Okonkwo’s Relationship with Nwoye and Ezinma
a) Discuss Okonkwo’s relationship with Nwoye and Ezinma.
Okonkwo treated his son and daughter very differently. The child-father relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye was a distant and strained one while Okonkwo exhibited another type of feeling towards Ezinma which is filled with care and concern. This was due to the fact that Nwoye “was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness” whereas Ezinma was thought to have the “right spirit” and “alone understood [Okonkwo’s] every mood”.
The relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye is very stressful and bitter as Okonkwo has very high expectation for his eldest son. Hence Okonkwo always “sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating” when he was irritated by Nwoye’s laziness which resembled his failure father, Unoka. The resentment for the same kind of weakness and failure appeared on Nwoye and Unoka even pushed Okonkwo to show his strength and forced him to develop a successful son. Nwoye was often “beaten heavily” by his father and thereby he grew up into a “sad-faced lad”. This suggested the tense relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye which was actually connected by Okonkwo’s constant intimidation and Nwoye’s “perpetual fear” for his father. Another instance which shows the lack of understanding between Nwoye and Okonkwo was that although “Okonkwo wanted his son to be a great farmer and a great man”, he did not express his thought to Nwoye in the appropriate manner by threatening him he “would sooner or later strangle” Nwoye if he turned out to be a failure. This constant mental abuse evoked an intense sense of fear within Nwoye as Okonkwo said he would kill him if he ruined his reputation and also added tension to the relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye.
Their relationship improved a lot with the arrival of Ikemefuna. Nwoye was deeply influenced by Ikemefuna that he felt “grown up”. He even would “feign annoyance and grumble aloud about women and their troubles”, which
Okonkwo treated his son and daughter very differently. The child-father relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye was a distant and strained one while Okonkwo exhibited another type of feeling towards Ezinma which is filled with care and concern. This was due to the fact that Nwoye “was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness” whereas Ezinma was thought to have the “right spirit” and “alone understood [Okonkwo’s] every mood”.
The relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye is very stressful and bitter as Okonkwo has very high expectation for his eldest son. Hence Okonkwo always “sought to correct him by constant nagging and beating” when he was irritated by Nwoye’s laziness which resembled his failure father, Unoka. The resentment for the same kind of weakness and failure appeared on Nwoye and Unoka even pushed Okonkwo to show his strength and forced him to develop a successful son. Nwoye was often “beaten heavily” by his father and thereby he grew up into a “sad-faced lad”. This suggested the tense relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye which was actually connected by Okonkwo’s constant intimidation and Nwoye’s “perpetual fear” for his father. Another instance which shows the lack of understanding between Nwoye and Okonkwo was that although “Okonkwo wanted his son to be a great farmer and a great man”, he did not express his thought to Nwoye in the appropriate manner by threatening him he “would sooner or later strangle” Nwoye if he turned out to be a failure. This constant mental abuse evoked an intense sense of fear within Nwoye as Okonkwo said he would kill him if he ruined his reputation and also added tension to the relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye.
Their relationship improved a lot with the arrival of Ikemefuna. Nwoye was deeply influenced by Ikemefuna that he felt “grown up”. He even would “feign annoyance and grumble aloud about women and their troubles”, which