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Any emotion besides anger was feminine or like a woman to Okonkwo. This fear of perceived femininity caused Okonkwo to dislike his own son. He thought his son was more like a woman than a man. Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son, reminded him of his father and that left Okonkwo with nothing but contempt.
There was a story that Okonkwo’s father consulted the Oracle to inquire why he always had a terrible harvest and the Oracle told him that he was a lazy and weak man, even in his harvest. Okonkwo’s fear of becoming a failure like his father, made him work from sun up to sun down to prosper. He had an impressive compound where he lived with his three wives. Each one of his wives’ had their own hut, where they lived with their children. He also had an impressive barn to store his bountiful harvest of yams. It was said the Okonkwo’s father had bad Chi, which is a bad personal God. This fate one could not escape and it followed him to his grave.
Ikemefuna was a boy that Okonkwo inherited, because the boy was taken from his family. Ikemefuna lived with Okonkwo and his family for three years and he felt like a member of the family. He even called Okonkwo father. Deep down Okonkwo was very fond of the boy. He enjoyed telling Ikemefuna and Nwoye stories of his killings and fights in his obi. Okonkwo’s fear of being perceived as weak commanded his life so greatly, that he delivered the final blow to end the boy’s life. A boy who called him father.
Okonkwo’s own obsession with masculinity and strength caused his demise. Throughout the novel, Okonkwo did many things to prove his masculine quality. Many of these things are debatable as to whether they affirm Okonkwo's masculinity or if they
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bring out his true weakness and lead to his destruction. Okonkwo's ignorance often led to his inability to accept change in tradition. He was not able to adapt to the clashing values of both societies and the changing ways around him. He did not accept the fact that in a colonized society he would be an average person, rather than distinguished and powerful. When Okonkwo came back from exile, everything was different. He realized that the people in the village did not need him. They were content with change and had adapted to a new way of life, unlike him. They disagreed with Okonkwo’s answer to change, which was war. Okonkwo realized his village was able to survive without him. Those facts lead him to end his life.
Okonkwo took his frustrations with his son out on him physically. He thought that if he beat him it would make him stronger and more masculine. In fact it did the opposite. “Okonkwo’s first son Nwoye, was then twelve years old but was already causing his father great anxiety for his incipient laziness. At any rate, that was how it looked to his father, and he sought to correct it by constant nagging and beating. And so Nwoye was developing into a sad-faced youth.” (Achebe p.10). Okonkwo believed his son Nwoye was too feminine. He felt like Nwoye was weak and would be unable to provide for his family and to prosper, once he died. “. . . . I have done my best to make Nwoye grow into a man, but there is too much of his mother in him.” (Achebe p. 46) Okonkwo really felt like Nwoye was too much like his father. Okonkwo’s prophecy about Nwoye came true, because Nwoye became a missionary. The change that Okonkwo hated most, his son became a part of.
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Okonkwo started working at a very young age to acquire the things in life that his father did not have. He successfully accomplished having a nice home, several wives and children and a very good harvest of yams. But with all he accomplished, was he successful? His family lived in fear of him, his son denounced him and he had been exiled from the land that he loved so much. His rise and fall had several ironic incidents. Okonkwo detested his father and how he lived his life and his son Nwoye felt the same way about him. Okonkwo always made reference to his father’s shameful death and Okonkwo committed suicide. Suicide in their custom is a serious offense. “It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offence against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it.” (Achebe p.147) Okonkwo’s family could not bury him, only strangers. So he would die disrespectfully, like his father. Okonkwo lived by the sword and he died by the sword.
