Okonkwo: a tragic hero

In the novel things fall apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo is being portrayed as a tragic hero. According to Aristotle’s a tragic hero is portrayed as “a good man of high status who displays a tragic flaw (“hamartia”) and experiences a dramatic reversal (“peripeteia”), as well as an intense moment of recognition (“anagnorisis”)”. Okonkwo was known to be a leader a hardworking member in the society with no limitations to what he can achieve whose tragic flaws were his great fear of weakness and failure. As his downfall and his death satisfies Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero.

Okonkwo was known to be as a man of war and action, as a high member in the Igbo society, as he holds a strong position in the village due to the fact that he had shown “shown incredible prowess in two intertribal wars”. Die to his hard work he became wealthy and recognized amongst the nine villages in Umuofia. Okonkwo was a man that wasn’t afraid to work; on the contrary his fear of weakness derives from his father Unoka as he had an unproductive life and a shameful death. “Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness…. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.” Okonkwo’s father was a lazy, carefree man whom had a reputation of being “poor and his wife and children had just barely enough to eat... they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back.”  Unoka had never taught Okonkwo what was right and wrong, and as a result Okonkwo had to interpret how to be a “good man”. Okonkwo’s self-interpretation leads him to conclude that a “good man” was someone who was the exact opposite of his father and therefore anything that his father did was weak and unnecessary.

Like many heroes of any tragedy, Okonkwo tragic flaw, also makes him excessively proud. Okonkwo’s downfall “death” is the result of the changes that had occurred when the missionary came in “British” to the Igbo society. As the introduction to the missionaries lead the tragic flaws of Okonkwo become worse. Okonkwo interprets a change as weakness, and as a result of his interpretation Okonkwo only knows how to react to change through anger and strength. Therefore a satisfaction is obtained, “hubris” or prideful arrogance, from the fact that he is a traditional, self made man and thinks that to change would mean submitting to an outside force

The Ibo culture had made Okonkwo a hero and a savior towards their society, but the Ibo culture had changed when the invasion of the missionaries had occurred, and looking at Okonkwo he would rather die than be humiliated by his enemies only to attain his pride, therefore by committing pride he prevents the missionaries from getting revenge because he had killed their messenger. Aristotle’s statement, “Man, when perfect, is the best of animals, but, when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all”, embodies the rise and fall of Okonkwo in things fall apart. Okonkwo, like many tragic heroes before him, maybe a hero but his tragic flaw prevents him from achieving true greatness as a human being