Okonkwo of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is many things, but relatable is one adjective that I would not use often when describing him. This is why I find it difficult to assert that Okonkwo fits Aristotle's image of the tragic hero. Though he fits many of the qualifications, Okonkwo is missing some key characteristics. Ultimately, he breaks out of the image of the tragic hero because his problems are too specific to certain groups, he's not exactly virtuous, and his tragedy would certainly leave some in a state of depression.
The tragic hero is relatable, someone who is essentially like the masses: Okonkwo doesn't always display this. When half the population is female, his unreasonable concern with his masculinity, his largest struggle, doesn't hit home for everyone. If his key issue is only relatable to a fraction of half of the world's population, most couldn't identify with him. The idea of the tragic hero may also be constrained by culture. Okonkwo's abhorrent treatment of women is one alienating factor for most of the Western world. It's hard to get over, and it's difficult to relate to someone with ideas many consider morally wrong.
The tragic hero is noble and virtuous: Okonkwo, while being noble and possessing an elevated position in Umuofian society, he's not exactly virtuous. He consistently breaks the tenants of his own religion and society. His violence during the week of peace is a striking example of this. He's also quick to condemn men for displaying what he consider's "womanly" behavior, and uses violence as his medium of choice in regards to problem-solving. None of these qualities are virtuous, and they're fairly prominent in Okonkwo's character.
The tragic hero's fall does not leave the reader in a state of depression: Okonkwo's fall shows some of the most painful and disheartening aspects of imperialism, and the book leaves one with a bitter taste in her mouth. The death of Okonkwo is an example of the helplessness that imperialism causes. Knowing that his tribe would not take action, he killed himself. One could argue that his suicide was due to the imminent change and oppression of his culture, due to the life that he had and that had been taken away from him. Okonkwo couldn't even be cut down by his own people, he had to be removed and buried by white people. This is something he almost certainly would not have wanted. The mention of the book-to-be in the last chapter, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger, does nothing to ameliorate the prior tragedy.
Though Okonkwo does fit several of the criteria of the tragic hero, I believe he parts from it too much to be considered one. Too many of his qualities make most people unable to identify with him strongly. His flaws are too many and too brutal to consider him virtuous. Lastly, the tragedy of his fall leaves one quite upset. Despite Okonkwo's similarities to Aristotle's tragic hero, the glass slipper is simply too snug to fit him.
Wednesday, April 12, 2017
Okonkwo's Character as a Hero
Aristotle had a specific outline for the qualifications of a tragic hero. They must express emotions of pity and fear but be respected and noble my their peers for their greatness. Throughout this story, Okonkwo is viewed as a hero by many in his village. He is know to be a strong, powerful, and feared individual that is respected by most people. However, his life is not perfect by any means. There are many events and issues present throughout Okonkwo's life that make his heroism questionable. Okonkwo is a perfect example of a tragic hero in the eyes of literature.
Okonkwo is well respected and viewed highly in his community. He is recognized for his greatness, power, and knowledge due to all that he has accomplished throughout his life growing up. Few people would ever question or stand up to him, however, this is mainly due to the fear he instills in everyone. Okonkwo is a noble individual, yet he is not too unlike anyone else. The readers of this story are able to relate to many emotions and ideas that are present within his character, making him a heroic yet understandable individual to read about.
Also, Okonkwo has many downfalls in this story that make him seem more like a typical human rather than a great hero. He has small faults, such as how he treats his wives and children, but also greater faults that end up causing his power and nobility to come crashing down. He kills his son since the village decided it had to be done, however, the only reason he did it was to make sure the other village members knew he was masculine and powerful. It becomes clear that he feels the need to maintain his reputation as the masculine and well-respected member of his village that he is known for. However, after killing another character, Okonkwo receives consequences. He is banished from the village. He consciously made the decision to kill this character, however, his banishment seems slightly extensive for his crime. Despite this, when Okonkwo returns he has an increased sense of awareness and that benefits him.
