How Did Uchendu Influence Okonkwo

Uchendu’s impact on Okonkwo

In the Isa Ifi ceremony sitdown, Uchendu is trying to convince Okonkwo to stop suffering. Uchendu states Okonkwo’s duties to him, threatens that Okonkwo may displease the dead, challenges him, and forces him to appreciate his current situation, and realize that it is not as bad as it seems. Okonkwo has been banished from Umuofia and has come to his motherland Mbanta to seek refuge for 7 years. He is kindly accepted by his mother’s kinsmen, and Okonkwo’s uncle and leader of the tribe, Uchendu, sees clearly that Okonkwo had yielded to despair. At the Isa Ifi ceremony, Uchendu calls together his sons, daughters, and Okonkwo. Uchendu’s first sentence was directed to Okonkwo; Uchendu asks Okonkwo why people say “Nneka”
Uchendu then emphasizes his loss of children and wives; In an effort to make Okonkwo recognize his good fortune with the fact that all of his children and wives are healthy and alive, which will cause him to appreciate them, and with appreciation usually comes pleasant, more positive feelings, that Uchendu hopes can draw Okonkwo out of his misery. Through describing the feeble and undesirable wife that he has now, one who is so dumb and inexperienced that she cannot tell something so simple as “her left from her right”, Uchendu makes Okonkwo appreciate the quality of his wives(as Okonkwo still views women as his objects/property), which should also bring him to feel some positivity. Finally, Uchendu ends with a powerful phrase that is meant to motivate Okonkwo; After listing all of these tragic events which he endured, Uchendu states that he was able to survive, which is meant to prove to Okonkwo, that, Okonkwo is definitely able to survive, because, if even Uchendu, a man who Okonkwo most likely considers inferior to him(in aspects of strength), has survived in circumstances much harder than Okonkwo’s, then Okonkwo will definitely be able to
Being raised in Umuofia, Okonkwo has learned many of the Umuofian traditions, specifically, he has accepted the belief that women are inferior to men. He now embodies the practice of treating his wives as property. Throughout his whole life, he has despised his father, and vowed to never be like him in any aspect of life; Okonkwo eliminates everything that even solely reminds him about his father, from his life. His father was an idle person, who, by the clan which defined men and respected them through their accomplishment (accomplishments were shown/characterized by the amount of titles a man had, and Okonkwo’s father didn't have any, therefore he was not considered to be a “Man”), was equivalent to a woman. His father was even called an “agbala”(which was the derogatory term for feeble, worthless woman at the time). So when Uchendu tries to make Okonkwo appreciate his wives, Okonkwo is not able to understand Uchendu’s message because Okonkwo so strongly associates woman with his despised father, because of their physical weakness, and therefore doesn't want to even consider respecting them. As Okonkwo associates women with weakness and powerlessness, for a man as power-ridden and obsessed with strength as Okonkwo, he is not able respect someone that he considers so weak. Okonkwo, therefore, will be stubborn and