Okonkwo's Masculinity

Things Fall Apart

Okonkwo's self-destruction was caused by his drive for masculinity . Okonkwo's fear of being a failure caused Okonkwo to hide behind a veneer of anger and aggression. Okonkwo's masculinity was all he had and was the factor that controlled his behavior. He was often consumed in his actions of masculinity that seemed to know no limits. Also, a crucial flaw was his inability to accept change in tradition. He was not able to change with the values of both societies and the changing ways around him. He could not accept the fact that in a colonized society he would be an average person, rather than a distinguished and powerful male.
Okonkwo feared of becoming like his father, so he made his own path to life and how he dealt
He wanted to rise above his father's legacy, which he saw as feminine. The connection with being weak and feminine was in the clan's language. The word for a man who had not taken any titles was "agbala", which means "woman." Okonkwo's world came crashing down and in the end, resulted in his death. The though of manliness was given to him at a young age when he saw his father's womanly qualities and most importantly his failures. He obsessed over living by his standards of masculinity and this forced him to embrace the values the exact opposite of his fathers. Okonkwo's idea of manliness differed from the clan, however. He connected masculinity with aggression and felt that anger was the only emotion that he should display. For this reason, he frequently beat his wives, even threatening to kill them. He did not think things through, and we see him acting impulsively . His very life was built around being a man and it got to the point where it was the only thing controlling him. Things Fall Apart was the portrayal of a man whose idealism of masculinity was so farfetched that no one, not even himself, could live up to the expectations, which caused his very own