Things Fall Apart: Blog #1: Characters

In the novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, the story starts with the main character Okonkwo. In the village of Umuofia, Okonkwo is well-known because of his many successes as a man. He has two village titles and fought in two inter-tribal wars, and is also known for being the best wrestler in the nine villages. He is so well-respected by others, he was chosen to be an emissary of war for his village. Not only do the other village men respect him, but he is also extremely proud of himself and his accomplishments. This makes Okonkwo extremely self-absorbed and causes him to be furious when something is done that he doesn't like. Having three wives and eight children, there are plenty of opportunities for him to get angry, which he then beats his family. Most of his family is scared of him and his anger issues tend to cloud his judgment. In his culture, they have a week before the yam harvest that is dedicated to being peaceful so that their goddess will allow a good growing season. However, "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 even for fear of a goddess." (Achebe, 29). Although we want to hate Okonkwo for his rage, we also sympathize with his back story. Since his father lived a shameful life, compared to the rest of the men in the village, Okonkwo feared being like his father and hated everything his father loved. After knowing the life his father lived, Okonkwo's own life was dominated by fear and failure of weakness. Since he had not inherited anything from his father, he had to work for his success. Due to his hard work, he suddenly rose from poverty to one of the lords of the clan. He is now a wealthy farmer with two barns of yams, which is a man's crop in their culture. Through his farming and fighting success, Okonkwo becomes very arrogant and does not respect any man that does not have a title. He is only concerned about appearing strong in front of everybody, and so he never shows any emotions other than rage.
One character that is mentioned many times in this novel is Okonkwo's father, Unoka. This is because the father and son are foil characters. Unoka is described so that we can see exactly why Okonkwo is so arrogant yet successful. While Okonkwo is wealthy, hard-working, and a fighter, Unoka is poor, lazy, and hates fighting. Unoka was a grown-up failure. He was so poor that he barely had enough food to support his wife and children. He would constantly ask people in the village to help him out, but when they did, he never paid them back. He even died having never paid any of his debts. This lack of prosperity was his own fault though. When making decisions, he never thought about his future, and spent most of his earnings on wine. Also not helping his cause, Unoka was lazy. When visiting Agbala, the goddess of misfortune, he was told to actually work on the farm instead of making crops grow by sacrificing animals. Seeing how shameful Unoka was, Okonkwo shaped his whole adulthood around being exactly different from his father.
Since his father was not an option, Okonkwo had to look for help elsewhere. When Okonkwo first started his own farm, he had to find someone he could borrow yam seeds from, so he turned to Nwakibie. Nwakibie is a wealthy and prosperous man in the village, with three yam barns, nine wives, and thirty children. He also had the second-highest title in the clan. Being Unoka's son, Okonkwo was worried that nobody would trust him with their seeds, but Nwakibie trusted him anyway. When Okonkwo went to ask Nwakibie for help, he was even given double the amount of seeds than he wanted because Nwakibie could tell he was a hard worker. I believe Nwakibie is mentioned in the novel to give Okonkwo the father-figure that he needed growing up.