Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe (Characters)

 

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.