Throughout Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo consistently demonstrates his personal agency over the events of his life. Even though Okonkwo and the rest of his Igbo clansmen are willing to point to many events as the will of various gods and goddesses, the majority of the novel revolves around Okonkwo’s conscious choices and their ramifications. Early in the novel, Okonkwo exerts his personal agency by severely beating his youngest wife during the traditional Week of Peace after she does not return back home early enough to cook his dinner. He even mentally acknowledges the possible consequences of his actions, but refuses to stop:
“In his anger he had forgotten that it was the Week of Peace. His first two wives ran out in great alarm pleading with him that it was the sacred week. But Okonkwo was not the man to stop beating somebody half-way through, not...
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even for fear of a goddess” (29-30).
Okonkwo disregards the potential wrath of the earth goddess, thus demonstrating his personal agency. Much later in the novel, after Umuofia has irreparably changed around him, Okonkwo again makes a conscious choice to murder a head messenger. He does this on his own accord; he is not acting in conjunction with the desires of the rest of Umuofia. Instead, he strikes the man down in a cathartic action:
“Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew that because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action. He discerned fright in that tumult. He heard voices asking: 'Why did he do it?'” (205).
Afterwards, Okonkwo commits suicide. Indeed, this is the ultimate act of using personal agency. Many in the tribe may attribute Okonkwo’s bad luck to his personal chi, but all of these actions that lead to his eventual tragic end were committed by Okonkwo. His exerts his personal agency throughout the novel, and this leads to his downfall.