of strength and manliness is a strange concoction of truth and very personal issues. On one hand, the world he lives indoes value brute strength, perseverance, and hardness—but by focusing on those aspects alone, Okonkwo misses many others.

As you read the book, it becomes more obvious that other men—including the elders and others who Okonkwo respects and whose approval he craves—are not exactly like him. In pursuit of might, Okonkwo fails to notice that his society values wisdom as well, and even kindness—an utterly unmanly quality in his eyes. He remains blind to this even as it stares him right in the eyes: for example, when his friends suggest that he should not accompany them to kill Ikemefuna, Okonkwo sees it as pity and thinks they're testing him, so he refuses to accept their judgement. This leads me to believe that in some ways, Okonkwo has created the idea of a restrictive and demanding world himself. That dislike of weakness stems clearly and directly from Okonkwo's disdain for his father.

Seeing that his father was ridiculed and scorned, Okonkwo tries his whole life to not be weak. In a way, he succeeds. He does not share his father's sins but instead falls right into his own. Unlike his father, Okonkwo is very strong and an exceptionally hard worker. He achieves recognition, but he loses a lot too.

By refusing to give in to anything he sees as feminine and weak, Okonkwo shuts himself off from personal growth and love. He becomes almost obsessed with rules and tradition, because he sees in them the guidelines to being everything his father wasn't. Like a child, Okonkwo follows the regulations of his society, stubbornly convinced that if he does everything "right," he will be rewarded with everything he wants. And in some ways, he's right. He becomes feared and respected, but not to the extent he wishes.

Okonkwo's fear of weakness cages him in the body of a strong but hot-headed man. His peers take his strength into account, but he doesn't achieve the respect he feels he's owed because he has not grown to show mercy or bend rules when the situation calls for it. He does not think about the true value of anything.

The final irony is that Okonkwo's fear of intimacy—another feminine value in his mind—leads to his son Nwoye joining the Christians, who do not mock him for being sensitive. Just like Okonkwo, Nwoye sees something in his father that he just can't accept and ends up doing everything he can not to be like him.

In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Achebe presents Okonkwo as a man dominated by a pervasive fear of being perceived as weak and womanly. Early in the novel, Achebe establishes the fact that Okonkwo bases most of the decisions in his life on this fear:

“Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these.” (13).

For me, the scene that best illustrates Okonkwo’ fear of failure and weakness comes when his adoptive son Ikemefuna is sentenced to death. Rather than stay home while the will of the gods is carried out, Okonkwo feels the need to prove that he is strong and masculine, and that the death of this child will not bother him. Indeed, it is Okonkwo who actually deals the decisive 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. He was afraid of being thought weak” (61).

He is later chastised by his best friend Obierika, who questions what would possess Okonkwo to take part in the murder. This scene best illustrates Okonkwo’s fear of being perceived as weak or a failure; he does not want to have a hand in Ikemefuna’s death, but he is concerned with maintaining his masculine posturing.

One need not read far into Chinua Achebe’s novel of life in a Nigerian village during the 19th Century, Things Fall Apart, to understand the mental burden under which the story’s protagonist, Okonkwo, exists.  Okonkwo is a leader of his clan and village.  A champion wrestler, husband of three wives, and fierce warrior, Okonkwo has gone through life concealing his sense of shame at having grown up under a father, Unoka, known throughout the village for his laziness and for never repaying a debt.  As Achebe describes Unoka in Chapter One:

“In his [Unoka’s] day he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow. If any money came his way, and it seldom did, he immediately bought gourds of palm-wine, called round his neighbours and made merry. . . Unoka was, of course, a debtor, and he owed every neighbour some money . . . People laughed at him because he was a loafer . . .”

One quickly gets the sense reading Things Fall Apart that Okonkwo, the respected warrior and leader of his clan, may be trying to overcompensate for the shame has felt throughout his life at being the son of the village failure.  The beginning of Achebe’s novel is replete with descriptions of his bravery and steadiness, his unwillingness to be cowed by sights that frighten others.  In describing the horrors of battle that are a regular part of life among contending villages and clans, the author notes that Okonkwo “was a man of action, a man of war. Unlike his father he could stand the look of blood.”  And, for good measure, Achebe asks rhetorically whether it is any wonder that the son is ashamed of his father.  Okonkwo is determined to restore honor to his family name and to bury forever the embarrassment associated with his late father’s legacy of debt and ridicule.  That the son’s inner self is not as far removed from that of the father, however, is made clear in the following discussion of Okonkwo provided in Chapter Two:

“Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children. Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. . .It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.”

As Things Fall Apart progresses, it is that desperate emotional need to prove himself brave and fierce that drives Okonkwo towards the most regretful and terrible decisions he will ever make, not the least of which is the murder of the young boy in his care, Ikemefuna – and act of tribal “justice” for the murder by the boy’s father of a village woman.  Okonkwo’s agreement to participate in the murder of the boy, over the objections of the village elder who understands the ramifications for Okonkwo of such an act of brutality against a child for whom he has cared, represents the ultimate manifestation of his willingness to carry out any act of violence in the interest of concealing his fear of appearing weak like his late father.  Okonkwo is, indeed, oppressed by his fear of failure.  His determination to appear fearless and ruthless so as to further bury the memory of his late father, the village coward and clown, leads to awful consequences, not least of which his participation in the murder of Ikemefuna, the boy for whom he has provided shelter and guidance.

In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo's decisions determine the direction of the story, and his decisions are often based on his fear of being thought cowardly. At the beginning of the story, Okonkwo is considered great because he is a great wrestler, a great warrior, and a successful man with two barns filled with yams, three wives, and many children. But Okonkwo has a weak chi, and has difficulty connecting with his nurturing feminine side.

Okonkwo adopts a boy, Ikemefuna, gifted to his village from a neighbouring village. He loves Ikemefuna and thinks he will be a good role model for his son, Nwoye, who he considers lazy. When the Oracle of the Hills and Caves demands that Okonkwo take Ikemefuna's life, Okonkwo has a decision to make. He talks to an elder, who advises him not to kill Ikemefuna, but Okonkwo chooses to kill the boy regardless because he does not want to appear cowardly. This decision sets in motion the rest of the events that make up the story.

When Okonkwo kills Ikemefuna in a ritual, his relationship with his son Nwoye is ruined. Okonkwo is later banished to his mother's village for seven years. During the time he is away, Christian missionaries arrive in Igboland. Okonkwo's estranged son Nwoye is among the Igbos who embrace the new religion. When Okonkwo finally returns to his village, he joins the uprising against the Christians, and finds himself pitted against his own son.

Okonkwo's fear of being thought cowardly causes him to ignore the advice of the village elder and destroy his relationship with his own son. It also makes him constantly ignore his nurturing side and make decisions that result in violent actions, including his final decision to take his own life.

You can read more about Things Fall Apart on eNotes here, and learn more about the main character, Okonkwo, here.