This point is proved many times in the novel and one of the recurring examples is the
Striking of his wives, where at on e stage he could have killed her by shotting at her. The honour and beliefs Okonkwo follows are the same as any other man in the tribe except that Oknokwos beliefs are to an extreme extent.
One thing we have to keep in mind is the fact that “his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwos fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was the fear of himself leat he should be found to resemble his father.”
This great fear of weakness in Okonkwo is actually so great to an extent that at times he is portrayed to see him as a cold hearted man with no feelings whatsoever. This begins when we see him smack his wife and most importantly when he finishes off killing Imkemfuna. Imfemfuna lived with him for around three years and was becoming like a son to him.
At this point we come to an important quote in the novel” and so Okonkwo was ruled by one passion- to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness.” Okonkwo’s fright of showing anything to be as a sign of weakness.
After the death of Imkemfuna we realise that behind this mask of bravery there is an actual human heart inside which is contradicting what was stated earlier. Although we see he has a heart he still doesn’t show much emotion.
Another important point, which needs to be mentioned, is the difference between the male and female roles in the village. The males and females have different areas of work and one of these is in the barn where there is a different role for the growing of different crops.
This isn’t the only time we see the difference between the male and the female roles. During one of the sacred weeks which is know to the tribe to be a week of peace Okonkwo beat up his third wife because she didn’t prepare his meal and was away from home. This shows us how high he regards his masculine authority.
One of the turning points in the novel was when Okonkwo was exiled for seven years.
During the time of exile we see his village being transformed into an unrecognisable change. Churches are being built, and many people have converted to Christianity, one of these being his so Nwoye.
We are told that ‘the clan had undergone such a profound change during his exile that it was “barely recognisable”. This was when things were really falling apart for Okonkwo. His return to the clan was pretty normal and the way he was greeted was the way he expected his return to be.
As stated earlier Okonkwo took everything to an extreme, but to come back and see what had happened to the clan was a great shock to him. During his time in exile he had heard of the missionaries come into his village but he had never expected it to be that bad. In other words unlike the other people who had remained in the clan he never had the process of adjusting and accepting what had happened to his clan.
The fury burning inside Oknkwo was increasing as they are deceived and captured. During the imprisonment he is said to have been” chocked with hate.” This is understandable considering “he was a man of action a man of war.
Okonkwo was so proud to an extent that he takes his own sorrow to die in dignity. The cause of his death was sorrow. The pain of coming back to a clan and realising that most of the men in there were no longer real men was too much that Okonkwo couldn’t handle.
