In further discussion about Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, I have noticed one large and ongoing conflict between Okonkwo and his feeling towards his children, Nwoye and Ezinma. Okonkwo is a man who is very prideful and he has a need for greatness. He wants to be different from his father who didn’t have a title, he wasn’t known for anything. Okonkwo is making himself known for his wealth, brave and violent personality and producivness. He wants his children (his son, Nwoye) to have the same qualities and have greatness and a title in his life except that is not what Nwoye wants so that is where the conflict comes in.
Nwoye is the type of boy who struggles with his demanding and powerful father. His interests are more of those of his grandfather, Unoka. He takes many beatings by his father because he is not able to please him. When Ikemefuna arrives (as his older brother in terms), he starts to teach Nwoye about masculinity in a more gentle way. This gets Okonkwo to back away for a little bit and little by little Nwoye gets a little more his father’s approval. When Ikemefuna is killed, Nwoye goes back to being more like his grandfather. When the missionaries come Nwoye finds a little bit of hope and joins the forces with them. That decision only makes Okonkwo so angry and upset that he disownes his son.
Ezinma (Okonkwo’s daughter), on the other hand, has the masculine traits even though she is a female. Okonkwo favors her because she is bold and sometimes contradicting. In fact, may times, Okonkwo wishes that Ezinma would have been a boy. She wins Okonkwo’s full respect and attention. With Okonkwo favoring Ezinma, that only boosts her confidence and makes things worse for Nwoye and Okonkwo.
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Do you think that had Enzinma been a boy she could have acted like an influence for Nwoye like Ikemefuna did?
ReplyDeleteI think so. However, i think Nwoye would always feel like he was in her shadow, as she would have been Okonwo's pride and joy. HE would have always been 'catching up' to her, so to speak. Out of all the characters, i think it is Nwoye that has the short end of the stick when it comes to a relationship with his father.
ReplyDeleteFor most of Halle's post, I have to agree. But i somewhat disagree with when she said that Nwoye is 'acting like his grandfather" again at the end. I think that for most people, Nwoye would have been an excellent son, but through Okonkwo's eyes, he is a horrible son simply because Okonkwo wants nwoye to be just like him, and he wont acccept anything less
ReplyDeleteMajority of Hlle's post i agree with. Okonkwo really does just want his son to have a good life and in wanting that he has to be harsh on him and overly demanding. Like Mitch said in response to Halle's post I agree that Nwoye is not acting like his grandfather. Nwyoye would have been a great son. He was loyal for the most part, kind, and gentle. But to Okonkwo all of that was basically just laziness. In reality Nwoye was just trying to please his father, but doing it poorly.
ReplyDeleteDo you think that Enzima would still have as much love and affection from Okonkwo as a boy as she gets as a girl?
ReplyDeleteI think that most of Okonkwo's proud feelings for his daughter stems from the fact that he doesn't have high expectations for his women and daughters other than for them to be respectful and to get married. Maybe as a girl, Enzima's traits are admirable but possibly as a boy, she wouldn't seem as strong as Okonkwo would like.
Answering maddy's question, I think that Nwoye would have learned from Enzinma but would still have the gentle heart and wouldn't be able to conform to the ways his father wanted him to be as easily as his sister did. I think he always felt like an outcast compared to his sister even though he was the boy and she was the girl. I also think that he didn't want to change and felt that being himself was never good enough so following th =e white men in the end gave him an escape from the harsh world with his father.
ReplyDeleteKarissa Beilke
ReplyDeleteI think the reason that Okonkwo liked Ikemefuna more than Nwoye was because Ikemefuna wasn't truly Okonkwo's son, therefore Okonkwo wouldn't feel as if he had failed if Ikemefuna was lazy. But because Nwoye is Okonkwo's son, Okonkwo definitely raises his standards.
Throughout the whole book, I really felt bad for Nowoye. I don’t think he was necessarily like his grandfather; he just sort of had that rebellion that young boys might have. He also probably didn’t want to grow up as fast as Okonwo wanted him to. Being considered a man in that village seemed like a lot of work and a lot of judgment from others. Honestly I would not want to put down all kinds of work to be a man if people will end up judging me, Or in Nowoye’s case, being disowned. I also don’t think he wanted to be like his father. His father had no affection or care for anyone other them himself and I thing Nowoye was a more caring person. It could also be just something Nowoye and Okonwo have in common, they both don’t want to be like their fathers.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Halle said in the majority of her post, the only thing I would maybe contend is ikemefuna teaching nwoye about masculinity. But anyways in response to maddy's question I think that if enzima had been a boy things wouldve been very different for nwoye. First, okonkwo wouldn't have focused so much on nwoye and his lack of prowess and secondly nwoye couldve seen perhaps what his father was looking for and imitate enzima.
ReplyDeleteThis is one major thing that i had quite a bit of trouble understanding. How could Okonkwo be more fond of Enzima than of Nwoye? She did portray a MUCH more masculine attitude than that of Nwoye, however, she was a woman. It was made very VERY clear that Okonkwo did not look upon women with much respect and showed this by beating them time and again. Could someone help explain this a bit?
ReplyDeleteConner Garrett
In response to Conner, I think Okonkwo acted this way because although he didn't value women, it seemed to him that Ezinma was more intelligent than the others because she would do whatever he would say and she listened to him. Maybe Okonkwo viewed it as Ezinma trying to rebel against the "curse" of being a women by learning from him. It could also be that Ezinma is just a likable girl. People may say they don't like a certain thing, but there's sometimes an exception to their logic.
ReplyDelete-Karissa B.
I think what this whole ordeal showed was that a son will end up going the opposite direction of his father if his father is too far to one extreme. Okonkwo's father was extremely lazy and not the most masculine guy in the world. Seeing these flaws, Oknonkwo went to the complete opposite end of the spectrum and became an extremely hard working and masculine guy. Being at this extreme just kind of made him look like a jerk and a workaholic making Nwoye want to swing back to the other end of the spectrum and be more like his grandfather.
ReplyDeleteHalle... I think that Okonkwo's determination to become a better man than his father has blinded him to who his daughter is and the potentioal his son has. I feel that if he could some how find a way to put that determination be hind him Okonkwo could see that his children are all strong just like him, they are just each strong in their own way.
ReplyDelete