Okonkwo's Fear

Fear has the strength to empower or to destroy. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart Okonkwo’s life is ruled by fear. In the Igbo society social status is very important. Since Okonkwo’s father, Unoka was not viewed very highly, Okonkwo wanted to do all he could to build himself up, and earn titles. He also does not just worry about himself, he worries about his some Nwoye’s future. Nwoye is actually a lot like Unoka, and Okonkwo fears that Nwoye will not live up to the legacy that he has built for himself, and his family. Many scholars have analyzed Okonkwo's fear, and drive more manliness. There are also many books that talk about the same subject of fear. Although the clan views manliness as inherent, Okonkwo thinks that if he wants to
His obscure view of manliness can become dangerous because he associates manliness with aggression. He feels the need to convince to himself that he is a man. Nwoye, Okonkwo’s oldest son, lives in the shadow of Okonkwo’s expectations. Nwoye does not value titles, and statues as highly as his father does. Okonkwo has taken notice to how his son has fallen into the lifestyle of the woman and his father. So he has taken it upon himself to beat his son. He feels that beating Nwoye will teach him a lesson, and cause him to act more masculine. In Things Fall Apart Chinua Achebe writes “... already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness. At any rate, that was how it looked to his father, and he sought to correct him but constant nagging and beating,”(Achebe 13 -14). Okonkwo thinks thinks that getting physical will make him more of a man, but
At the end of Things Fall Apart Okonkwo meets a terrible fate. A fate that is nothing like his character. Throughout the whole book Okonkwo has been so overwhelmed with the fear of failure and tries to avoid it with such determination. In the end he can’t escape his evil mentality. In the book The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho writes “We come up against the third obstacle: fear of the defeats we will meet on the path,”(Coelho vi). The thing that motivates one towards their goals should not be fear. Okonkwo wants to be seen as a titled man so badly, that instead of just striving for goal, he fears failure. Okonkwo’s clan was known as warriors, and they would fight for what they would believe in. Everything changed once the English colonists came around. For seven years Okonkwo and his family went into exile for a crime that he committed. When he returned home he could tell that something changes. His people were not the brave soldiers he thought they were. They allowed the whites to come in and set up shop. Okonkwo was disappointed in his tribe for failing to protect their culture and land. In the article “Okonkwo’s Tragedy Is Not Due to Colonialism” Umelo Ojinmah states that “Okonkwo commits suicide because he could not face the prospect of seeing the tribe disintegrate under the impact of colonialism, Particularly because he felt that the clan has lost the will to fight like their ancestors,”(Ojinmah 101). Okonkwo