Things Fall Apart

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say that Okonkwo acts this way because he is weak at heart. He has no real reason why he beats his wives. In addition to the beating of his wives, he also strikes his son Nwoye. He views his son as more of a woman than a man and this resemblance of his father drives Okonkwo to be highly demanding of his family. �If you split another yam of this size, I shall break your jaw� (32). Okonkwo puts pressure on his son in the form of threatening him and views the imperfections of the yams as an imperfection of his son, which is a reflection of himself. �I will not have a son who cannot hold his head up in the gatheing of the clan. I would sooner strangle him with my own hands�(33). Okonkwo would feel more pride in taking his own sons life than being a proud father. He does not want his masculine reputation tainted by the potential failures of a less than perfect son.
His masculine behavior becomes outrageous when he takes the life of a young boy, Ikemefuma, who is like his surrogate ...

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does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone� (24,25). In this we see Unokas� insightfulness to the fact that failing with the love and support of others does not damage one as much as failing with no one there to support you and pick you back up. Okonkwo sees his father�s insight as another weakness and feels that no failure is a good thing and a man should not fail. It can be easily seen that when Okonkwo washed his hands of his father�s ways, he also rid himself of the values his father tried to instill in him, thus making room for the very limiting interpretations of what characteristics a man should possess.
Okonkwo and his skewed view of ...

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