Okonkwo The Power Hungry Warrior in Things Fall Apart
Okonkwo, The Tragic Hero
The novel, Things Fall Apart, takes place in a Lower Nigerian village of Iguedo and Mbanta and is centered around a man by the name of Okonkwo. Okonkwo, the protagonist, is introduced as the most renowned warrior of all tribes who brought great honor to his tribe by becoming the top wrestler of the villages. Throughout the book, Chinua Achebe expresses Okonkwo as a man whose obsession with power is what ultimately leads him to failing in attempts to obtain that power through his role as a farmer, the actions towards his family, and his actions towards the new civilization of the village. When introducing the protagonist, Achebe makes Okonkwo’s thirst for power and status very apparent not just through his physical accomplishments, but agricultural achievements as well.
Okonkwo’s obsession with power can first be seen through his duties as a farmer. In the book, Okonkwo, as well as being a great warrior and wrestler to feed his thirst for power, also was a very successful farmer in an effort to increase his social status in the village. The characteristic that set Okonkwo apart from the rest of the farmers was his ambition to become the best. Though being an ambitious person may seem like a good quality, Okonkwo’s mixture of arrogance and ambition gets the best of him when he tried to ignore nature and relies solely on his abilities as a farmer to grow yams on dry soil, but sadly produced nothing. An example from the book that can be seen was when it started to rain. Okonkwo began to farm right away and overcompensated the rain and planted four hundred seeds, only to find the soil has dried out the next morning. Still, Okonkwo tried to do whatever it takes to get them to grow but failed. This can be expressed in the book by how the author describes how much effort Okonkwo put into trying to save his yams by writing, “He had tried to protect them from the smoldering earth by making rings of thick sisal leaves around them. But by the end
The novel, Things Fall Apart, takes place in a Lower Nigerian village of Iguedo and Mbanta and is centered around a man by the name of Okonkwo. Okonkwo, the protagonist, is introduced as the most renowned warrior of all tribes who brought great honor to his tribe by becoming the top wrestler of the villages. Throughout the book, Chinua Achebe expresses Okonkwo as a man whose obsession with power is what ultimately leads him to failing in attempts to obtain that power through his role as a farmer, the actions towards his family, and his actions towards the new civilization of the village. When introducing the protagonist, Achebe makes Okonkwo’s thirst for power and status very apparent not just through his physical accomplishments, but agricultural achievements as well.
Okonkwo’s obsession with power can first be seen through his duties as a farmer. In the book, Okonkwo, as well as being a great warrior and wrestler to feed his thirst for power, also was a very successful farmer in an effort to increase his social status in the village. The characteristic that set Okonkwo apart from the rest of the farmers was his ambition to become the best. Though being an ambitious person may seem like a good quality, Okonkwo’s mixture of arrogance and ambition gets the best of him when he tried to ignore nature and relies solely on his abilities as a farmer to grow yams on dry soil, but sadly produced nothing. An example from the book that can be seen was when it started to rain. Okonkwo began to farm right away and overcompensated the rain and planted four hundred seeds, only to find the soil has dried out the next morning. Still, Okonkwo tried to do whatever it takes to get them to grow but failed. This can be expressed in the book by how the author describes how much effort Okonkwo put into trying to save his yams by writing, “He had tried to protect them from the smoldering earth by making rings of thick sisal leaves around them. But by the end
Cited: Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor, 1994. Print.