Okonkw's Insecurity

There are a lot of factors in a person’s life that contribute to their feeling of insecurity. Certain events might cause that, mostly it tends to be childhood events. Men usually try to hide their insecure feelings by making sure they appear strong and masculine while deep down they could be very weak. A person feeling insecure is normal but insecurity taking over a person might result in his downfall. That’s what happened to Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart.

Okonkwo’s obsession with what others think of him started from an early age, which would drive him to be insecure. Okonkwo’s father is the reason for Okonkwo’s insecurity. His dad being viewed as a nothing would make Okonkwo wants to be viewed as everything his father wasn’t. Okonkwo’s first priority is to maintain his masculinity in front of people, which would lead him to success at first. But, later on he would be so afraid to look weak, that he breaks a lot of tribal rules just to keep his image intact. Okonkwo starts breaking the rules by beating his youngest wife Ojiugo during the week of peace because she left the hut without cooking dinner. He later one does another fatal error that would start leading to his fall down, he kills the boy which called him father although the clan’s leader and the authorities told him not to. Okonkwo loved Ikemfuna but he still killed him because he resembles any feelings with femininity and for him any sign of femininity is being weak. Feeling weak inside, Okonkwo would do actions to make people feel down. Insecure people insult others because they think that, by making someone else down; it will make them feel better about themselves. That's exactly what Okonkwo does when he tells Sugo - a man without titles- "This meeting is for men," who implies that he is not a man, but actually a woman, who is a weak creature in Okonkwo's view. The reason why Okonkwo specifically attacked Sugo by implying that he is a woman is because