This story ends with Okonkwo committing suicide, a great tragedy. Although this may seem like it would greatly upset readers, it fails to leave them in a state of depression. Yes, his death is sad, but it isn't wildly unexpected and does not seem that crazy of an event to occur after everything else that Okonkwo went through. He was an individual trying to make sense of his new situation after returning to the village, clearly struggling, and needed a way out of his situation.
Okonkwo fits the classifications of a tragic hero very clearly. He was respected and viewed as a powerful individual, yet he had his faults and complications. He was not granted an easily life and Achebe makes this very visible to the reader.
Okonkwo is well respected and viewed highly in his community. He is recognized for his greatness, power, and knowledge due to all that he has accomplished throughout his life growing up. Few people would ever question or stand up to him, however, this is mainly due to the fear he instills in everyone. Okonkwo is a noble individual, yet he is not too unlike anyone else. The readers of this story are able to relate to many emotions and ideas that are present within his character, making him a heroic yet understandable individual to read about.
Also, Okonkwo has many downfalls in this story that make him seem more like a typical human rather than a great hero. He has small faults, such as how he treats his wives and children, but also greater faults that end up causing his power and nobility to come crashing down. He kills his son since the village decided it had to be done, however, the only reason he did it was to make sure the other village members knew he was masculine and powerful. It becomes clear that he feels the need to maintain his reputation as the masculine and well-respected member of his village that he is known for. However, after killing another character, Okonkwo receives consequences. He is banished from the village. He consciously made the decision to kill this character, however, his banishment seems slightly extensive for his crime. Despite this, when Okonkwo returns he has an increased sense of awareness and that benefits him.
This story ends with Okonkwo committing suicide, a great tragedy. Although this may seem like it would greatly upset readers, it fails to leave them in a state of depression. Yes, his death is sad, but it isn't wildly unexpected and does not seem that crazy of an event to occur after everything else that Okonkwo went through. He was an individual trying to make sense of his new situation after returning to the village, clearly struggling, and needed a way out of his situation.
Okonkwo fits the classifications of a tragic hero very clearly. He was respected and viewed as a powerful individual, yet he had his faults and complications. He was not granted an easily life and Achebe makes this very visible to the reader.
Loss of a Hero
Like all people, heroes have major flaws. For tragic teroes, their character flaws are what eventually destroy them. In Things Fall Apart Okonkwo is the tragic hero and his tragic flaw is what ultimately destroys him. There are several basic parameters for what a tragic hero should be like and Okonkwo fits several of these parameters. Throughout the novel, the characterization of Okonkwo evolves his identity as a tragic hero so that when he eventually dies nobody is all too surprised.
Throughout the novel, it is clear not only that Okonkwo views himself as being one of nobel stature and greatness but others do as well. He is a extremely accomplished wrestler and through which he has obtained a great deal of respect. Due to the fact that he has proved himself to be the strongest most capable man in the village it is assumed that he would be able to protect that village if the need ever arose. When a young boy, Ikemefuna, needs to be cared for by someone in the clan it is Okonkwo's family to whom he is sent. Okonkwo is the leader of the clan and people respect his greatness.
In conjunction with his noble stature and greatness, Okonkwo is preeminently great, but is plagued with many flaws. As I discussed in the paragraph above, Okonkwo embodies many characteristics that make him a hero in the eyes of many. However, he also has many flaws which allows average readers such as myself to identify with Okonkwo. Okonkwo's major character flaw is his anger. His anger is sourced from his frustration with his lazy father. This anger is displaced on a variety of people in his life. Okonkwo's theory on emotion was that he "never showed any emotion openly unless it be the emotion of anger. To show affection was a sign of weakness; the only thing worth demonstrating was strength" (28). This emotion of anger is showed very often. When he thought that one of his three wives killed the banana tree by his house he grabbed his gun and then heard one of his wives murmur that he was not a good shot. He then "pressed that trigger and there was a loud report accompanied by the wail of his wives and children" (39). His wife was right. He is a bad shot. However, this further proves that he is motivated by his anger and desires power over anyone who crosses him. In addition to almost shooting his wife, he regularly beats his wives for not having his first, second, and third dinner ready. This flaw of not being able to manage his anger is what makes Okonwko accessible for regular folks like myself.
