They are rocked by a hand of fear, not motherly nurturance. They are obsessed by their fears, of becoming like his father in the case of Okonkwo and of not becoming like his father in Nwoye's instance. However, Nwyoe, because of the cultural and political shifts endured by his native land, has another framework of self-definition that his father lacks -- the availability of another culture, namely that of the Christian missionaries who have come to the country. To find a new identity, Nwyoe literally as well as metaphorically slouches towards Bethlehem. Within the foreign doctrine of Christianity Nwoye finds a prop for his sense of self against which his father's African nationalism and masculinity ultimately proves to be powerless. Through the weakness advocated by Christianity (a false weakness, given the overarching ambitions of the missionaries to convert all African natives) Nwoye finally finds strength that his father's worldview...
He slouches towards Bethlehem, looking for guidance and hoping for a rebirth of spirit, and a spiritual death of his oppressive father. Nwoye's hour has truly come 'round at last, but it is a kind of a hollow victory, because he must cast off his birthright, and also adopts the ways and customs of people who regard his religion as inferior. This is why "slouching" is such an appropriate verb for Nwoye's manner because he does not engage in acts of active resistance; instead he prefers the passive resistance of conversion. To resist his father's rule, he slouches, or hides to find his true place in life within the creed of another culture, instead of standing tall and attempting to contest his father's rule.
Thus, the "ceremony of innocence" by which the boy was received into the tribe is now replaced with violence. Okonkwo, even though he loves the boy, kills him to avoid seeming weak. Yeats' slow-moving rough beast with a lion's body but the head of a man may seem to represent Okonkwo, at first, in Achebe's novel, given Okonkwo's violence towards other people in the novel. But while Okonkwo is certainly
" Okonkwo inflexible traditionalism pitted him against his gentle son Nwoye, who joined the Christian European missionaries. In the book, Oknokwo had to participate in a ceremonial human sacrifice and endure a seven-year exile after his gun accidentally killed the son of the deceased warrior Ezeudu. He also lost part of himself when he lost Ikemefuna. Upon returning to the village, he found it torn apart by Western Imperialism. Finally, he
The best members of African youth are destroyed or ignored. Although he is African, because he is a member of a rival clan, Ikemefuna, is killed, when the energies of the Umuofians would be better spent resisting white influence. Because she is a woman, the noble and stalwart Ezinma is not valued, although her father loves her almost as if she were a son. A final interpretation might be that
Okonkwo seems full of passionate intensity to preserve things as they are, and to preserve his sense of masculine, patriarchal authority. But although this sense of passion seems to have its origin sense of nostalgia for traditional forms of control, it is also too tied up the man's ego to be called a conviction. A true conviction about justice is not self-interested. It is also worth remembering that Okonkwo's
Empowerment through Creation and Protection: The Role of Women in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a depiction of the tragic life of Okonkwo, the main character. Many elements combine to result in the tragic end of the book, as well as the end of the traditional ways of Okonkwo's Ibo tribe. The major contributing factor to this demise is the arrival of Western missionaries. The foreign beliefs and
"Would you like a white woman Wongee?" Jimmie asked. "Don't seem ter make their cow-cockies happy, having white woman for 'is wife. Why else he come after black girls? Must be sum'pin to white women we ain't been told" (p. 11). The implication drawn from Wongee is that aboriginal females are sexier than white women, but Jimmie is sexually attracted to the white woman. On page 12 Wongee describes an
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