balance, he let it outweigh his own relationship with the boy. Deep down in his heart, he is

not a cruel man, but he let manliness overvalued his inward feeling. After the death of

Ikemefuna, Nwoye loses love and respect of him. This father son relationship calls to the

question of the authenticity of masculinity. Okonkwo was really disappointed in his son,

Nwoye, as he turned to be weak and act in ways like a woman. “He, Okonkwo, was called a

flaming fire. How could he have begotten a woman for a son?” (153). This quote is stated

after the white man came and settled down to spread their religion. Nwoye leaves the ways of

the clan to embrace Christianity, one reason being to no longer be associated with his father

anymore. Okonkwo compared himself with fire, a symbol of maleness. At this point,

Okonkwo is unable to procure the satisfaction in his son, who is not a fire like him. Later on,

he confessed that Nwoye was not worth fighting for and considered that as tragic as if Nwoye

doesn’t walk on the path of the cultural expectation, his life is lacking of success. Even so,
the child that seems to hold Okonkwo’s idea of masculine greatness is his daughter, Ezinma.

This could be analysed that Okonkwo fully develops himself with the acception of only the

masculine side. Nurturing standing the risks of being feminized, that Okonkwo won’t nurture

Nwoye and Ikemefuna to appraisal of how prosperous he is as a man. He does great either in

positions or livings, but he allows the masculine desire to over take him that afterwards rips

his family apart.

Okonkwo is a determined individual whose fear of change and losing his self-worth

eventually works against him. As time progresses, Okonkwo’s will is to keep his home,

Umuofia, untouched from outsiders because its system were the measure that he assigned

worth. In the early age, Okonkwo hated his father. Their relationship is the root of

Okonkwo’s fear. Unoka was unable to feed the family and kept piling on debts which created

an embarrassment for Okonkwo. He distances from his father and after Unoka’s

death, Okonkwo pushed his effort to the limit such that he becomes prosperous ; he gets a

nice compound, wives, children, and is full of yams. The society accepts him and that is what

makes his life meaningful. He rejected anyway of his father that “his whole life is dominated

by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness” (13). Though, the true driving force “was the

fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father” (13). It seems like the fear has

created him a delusion due to his goal being to possess titles and become an honored

member. Later on, he kills Ikemefuna in order to stay strong in the eyes of villagers, an action

that a father would never have done to his son. During the Week of Peace, he even beat his

wife because he didn’t want to appear weak like Unoka, but after the villager scolded him,

he’s accepting it as long as it made him remain honored. In chapter eight, during Okonkwo

and Obierika, his company are discussing the difficulties of ozo title; Obierika express a wish

that sometimes he doesn’t want to take the title. In response, Okonkwo replied “I think it is

good that our clan holds the ozo title in high esteem...in those other clans you speak of, ozo is
so low that every beggar takes it” (70). This quote is the key that foreshadows the event in the

last chapter. This quote reveal that the foundation Okonkwo has built through his whole life

can throw in confused if any beggar is allowed to take the title in Umuofia. After Okonkwo

accidentally killed one boy of the clan, he’s put in exile to his motherland, Mbanta, for seven

years. He is distracted from his loss and also the arrival of the whiteman and notwithstanding

that he disapproves them, still, they do not care. He convinced himself that when the time

came, he would be back in Umuofia, a right place for him to work his way up. On the other

hand, “it seemed as if the very soul of the tribe wept for a great evil that was coming – its

own death” (187). The quote reveals that Okonkwo comes to realize that things has fall apart

as the meaning of life has been destroyed by the new system and missionaries. The white

man successfully occupied villagers, especially those who were in the low positions; it was

extremely unlike from what Okonkwo has been establish through his whole life. He is too

afraid that he decided to takes his own life that it ends in tragedy just like his father.

Okonkwo did the last thing that Unoka would never do and even though suicide is against the

custom and is an abomination against the earth, it conforms to the true way of Umuofia.

Connected to the real world, there’s the Sentinelese, an uncontacted tribe living on the North

Sentinel island, that recently killed one of the American guys who illegally went into the

island. “The tribe have made it clear that they do not want contact. “ It is a wise choice.

Neighboring tribes were wiped out after the British colonized their islands, and they lack

immunity to common diseases like flu or measles, which would decimate their population”

(Survival 2018), equated to Okonkwo, the Sentinelese tribes reveal the sense of

unpleasantness; they are afraid of change that could lead to their fall. To conclude,

Okonkwo’s resistance to change was irreversible, his social status that he so adheres to is no

longer valuable in the new system. While the Igbo changes, Okonkwo resists and dies with

Umuofia’s old tradition.

perform an action that brings trouble to himself and leads to his reputation downfall.

