Okonkwo Essay

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Brittani Behm
English 10
Strand
12/16/14 George Bernard once said “Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated”.
This teaches us that a coward will often act out as discourteous and uncivil, because they are angry that another has wronged them. A true hero would not seek revenge. In
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo is definitely not a hero for all he thinks about is violence and revenge. He bases all the decisions he makes on fear, “solves” all of his problems with violence, and is as stubborn as a mule.
Okonkwo, the man who thinks of himself as the epitome of strength and power, is a coward.Okonkwo has many traits that makes him a coward, whether he admits it or not. These traits include basing every decision he makes on fear. “Dazed with fear,
Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak”(Achebe 61). These two sentences from
Things Fall Apart exemplify perfectly how
Okonkwo’s fear takes control of his actions. If he had not been afraid or self conscience,
Ikemefuna would still be alive. Okonkwo is afraid of being like his father and of becoming like a woman, but no matter what the reason, his foundation of decision making forms him into a coward.
Violence is a cowardly solution as well. A hero is not one to quickly draw his sword, but rather to resolve the complication through words, to save another faulty state from bloodshed. When Okonkwo arrives at a difficult situation, the only solution he can think of is savagery. “‘They were fools,’ said Okonkwo after a pause. ‘They had been

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warned that danger was ahead. They should have armed themselves with their guns and their machetes even when they went to market’”(Achebe 140). When Obierika visits
Okonkwo at his mother's home, he tells Okonkwo about the white men. Okonkwo does not know what the white man has come for, but only heard stories. Okonkwo immediately leaps to the conclusion that his tribe should slaughter all of them, for "they had been warned". Violence is sometimes the only way a conflict can be resolved, but it should not be the answer for everything. Okonkwo's disability to comprehend that proves that he is unworthy of being considered a hero.
Some May think Okonkwo is a hero, however he is a coward. Stubbornness could be viewed as a good character trait, because they don’t let others push them around. In the case of Okonkwo his unwillingness to accept the minor changes in his society creates trouble. "When Okonkwo and Obierika got to the meeting place there were already so many people that if one threw up a grain of sand it would not find its way back to the earth again"(Achebe 201). This is the part of
Things Fall Apart when
Okonkwo gathers people to discuss what they are going to do to pull their clan back together. Okonkwo cannot accept that things are changing, instead he tells himself that men are growing into women. He wants revenge for what the white men have done to their village. While he was at this market place five court messengers came to stop the meeting, and Okonkwo decapitated one of them. Okonkwo's stubbornness always gets others hurt, and he gets himself in trouble. This makes Okonkwo a coward.
Okonkwo, the epitome of strength and power, is far from a hero. Okonkwo has all

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the right traits of a coward. Okonkwo is never truly confident in his actions, for he always bases all of his decisions on fear. His disability to come to another conclusion than violence always creates more problems rather than solutions. Also his stubbornness is reflects badly upon his entire family. Okonkwo was a bottle of hatred, and the day of his death it had exploded. He had hanged himself because he was scared, insecure, maybe even intimidated of what was to come next, and just couldn't take it any longer. Okonkwo is a coward.