Things Fall Apart
by Chinua Achebe
(Characters)
Okonkwo
Okonkwo
whose nickname in Things Fall Apart is “The Roaring Flame” in all ways
justifies that tag. He is a disciplined and hardworking man who earns a name
for himself because of his own personal qualities. “Tall and huge, his bushy
eyebrows and wide Afric nose give him a very severe look”. Harsh in words as
well as in deeds, he mercilessly drives himself hard to achievement. He dreads
and fears failure in life as he had experienced the pain of being the son of an
unsuccessful father. And so Onokwo was ruled by one passion - “To hate everything
that his father Unoka had loved” and one of those things was gentleness and
another was idleness.
Onokwo
is both dominant and domineering. The women and children live in perpetual fear
of his fiery temper. He believes in ruling his household with a heavy hand. His
anger stems perhaps from an impatience with both himself and his environment
for not measuring up to his heroic self-conception. He is comfortable with the
masculine occupations of war or toiling on his farms but in discomfiture with
domestic life and idle time as when he has really nothing to do at the Yam New
Year festival time when seasons change and one has to wait to sow seeds, for
the new crop.
Okonkwo
had not inherited anything from his father but at a young age has learnt to
fend for himself. A hard and disciplined worker he became a successful farmer with
his own compound of three huts and a main obi for himself in which he lives with
his three wives and children. He has two barns full of Yams and earns two titles.
He is the war ambassador of Umuofia and in the last war he was the first to bring
home a human head.
The
author has presented the figure of a common, honest man with human aspirations and
passions in the character of Okonkwo. But his fear of vulnerability and his over-assertion
of strength ironically render him vulnerable to the winds of change, the most
catastrophic of which for him is the dual advent of Christianity and colonization.
The final act of lonely and isolated defiance comes in his act of beheading the
white men’s messenger and then hanging himself from a tree in his own compound.
Okonkwo, as a human character also symbolises the burden of an Aristotelian
tragic hero. He is a man of stature who exhibits signs of hubris (tragic pride)
and hamartia (tragic flaw).
Nwoye
Nwoye
is the eldest son of Okonkwo who ironically turns out to be the very opposite
of what his father wishes and wants him to be. Okonkwo feels that his son has
taken more after his grandfather who had not succeeded in attaining a status in
the society. Nwoye finds the narrow and masculine world of his father too
stifling, domineering and restrictive. He would rather prefer the women’s huts where
the clan’s world of folktales and myths is foregrounded. Nwoye finds a friend
and companion in Ikemefuna, the boy who was brought from Mbaino as a hostage.
Ikemefuna is like an elder brother to Nwoye, whose development he influences
and guides. This is why after Ikemefuna’s untimely and sacrificial death in the
forest, Nwoye looks for comfort, for the “hidden poetry in things”, not inside
his father’s compound but elsewhere. Okonkwo has time for work and thoughts to
attain the greatest title of the clan for himself but has no time and concern
for his vulnerable and sensitive son, Nwoye, which leaves the boy distracted
and dissatisfied from a young age.
Soon
after the church has been built in the Evil Forest, Nwoye begins to hang around
it, absorbing not only the sermons and the hymns recited by Mr. Kiaga but also
taking in the songs and their accompaniment of music as a relief for his inner dissonance.
He looks to christianity for a wholeness he can neither find in himself, his
family or in his community. Nwoye looks forward to a future when having learnt
the white man’s knowledge he would return to his father’s house’ not to live there
but to rescue and redeem his mother as well as his younger brothers and sisters.
Unoka
Unoka,
Okonkwo’s father has been presented as a man with a weak constitution and
gentle displacement. He was tall, thin and had a slight stoop.
Unoko’s
absorption in his flute-playing which is quite unworldly and ecstatic contrasts
radically with his son Okonkwo’s worldly ambitions - whether it be at wrestling,
winning the titles available in the clan or just being rich and famous. The diametrically
opposite portrayals of the father, Unoka and his son, Okonkwo are not merely a
matter of individuals or personalities, their differences also measure generational
changes already taking place in Umuofia even prior to the arrival of the new
dispensation.
If
Unoka’s idleness makes him womanly, his gentleness evidenced in his gracious hospitality
to Okoye, his lender, shows him as a man fully immersed in the clan’s traditional
culture. Even the Oracle pronounces, Unoka as a good clansman although it does
also chide him for the weakness of his matchet and his hoe. Unoka’s spirit is
stronger and more alive in his grandson Nwoye than in his own son Okonkwo.
Ikemefuna
Although
not a biological son of Okonkwo, Ikemefuna who has been forcibly separated from
his own biological parents in Mbaino and brought as a hostage, is like a family
member of the family for three years. His stay, however ends abruptly when
Okonkwo and the other leaders of the clan lure him to the forest and offer him
as a human sacrifice of him by slaying him to appease the oracle. Ikemefuna is
an imaginative lad who retells utopian stories about the ant sitting on the
throne and the sands dancing forever. He who is repelled by acts of bloodshed
and violence, dies a violent and bloody death in the forest at the hands of the
elders of Umuofia. He calls Okonkwo “father” and yet could not get protection
from him, rather it is by Okonkwo’s blow only that he is killed. His killing
becomes symbolic of the death of innocence and faith in Umuofia and it is after
his death that things start falling apart both at the individual and social
level.
All
the important motifs of the novel - exile, rejection of the father, alienation
from him, women’s stories, reticence are all poignantly associated with this doomed
lad who was not allowed to grow up to become a man.
Obierika
Obierika,
Okonkwo’s friend, guide, advisor and trustee is true to him not only in his
life but even after the latter’s untimely and violent death. During Okonkwo’s
seven years exile in Mbanta, it is Obierika who manages things in Umuofia for
him like a trustee. Okonkwo’s death leaves him very sad and he could not help
accusing the Commissioner “That man was one of the greatest man in Umuofia. You
drove him to kill himself, and now he will be buried like a dog”.
Obierika
is though firmly rooted in the time honoured way of life but he questions the
draconian nature of some of the clan’s customs. He even cautions Okonkwo not to
participate in the killing of Ikemefuna as the boy called him father. He is a mature
man who believes in thinking before implementing and because of his good nature
is a widely respected person of the clan. Everyone participates with enthusiasm
in his daughter’s marriage. At times, in the novel, Obierika appears to be the
mouthpiece of the authorial voice.
Uchendu
Okonkwo’s
maternal uncle and the grand old man of his family at Mbanta, Uchendu is
presented as a far sighted, flexible man who stands as a pillar for his clan
and family. In a tribal system of organisation he precisely knows his duties
towards his refuge seeking nephew and fulfills them with great responsibility. He
is a sensitive man and tries to help Okonkwo overcome his despair by talking to
him after his youngest son Amikwu’s bride’s isa-ifi ceremony. He manages the household
in a wise, authoritative and sympathetic manner, maintaining the dignity of his
age and status. Uchendu’s character conveys to us the resilience and continuity
of the tribal system of organization in which there is an assigned role and
responsibility for everyone.
Comments