Jan 1, 2010

Things Fall Apart | Characters

The chief protagonist is Okonkwo, whose flawed but fascinating nature displayed against the backdrop of the encounter of the Igbo with the white man and his religion, has brought comparisons to Greek tragic heroes. Although his father has been poor — the Earth Goddess had never given him decent crops — Okonkwo is respected by the community in spite of that because of his character and his prowess at wrestling. Ironically then, it is his own psychological problem with his father's poverty, not some arbitrary limitation dictated by the gods, that leads to many of his other...