Unoka And Okonkwo Relationship

The bond that a parent and a child have really does affect the way they grow up and the kind of personality traits they develope. In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe shows how a parent child relationship is important. The distant relationship between Unoka and his son Okonkwo not only shapes him as a stronger hard working man but it also impacts his son Nwoye’s personality as well.
The outcome of a child really is dependant what kind of bond with their parents they grew up with. For example, Unoka “was a failure” and he was the father of Okonkwo(4). Since his father was seen this way he had no way to know what a real man should be like. This caused him to create his own image of a real man which was very violent and powerful, and the exact opposite of his father. Now Nwoye grew up with a powerful father Okonkwo, that “wanted him to be a man” and do manly things(54). So this had created an image in his mind of what he was suppose to act like. Although, Nwoye had a different idea he still followed in the footsteps of his father. This shows what the parent tells and teaches to their child does have an affect on them.
Now Okonkwo is a highly respected man in his tribe but “failure and weakness” is still one of his biggest fears(13). This fear was caused from growing up with a lazy, and weak man as a father. This does push him to be the exact opposite of his father when he is older. This also causes the bond with his father to be very weak or not exist at all. On the other hand okonkwo also never wanted to “resemble his father” in anyway as a man(13). Okonkwo also did not see his father as a man, so to be any resemblance of him would be like calling him a women in Okonkwo’s eyes. This shows that Okonkwo looked at his father more womanly than