Do not bear a hand in his death’... ‘Yes, Umuofia has decided to kill him... But I want you to have nothing to do with it. He calls you father.’”(Achebe 57). After he and the other elders left, it became clear that Okonkwo spent time pondering and struggling with what had been said as he “sat still supporting his chin in his palms”(Achebe 57). On the one hand, his relationship with the boy had evolved into a strong paternal bond. On the other hand, the gods decreed that the boy must die--a decree that had to be obeyed without question. While Okonkwo’s choice was not yet directly revealed to the reader at that time, Achebe indicated through literary cues that the man’s mind was …show more content…
By including how the boy “missed his mother and sister” yet “knew he was not going to see them”, Achebe made the circumstances appear cruel (Achebe 57). It was a tonal shift which indicated negativity surrounding Okonkwo's involvement in the sheer reality of the soon-to-be death, let alone his actual murder. The chronological placement of the scene was just as purposeful as it occurred immediately after the celebration of the coming of the locust, an occasion of joy, laughter, and excitement among the children of Umuofia. The fact that Okonkwo moments before had “sat in his obi crunching happily with Ikemefuna and Nwoye" contrasted and underscored the brutality and inhumanity of his premeditated actions (Achebe 56).
Just as the guardianship of the boy was a mark of his hard-won status and the highest point of his rise to power, the choice to participate in the execution of Ikemefuna was the beginning of Okonkwo's decline and initiated the series of catastrophes that end in his