Arguably, the downfall of Okonkwo is his own fault. Again and again he overstepped his power and was overly aggressive. On many occasions he showed his strength by killing a man or his adopted son. When it came down to his dealing with the white Christians trying to convert the village, he struck out with aggression. Although Okonkwo is punished once before by being banished from the village after accidentally killing a clansman, his ultimate punishment is his death. In the case of being banished from the village, the punishment was deserved by the standards of the village but it does seem to be rather extreme. In the case of his death, it was his own doing.
Due to the fact that Okonkwo committed suicide and that was his ultimate punishment, there is no lesson that he will learn because is he dead. Although this death is sad because death in general is sad, there is not a profound arousal of a depressive state among readers. I personally believe that Okonkwo's death was expected an that he should have evaluated his choices more closely while he was alive. Although Okonkwo does not perfectly embody every characteristic of a tragic hero, he fits the mold pretty well.
Tuesday, April 11, 2017
Correcting Literature's Mistakes
It is difficult to capture an entire story if you are only given one point of view. For most, their only exposure to life under imperialism is through literature, and most of this literature is focused only on the European perspective. Things Fall Apart is a model novel representing the type of story post-colonialist critiques think should be spread. It focuses on the voices usually ignored and portrays Nigerian landscape and culture accurately, two things usually missed by non-African authors.
One of the biggest problems critics have found is the marginalization of key voices in stories. In most novels trying to approach imperialism, they tend to focus on the colonizer rather than those being colonized, as the author is often European and creates a similar main character. In doing so, only one opinion of the event is shared. By having the main character be a Nigerian man viewing the white men as an outsider, Things Fall Apart reverses the normal dynamic. Instead, the main opinion shown is that of those being colonized. I don’t think Things Fall Apart could be critiqued for marginalizing the missionaries’ voices, as they are so prominent in most other literature concerning colonialism it seems unnecessary to have a major focus in this novel as well.
Unlike criticized works such as Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart does not stereotype Nigerian culture or landscape as a wild, uncivilized land of tribes of lawless men (also painting all of Africa as one culture). Instead, it shows the rules and customs of Umuofia, and how it differs from those in Mbanta. It describes the landscape well with the nature of the soil, climate, plants that grow well, and the relationship with wild animals. There is a clear painting of order and tradition in this novel, something often overlooked in other works because it differs from European custom.
Individuality as Resistance
Complexity, depth, and unpredictability are all a part of what it means to be human. Unfortunately, the most famous piece of post-colonialist literature, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, fails exceptionally in applying these traits to any character who is not a white man. Because so much literature is similar in that aspect to Conrad's, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart is particularly striking in the complexity of its main character, Okonkwo. His virtues and vices so starkly contrast the simplification and dehumanization of Africans in Heart of Darkness that they are in themselves an act of resistance to the bigotry of earlier Western portrayals of Africans in literature.
Okonkwo's character isn't an amicable one, he's fairly standoffish in most cases. This is part of what makes the novel so great, however, and part of its response to African dehumanization. It's hard to pin Okonkwo down as a good or bad person, and it should be. Human beings aren't definitively good or evil (for the most part), and Achebe wanted to portray the complexities of the people of Umuofia: specifically the complexities of Okonkwo. His misogyny and hyper-masculinity are both very negative aspects of his character. It's hard to like him, especially when he is so comfortable with beating his wives. There are moments, though, that remind the reader of his softer side, such as his running after Ezinma and Ekwefi in the middle of the night, or his love for his clan and culture. Though he often treats his children poorly, it's clear that he does it out of a desire for their welfare. This variety of positive and negative traits forces the reader to make her own judgement on his character, the complexity of which is indisputable.
