Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart :: essays research papers

"[Trembles] with hate, unable to utter a word... in a flash Okonkwo drew his machete. The messenger crouched to avoid the blow. It was useless. Okonkwo's machete descended twice and the man's head lay beside his uniformed body." (204) This is a graphic illustration of Okonkwo?s desperate last attempt to reassert his manhood and to make a statement to the tribe. Regrettably for Okonkwo though it was a failure, and Okonkwo knew that the tribe would never stand up and fight, like he wanted them to. This incident is directly related to Okonkwo?s obsession with not looking weak like his father. Some people might say that Okonkwo was just trying to protect the tradition and cultural of his tribal village but in actuality this is far from the truth. When Okonkwo cut down the guard, he made the swift assumption that his clansmen were as passionate about fighting colonialism as him and would follow him into war. When he found otherwise, he could not understand what had happened to his village. The next place he was seen was hanging from a noose in a selfish show of hypocrisy. In the end, Okonkwo's status among his tribe counted for nothing because his own despair over the colonization of his village led him to kill himself. His whole life Okonkwo strived to not to look weak like his father, but in the end he took the cowards way out, suicide. Suicide was a great sin against the Earth. Because he took his own life, Okonkwo, a great leader of Umuofia, had to be buried by strangers. All of his work and perseverance amounted to nothing because of what he had done. Another claim that people might make is that he is justified because he was just finishing what the white people had started by imprisoning him and his fellow villagers. This may be true, but is revenge a very good justification for murder suicide? Though the corrupt court messengers were in the wrong for what they had done, Okonkwo had no right to do what he did either. Okonkwo failed to realize that two wrongs don?t equal a right, he thought that he could solve every thing with brute violence and war but he paid for his mistake with his life. Okonkwo made a fatal mistake by being so quick to war and to diplomacy. Okonkwo?s life mission was to be every thing his father wasn?