Very Tragic Role In Okonkwos Life example essay topic

Okonkwos' Tragic Life Okonkwo, in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, was faced with many hardships in his life. When growing up he had to deal with a lazy father, then when he was older he had to kill a boy that called him father, and he also accidentally killed a young boy from his village. These events played a very tragic role in Okonkwos life. Okonkwo's father Unoka "was lazy and improvident was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow". Unoka owed everybody money and whenever he had money he would spend it on palm- wine. "He was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat".

Okonkwo was very ashamed of his father when he died because he not taken any titles and he was heavily in dept. Okonkwo did not want to be like his father so he worked very hard and at a young age he was a wealthy farmer and had two barns full of yams, and he had married his third wife. Not only that but he had two titles. This was a very tough task but Okonkwo managed to do it and the villages looked up to him. Another tragic event that Okonkwo had to go through in his life was when he became attached to a boy that he had taken in when Udo's wife was murdered. The boy was given to Okonkwo and a virgin was given to Udo from the tribe that killed Udo's wife so they wouldn't have to go to war.

After three years the boy, whose name is Ikemefuna, still missed his family but was beginning to feel at home. The boy even thought of Okonkwo as his father. One day a group of elders decided that Ikemefuna should be killed. So Okonkwo told Ikemefuna that he was going home and Okonkwo and the some other men started walking through the woods with Ikemefuna. When they got deep into the woods the men decided it was time and Okonkwo dropped to the back of the pack so he wouldn't have to witness the killing. As they were walking one man "raised his machete, Okonkwo looked away.

He heard the blow... He heard Ikemefuna cry, "My father, they have killed me!" as he ran towards him. Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down". Okonkwo did this because he did not want to be thought of as weak. This as you can imagine would be very tragic but Okonkwo had such a fear of weakness that he killed the boy that called him father. In today's society Okonkwo would be thought of as a sick man.

That was not the end of his troubles though. The whole town was gathered for a burial and some of the townsmen were to fire their guns into the air, Okonkwo was one of them men. When he shot his gun their "came a cry of agony and shouts of horror... In the center of the crowd a boy lay in a pool of blood. It was the dead man's sixteen- year-old son". Okonkwo's gun had exploded and killed the boy.

In their tribe if a clansman was killed then the killer had to flee his homeland and not return for seven years. Okonkwo had to leave his homeland and leave everything that he had worked for behind. This would be a terrible way to have to leave your home. Most people today would never want to walk in Okonkwos's hoes, but people back then though Okonkwo was a very brave man and didn't hold a grudge against him. In this book Okonkwo has worked very hard for everything he had, but he also has faced many tragedies. A lesson I think we should learn from this book is, that some people work very hard at getting materialistic things but we don't seem to care enough about families and how we treat each other.

All quotes and factual information in this paper are taken from Chinua Achebe Things Fall Apart, edited by Susan Yur an, published by Anchor Books, New York 1994. By, Jeff Russell.