In Conrad's work, white colonizers are the only developed characters, and the opposite is present in Achebe's novel. White men aren't introduced until the second part of the novel, and even then there is no insight into what they are thinking or their emotions. They play a background role, and the real conflict takes place in the mind of Okonkwo and how he reacts to the challenge he is presented with. Should he fight the white man himself if his tribe won't do so? In this way, even when white characters are introduced, the focus is still largely on the workings of Okonkwo's mind.
Achebe's focus on the development of his characters makes this novel so enjoyable to read. It is also what makes it an authoritative response to poor portrayals of Africans in other works of literature. Okonkwo is a man of strong idealism, and this defines many of his strengths as well as his faults. He's a character of complexity, depth, and unpredictability, and he is unmistakably human.
Okonkwo's character isn't an amicable one, he's fairly standoffish in most cases. This is part of what makes the novel so great, however, and part of its response to African dehumanization. It's hard to pin Okonkwo down as a good or bad person, and it should be. Human beings aren't definitively good or evil (for the most part), and Achebe wanted to portray the complexities of the people of Umuofia: specifically the complexities of Okonkwo. His misogyny and hyper-masculinity are both very negative aspects of his character. It's hard to like him, especially when he is so comfortable with beating his wives. There are moments, though, that remind the reader of his softer side, such as his running after Ezinma and Ekwefi in the middle of the night, or his love for his clan and culture. Though he often treats his children poorly, it's clear that he does it out of a desire for their welfare. This variety of positive and negative traits forces the reader to make her own judgement on his character, the complexity of which is indisputable.
In Conrad's work, white colonizers are the only developed characters, and the opposite is present in Achebe's novel. White men aren't introduced until the second part of the novel, and even then there is no insight into what they are thinking or their emotions. They play a background role, and the real conflict takes place in the mind of Okonkwo and how he reacts to the challenge he is presented with. Should he fight the white man himself if his tribe won't do so? In this way, even when white characters are introduced, the focus is still largely on the workings of Okonkwo's mind.
Achebe's focus on the development of his characters makes this novel so enjoyable to read. It is also what makes it an authoritative response to poor portrayals of Africans in other works of literature. Okonkwo is a man of strong idealism, and this defines many of his strengths as well as his faults. He's a character of complexity, depth, and unpredictability, and he is unmistakably human.
Stock Characters
As we’ve read previously, Chinua Achebe is very opposed to Joseph Conrad and his portrayal of Africa and its people, especially in Heart of Darkness. It is because of this, and also because of his strong knowledge of African culture, that Things Fall Apart does everything that Heart of Darkness does not, as well as not doing everything that Heart of Darkness does. The most obvious example of this can be found by comparing the white characters in Heart of Darkness to those in Things Fall Apart, and doing the same to the African characters in both novels.
In Heart of Darkness, the protagonist (Marlow) is white, and so is every other main character (including Mr. Kurtz, who can be argued to be both a protagonist and an antagonist). All of the dialogue is spoken by white characters, except for a few exceptions, “Mistah Kurtz, he dead” being the most prominent. Although the novel has a fairly progressive view of how African natives should be treated, it is still told from a white perspective. Finally, no African character is named or even fully described. A dying man here, to further an ominous tone; a few body parts here, to compare the jungle to an animal; and a sex symbol, to...do something. In a novel about Africa, this is all we see of the people who live there.
Meanwhile, in Things Fall Apart, no white characters appear until the last few chapters of the book. Each character is African, each character has plenty to say, and each character is complex and unmistakably human. There are characters who are abusive and characters who are murderers, but there are also characters who do good things, and most of these are characters that can be supported and related to. When the white characters do show up, they are not nearly as three-dimensional as the African characters. Most of them are unnamed, and the two that are named strike the reader as very stereotypical, one a faithful and loving preacher and one a fierce and angry one, both characters that many have seen many times before.
Both novels carry a great deal of stereotyping. However, Heart of Darkness shows a harmful and antiquated stereotype of Africans, while Things Fall Apart shows a rarely seen and benign stereotype of white people. What they lack in representing one race, though, they make up for in the other. Achebe likely did this on purpose: to turn the genre on its head, to showcase his viewpoint as an African man, and, probably, to show all the ways that Conrad went wrong.