Okonkwo is able-bodied and would sometimes stumble over his words when he is angry. He

use this as an advantage to use the fist whenever he couldn’t get the words out quickly. This

fierce tempered guy who doesn’t think about the consequences of his actions kept all the

family members under his control as he rules his household “with a heavy hand” (13). They

live in fear of his fiery temper. During the Week of Peace and preceding the planting season,

he brutally beats one of his wives. First it was his youngest wife, Ojiugo, who went to her

friend’s house to get her hair braided without preparing dinner for him. He is dishonorable,

breaking the peace of the sacred week that goes against the law called nso-ani. He loses the

respect that he need to make a reparation to the god through sacrifices. Thus, this can clearly

be seen that Igbo tribe doesn’t find mere physical strength as a sign of manliness. Moreover,

Okonkwo beats his second wife, Ekwefi, and threatens to shoot her during the Feast of the

New Yam, where Umuofians give thanks to their Earth goddess Ani for the fruitful vest. He

is angered from a small reason as he finds out that Ekwefi cut some leaves of banana tree to

wrap food. When he feels better he decides to go out for shooting, but Ekwefi, who is angry

for Okonkwo beating her, insults him and that anger was tripled, such that Okonkwo points

his gun toward her. During the funeral of Ezeudu, the same guy who warned Okonkwo not to

take part in killing Ikemefuna, Okonkwo's gun explodes accidentally, killing Ezeudu's son.

Therefore, he got kicked out from Umuofia for seven years. When Okonkwo returns to his

native land, he sees the breaking up of the clan and shows a deep sorrow toward the warlike

men of Umuofia. The new values successfully grow that people accept the weak, and even an

outcast - one of them is Enoch, the son of a snake-priest. The story starts to flame up when

Enoch was believed to have been killed and eaten by the sacred python. Followed by the

event during the annual ceremony, he committed one of the greatest crimes, unmasking an
egwugwu, a masquerader of the ancestral spirits in public. As a consequence, the band of

masked egwugwu burned the church to cleanse Enoch’s sin, ignoring Mr. Smith, the

missionary. After the ruination of the church, the leaders of Umuofia were armed by the

District Commissioners. They were badly treated in the jail by not being given any drink or

food, knockings of their heads together, and being hit, each man with a bow. Okonkwo and

other prisoners were released after the cowries were paid, carrying their brooding bloody

backs home. That night, where crier announces the next meeting, Okonkwo lays on his

bamboo bed thinking “If Umuofia decided on war, all would be well. But if they chose to be

cowards he would go out and avenge himself” (199). This quote is a foretelling that

expresses his true thoughts. He wishes that the whole tribe would fight besides him, but he

also prepares to go alone if they refuse to follow. No surprises, Okonkwo could no longer

hold his anger when head messenger came to stop their meeting in the next day. The

messenger was able to speak for only two sentences, before enraged Okonkwo delivers a

machete to assassinate him. This was his last action that suffered him and his tribe that finally

he hung himself. He could fight no more. In a nutshell, his raging temper was characteristic

that made his life harder, though it gives him an appearance of being so strong and powerful

that makes everyone in the tribe idolize him. At the end, it was nothing but pride that worked

against him and caused things to go rack and ruin.

Although Okonkwo is arguably the most powerful man in Umuofia, it was his

overweight masculinity, panic of change, and uncontrollable anger that gripped Okonkwo to

truly fall apart. In Okonkwo’s world and his culture, masculinity is shaped by the unseen

forces around himself. He worked so hard and gained wide recognitions, yet tragedy has

continued to come upon him. He killed Ikemefuna to show no sign of weakness, a thing that

can impede his manliness; surrounded himself and thought only of doing things that he would

not be considered as a woman, to the point that his real son, Nwoye leaves him. Okonkwo
pretends not to care and considers him as a failure just because Nwoye didn’t become a man

that fits his definition. He resists to change when the white men change everything in his

community, especially when a titled man like him is no longer powerful. The downfall is

caused by his inability to adapt himself to the changes in beliefs and people. More so, he

battered his wives because his anger is out of control. At a larger level, the combination of his

masculinity, anger, and fear bursts out to perform out the last action. Therefore, he challenges

and kills the messenger. After all, he realizes that his strength and reputation that he holds on

to his whole life won’t contribute his life to success and beating the white men. Being unable

to accept this, he commits suicide. No matter the more a man achieves, the fear is always

there, reminding he or she that they must continually develop. Lastly, the desire of

achievement, makes a person blind or lose their mind, regardless of how successful he used

to be.
 Bibliography

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart, London: Heinemann, 1958; New York: Astor Honor,

1959. Print.

International, S. (n.d.). Sentinelese. Retrieved from

https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/sentinelese

Pleck, J. H., Sonenstein, F. L., & Ku, L. C. (1993), Masculinity ideology: Its impact on adolescent

males' heterosexual relationships. Journal of Social Issues, 49, 11-29.