Okonkwo Masculinity

Throughout history, men have had a strange sense of what it is to be a man. Masculinity has always been a fragile thing made of specific thoughts and actions. If someone does not do or think those specific manly things, they are not a man. Okonkwo from Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, has a very strict idea of what a man is.

Okonkwo strove all his life to gain a title. Okonkwo believes that a title is a necessary thing to be considered a man. He even goes so far as to call a title-less man a woman. “The man who had contradicted him had no titles. That was why he had called him a woman.” (4.1) If being called a woman in Umofia is powerful enough to “kill a man's spirit,” then masculinity is almost a requirement in the clan, and to Okonkwo, men who do not have titles do not work hard and are effeminate.
A man must work hard and provide for his family.
Growing a large amount of a difficult crop like yams earns a man respect in the community. Okonkwo believes that the “Yam [stands] for manliness, and he who could feed his family on yams from one gravest to another was a very great man indeed.” (4.32) Having suffered great embarrassment from his effeminate father, Okonkwo will not let his sons suffer the same. He pushes them and crushes their spirits in order to teach them how to properly grow the difficult yam so that they may become men
themselves.

Men, according to Okonkwo, are not supposed to enjoy the stories of women, and are instead supposed to enjoy listening to “Okonkwo's stories about tribal wars, or how, years ago, he had stalked his victim, overpowered him and obtained his first human head.” (7.4) Men are not supposed to like the stories of creation and mythology that the women speak. War and brutality are what men are supposed to carry in their hearts and minds. Okonkwo goes so far as to beat his own son, Nwoye, for enjoying the stories of the woman and not caring for the stories of the men.

Compassion and guilt are feminine emotions. When Okonkwo kills his adoptive son, Ikemefuna, he feels guilty. Okonkwo takes this guilt and compassion as a sign of weakness. A man who is “known in all nine villages for [his] valor in war” and has “killed five men in battle” should not feel guilt for killing another person, even if that person is his favorite son. (8.9) Okonkwo believes that statement to be true and calls himself a “shriveling old woman” because of his weakness and femininity.” (8.9)

Okonkwo is in constant fear of appearing feminine like his father and thinks about joining in the murder of Ikemefuna to make a “show of masculinity.” (8.20) A traditional role of the man is to protect and take care of his family, but Ikemefuna is doing the exact opposite. He is using his need to prove himself and prove his masculinity as an excuse to brutally murder a child. There is nothing masculine about murdering a child, only cruelty.

Okonkwo's fear of being considered feminine stems from his issues with his father, who was lazy and poor. Okonkwo believes that his father is effeminate due to his lack of discipline, large debt, and poor working habits. His issues with his father push him to prove himself throughout his entire life, as well as push his sons to be the perfect picture of masculinity.