‘He still remembered how he had suffered when a playmate had told him that his father was an agbala’
An agbala is was a man who had died and had taken no title when he had died. Therefore Okonkwo ruled in the exact opposite way that his father did. He did not show any love and gentleness towards his family and he expected the same of them as he did of himself.
The characters were also scared of his fiery temper and therefore made sure that they did as they were told:
‘But his wives and young children were not as strong, and so they suffered. But they dared not complain openly.’
This shows that the wives and children were scared of Okonkwo; when they felt tired or in pain they did not show this to Okonkwo because they knew he wanted them to work as hard as he did. They feared the backlash if they did not. Okonkwo made no exceptions even though they were women and children. He did not consider that they weren’t as strong. This also shows that Okonkwo was not easily approached by the other characters.
Okonkwo was also worried that his son, Nwoye, would turn out to be a failure as he felt he was showing signs of ‘incipient laziness’. This lead Okonkwo to beat his son and this shows Okonkwo treating his family with a heavy hand and it also shows he loves his son in a way as he doesn’t want him to be like his grandfather, but I think that he also needs to treat his son with more respect. This had turned Nwoye into a ‘sad faced youth’. Therefore I can see that the way Okonkwo had his relationship with his son made him feel sad. After all Nwoye was only twelve and was not yet a man and Okonkwo sees him as a man and therefore expects too much.
Okonkwo was also respected by all of the people in this extract:
‘lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper.’
This shows that Okonkwo was respected as the people were scared of him and didn’t want him to beat them or even kill them so they respected him and didn’t mess him around.
From the passage I can see that Okonkwo is respected because of the fear he instilled into his family. He does not show love to any of the characters and he hated his father and does not want to fail in life as he thinks his father had done. However, his father may have measured failure in a different way and may have been happy with what he had in his life. He may not have been as materialistic, but wealth is not always a measure of achievement, just because Okonkwo has a lot of money and property it has not made him happy.