Achebe's Response to Post Colonialist Views
Achebe is not a man that stands by and watches people and cultures get criticized. He spoke up about Heart of Darkness and how he felt it was a racist story that misrepresented African people and their culture. In Things Fall Apart, he built on this opinion and wrote about African life in a village to provide the world with an accurate representation of African people and their culture. He simply won't accept the stereotypes put in place my society and built on by books such as Heart of Darkness. Through Things Fall Apart, Achebe clears away all stereotypes put in place about African people and their culture and replaces it with realistic villages, characters, and cultural events or ideas that represent Africa and its inhabitants in an accurate manner.
After making it clear that he found Heart of Darkness to be incredibly racist and inaccurate, Achebe explained himself and why he found this to be true. He found Joseph Conrad's story to focus on the lives of the white men rather than those of the African men, women, and children living there. Achebe felt that Conrad made the civilians of Africa blend into the background like scenery rather than represent that as the people that they truly are. This did not sit well with Achebe by any means. In addition, the little that Conrad's story did speak of African people, it was all generally negative. In all descriptions of the civilians of Africa, Conrad made them sound like reckless individuals and characterized them more as animals rather than people. To any reader, especially to Achebe, this stood out the most as being incredibly racist and inaccurate.
Achebe didn't want more people to write stories like Conrad's story, so he wrote his own. He didn't want people believing the ridiculous and animal-like stereotypes that we're placed on African people and their culture, he wanted accurate representations to be accessible for readers to they could understand what Africa. its people, and their culture was actually like. I think this action speaks volumes to the importance of this topic to Achebe. He created a complex story all focused on African people and their culture and accurately portrayed these ideas while creating an intriguing and informative story. The characters he creates have depth to them, unlike those in Heart of Darkness that just blended into the background like they were a piece of the setting. Achebe made sure that the important pieces of the book and the messages he was trying to send were made clear, his representation of Africa and Africans was accurate and detail-oriented which showed the reader how unique and special this story is.
Achebe did not accept stories like Heart of Darkness and didn't allow them to go on through society without commenting on their inaccuracies and imperfections. Achebe did not tolerate racist stories and corrected them at every chance. His story conveys an accurate representation of African people and their culture, proving to the world what is accurate and culturally acceptable and what is not.
After making it clear that he found Heart of Darkness to be incredibly racist and inaccurate, Achebe explained himself and why he found this to be true. He found Joseph Conrad's story to focus on the lives of the white men rather than those of the African men, women, and children living there. Achebe felt that Conrad made the civilians of Africa blend into the background like scenery rather than represent that as the people that they truly are. This did not sit well with Achebe by any means. In addition, the little that Conrad's story did speak of African people, it was all generally negative. In all descriptions of the civilians of Africa, Conrad made them sound like reckless individuals and characterized them more as animals rather than people. To any reader, especially to Achebe, this stood out the most as being incredibly racist and inaccurate.
Achebe didn't want more people to write stories like Conrad's story, so he wrote his own. He didn't want people believing the ridiculous and animal-like stereotypes that we're placed on African people and their culture, he wanted accurate representations to be accessible for readers to they could understand what Africa. its people, and their culture was actually like. I think this action speaks volumes to the importance of this topic to Achebe. He created a complex story all focused on African people and their culture and accurately portrayed these ideas while creating an intriguing and informative story. The characters he creates have depth to them, unlike those in Heart of Darkness that just blended into the background like they were a piece of the setting. Achebe made sure that the important pieces of the book and the messages he was trying to send were made clear, his representation of Africa and Africans was accurate and detail-oriented which showed the reader how unique and special this story is.
Achebe did not accept stories like Heart of Darkness and didn't allow them to go on through society without commenting on their inaccuracies and imperfections. Achebe did not tolerate racist stories and corrected them at every chance. His story conveys an accurate representation of African people and their culture, proving to the world what is accurate and culturally acceptable and what is not.
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