What is your impression of Okonkwo so far? What is his personality like? What are his attributes and faults?

Things Fall Apart is a novel that was written on 1958 by the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. Chinua Achebe is known for making most of his works on English, but with that special African touch. His works center mostly on African or even Nigerian plots, which makes his works more interesting because we can know about his culture, traditions and people. Starting to read this novel, the main character is Okonkwo, which is a respected warrior from the Iguedo clan and other nine villages. 

From what we have read on class(until chapter seven) Okonkwo is a respected and powerful man. Because his dad, Unoka, was an unsucccessful man which Okonkwo was ashamed and even he hated him, he decided to be different from him and start living differently than his father. In the book it says that "he everything that his father Unoka had loved". So, if his father loved gentlenes, idleness, and had fear of violence, Okonkwo was very brave and do not fear wars, and also was very aggresive. Another important aspect is that he won a battle against Amalinze "The Cat" and since then, he won respect from other villagers. He is recognized for being like a war leader, and for not having pitty among other people they fight. From this, we can say that one of his attributes is that, because he likes fighting and go to war, is pretty powerful on the village and one of the persons that the villagers have respect. So, his attributes that I have seen so far is that he is a great fighter and is one of the major factors that other villages respect Iguedo. 

However, we been seen that Okonkwo has faults due to the fear of failure and of weakness that his father once had. One of his main faults is that he is extremely aggresive. In the book says that he liked to punch people, even if he had no reason to do it. Maybe it was the pressure of not showing his real feelings and one of the ways to take them out was hitting people. Another fault that we have seen is that he is cruel with people around him. For example, Ikemefuna was like an "adopted" child from Okonkwo, because he was from another clan, but when the decree comes to tell that Ikemefuna must die, Okonkwo lies to him and told him that he was going home. At the end, Okonkwo(having the fond that he was having for Ikemefuna) kills him with his macheteWith this, we can conclude that Okonkwo may not demostrate his real feelings, and that was the reason for him to be a cruel, extremely manly and aggresive man. 


In my opinion, Things Fall Apart  is a novel that is different from others: it represents, in a clear way, how the Africans and in this case, in the Iguedo clan, live during the  colonization era. Okonkwo, is the main character of the story and Achebe demonstrates us from the beggining how this man behaves and how is his personality. Maybe it is because, even that we know most about him, he is still mysterious and maybe, can change on one moment his way of being, or maybe that way of being can lead him to his end...

What is the role of oral tradition/literature in Things Fall Apart? Use some examples and explain how they help the story-telling.

Chinua Achebe makes on Things Fall Apart a curious and special way to tell the story of Okonkwo. The role of oral tradition and the literature era are very important to Achebe for his peculiar way of writing. Achebe wants to transmit how Africans pass their oral tradition in his novel. This, by making the story be told by a third person but with a omniscient point of view,like if there where elders of a tribe.

One of the aspects that makes Achebe's novel unique  in his way of writing is the use of African words. By using this, the reader can feel and relate to the oral traditions of Africa. One example is in chapter nine, where Ezinma has fever or iba, and Okonkwo "took his machete and went into the bush to collect the leaves and grasses and barks of trees that went into making the medicine for iba". This kind of parts are the ones that makes the reader go inside the story, because of the context that the novel gives. Another example where it demonstrates the use of African words: " Outside the obi Okagbue and Okonkwo where digging the pitto find where Enzinma has buried ver iyi-uwa". Achebe wants to transmit to his readers the sensation of being part of the tribe, to feel what they think and feel.

Another important aspect about Things Fall Apart is that it gives the context of the 19th Century, of the colonization of Africa. Achebe wants to transmit the African point of view through the storytelling. For example, since the start of the novel, the narrator is  telling how Okonkwo became important on the  village. It is an omniscient narrator and I think it relates to what oral tradition is about, because he is not objective in some parts of the novel but he knows what he wants to transmit to the reader, like an elder that wants their villagers to feel their stories. It is clear that the post-colonialism literature is present on this book, even that he wrote it on 1958.

Things Fall Apart is a novel that, in my opinion, is the antithesis of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for many reasons, and one of them is the African oral tradition that is present through all the novel. His way of writing, even that is in English, transmits his African way of telling stories and, it is clear that he wants to proof that Africans tell stories way different than Europeans or Americans.