How Is Okonkwo A Tragic Hero

“A tragedy is that moment where the hero comes face to face with his true identity”- Aristotle. The character Okonkwo from the book ‘Things Fall Apart’ by Chinua Achebe demonstrates the role of a tragic hero. He starts off in the book as a well known and respected warrior in the clan of Umuofia. His father (now deceased) however was known for being irresponsible and cowardly. Okonkwo vowed to never be anything like his father. Okonkwo captures the role of a tragic hero according to the attributes Aristotle gives us because he starts off as this man who was admired and valued very well in his clan but loses all of this due to issues that just keep presenting themselves. Okonkwo shows that maybe in the end his father was his true identity.Lets
“Unoka, the grown-up, was a failure. He was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat. People laughed at him because he was a loaf...Fortunately, among these people a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father. Okonkwo was clearly cut out for great things. He was still young but he had won fame as the greatest wrestler in the nine villages..To crown it all he had taken two titles and had shown incredible prowess in two inter-tribal wars. And so although Okonkwo was still young, he was already one of the greatest men of his time. ” This piece of text evidence gives us an idea of what Unoka (Okonkwo’s father) was viewed as by his family and society; we are also able to see that Okonkwo was the true definition of a savior at this point in time to the village. Okonkwo was viewed as a strong, wealthy, leader that could take over any responsibility that Unoka could not
Okonkwo comes back from exile to find that his village is pretty much destroyed. The missionary that had come in was very convincing in the way that they took over half of the Igbo people and turned them into Christians. “ Perhaps I have been away too long, but I cannot understand these things you tell me. What is it that has happened to our people? Why have they lost the power to fight?..Our own men and our sons have joined the ranks of the stranger.” Okonkwo had raised himself to stick to what you have grown up with, so to find that even his own son had joined something he didn’t know about, he is in disbelief. By this point Okonkwo has found that there is no realistic method to get his village back to routine. “ Then they came to the tree from which Okonkwo’s body was dangling, and they stopped dead.” We can find that Okonkwo had given up to all of his village and basically ended in the footsteps of his own father who he despised. No longer determined to do anything. Any change he could have made in the small amount of time he had is no longer available to be made. This is why this ‘tragic ending’ brings us to the ending of Unoka who shows us an unreliable, thoughtless figure.Ultimately we can find that Okonkwo is a good representation of a tragic hero. Returning back to my points made before he had a fear of weakness and failure so