Monday, August 12, 2013
This is the last post of the summer. You should have finished the novel and should either be finishing your school assignments or working on them. For this last one, I want your final summation of Okonkwo. Is he admirable? Is he unsympathetic? It's your call. You just need to be sure and back up anything you say with concrete details, direct quotes and the corresponding page numbers. Haave fun and I will see you on the 19th.
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In my opinion, Okonkwo is unsympathetic to anything. He shows really no remorse for any of his causes to those affected but himself. When he was exiled from his land, he did not care about the mourning family who had lost two members in the matter of days. He was stuck on his self-pity about how he had lost everything he had. "His life had been ruled by a great passion - to become one of the lords of the clan. That had been his life-spring. And he had all but achieved it. Then everything had been broken" (80).
ReplyDeleteWhen Okonkwo struck down the white messenger, he all but looked at the dead man and then walked away. He did not care that he had killed him, he wanted his village to go to war and eliminate the white men. But when he looked up and saw that the other messengers had escaped, he knew Umuofia would not go to war. "He wiped his machete on the sand and went away" (126).
I believe Okonkwo was both, admirable and unsympathetic. His ability to not show compassion brought out the things that made him revered.
ReplyDelete"Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak." (37) Although this quote shows Okonkwo's very unsympathetic side, it also shows that he is loyal to his clan, and that no matter what he will stand by his people and honor their beliefs.
"Okonkwo had clearly washed his hands so he ate with kings and elders." (6) Okonkwo had made a name for himself within the clan. He didn't show sympathy towards his father and in fact completely disregarded him and went his own way. In doing so he was highly revered in all the tribes and very successful.
Its like the vices and virtues thing, peoples' vices aspire them to do better and what they do become their virtues.
However, sympathy can also be honorable, though its not the case with Okonkwo, it is the case in his son. I admire Nwoye for leaving everything he had known before for something he craved, which I believe, was compassion.
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ReplyDeleteOkonkwo, in my eyes, was a very complex character. He was very unsympathetic and somehow still admirable. He was a very good man according to their culture. Even tho he was unsympathetic, he did show a lot of remorse after the death of Ikemefuna. "He did not sleep at night. He tried not to think about Ikemefuna, but the more he tried the more he thought about him." (38)
ReplyDeleteOkonkwo spent his whole life trying to make a name for himself, so much so that he actually ended up ruining everything. His life was driven by the fear of ending up like his father. "But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness." (9)
I personally believe that Okonkwo was unsympathetic. For instance, in chapter five, when Okonkwo's second wife had cut the leaves off of a banana tree to wrap food, Okonkwo thought she had killed the tree. So he beat her. He wouldn't listento her and had no sympathy towards her. Later when she made a comment towards him, he shot at her. "Okonkwo's second wife had merely cut a few leaves off it to wrap some food, and she said so. Without further argument Okonkwo gave her a sound beating and left her and her only daughter weeping." (24)
ReplyDeleteAnother instance of when Okonkwo showed how unsympathetic he was that stood out to me was after he was exiled from his village after he had killed another clansmen. He wasn't worried about the family of the person he had killed. Okonkwo was only worried about himself and what he was going to loose from being away from Umuofia. "Although he had prospered in his motherland Okonkwo knew that he would have prospered even more in Umuofia, in the land of his fathers where men were bold and warlike. In these seven years he would have cloned to the utmost heights. And so he regretted everyday of his exile." (99) He regretted his exile because he wouldn't prosper as much in Mbanta as he would have in Umuofia; not because he had took the life of an innocent person.
I think Okonkwo was unsympathetic because he was more concerned about what other people thought of him. "Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak." (37)
ReplyDeleteI believe that he was admirable because a lot of people looked up to him and he was well known. "Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond." (3)
I believe that Okonkwo was very unsympathetic. He really didn’t think about how everybody else would respond to his actions. For the most part, he did the things he did for himself. “Without further argument Okonkwo gave her a second beating and left her and her only daughter weeping.” (page 24) This just shows that Okonkwo didn’t think things through before he handled the situation. He assumed that someone killed the banana tree so he was going to beat anyone that had anything to do with it that day.
ReplyDeleteOkonkwo was trying to make sure that he was remembered a greater man than what his father is remembered as, and by doing that, his life was pretty much ruined. His fear of being remembered as his father is what ruined his life. “It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his father.” (page 9)
In my opinion, Okonkwo is rather unsympathetic in character. His actions were for his own benefit. "Nwoye turned round to walk into the inner compound when his father, suddenly overcome with furry, sprang to his feet and gripped him by the neck." (151) Instead of understanding that he pushed Nwoye away and into the Christian faith, Okonkwo flies off the handle and nearly chokes out his own son.
ReplyDeleteOkonkwo is a selfish person. At every opportunity, he put himself above everything, including the mental and physical health of his family. He aggressively attacks his wives on numerous occasions, unthinking of the effects it may have on his children. "Without further argument Okonkwo gave her a sound beating and left her and her only daughter weeping." (24) Small incidents, such as the one presented with the banana leaves, cause Okonkwo to lose control. For the satisfaction of getting the better of someone, he disregards all else.
I believe Okonkwo is trying his very hardest to do everything right. For that, he is admirable. He wants the best for his family so he pushes them to act their best and to work hard. He wants them to do well. "Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness." Page 13.
ReplyDeleteHe isn't a person who only feels anger. When he had to strike down Ikemefuna, he was very sad. "Okonkwo did not taste any food for two days after the death of Ikemefuna. He drank palm-wine from morning till night, and his eyes were red and fierce like the eyes of a rat when it was caught by the tail and dashed against the floor." Page 63.
Okonkwo is just a man who keeps trying to make himself better. He wants to become higher in the clan. The fact that he had to grow up quickly makes him unsympathetic to how Nwoye feels. Okonkwo was a man by the time he was his son's age and he felt he had not raised a man in him. "But Nwoye resembled his grandfather, Unoka, who was Okonkwo's father. He pushed the thought out of his mind. He, Okonkwo, was called the flaming fire. How could he have begotten a woman for a son? At Nwoye's age Okonkwo had already became famous throughout Umuofia for his wrestling and his fearlessness." Page 153.
I see Okonkwo as a caring man. When his daughter, Ezinma, was taken by Chielo, he waited at the shrine for her. "It was only on his fourth trip that he had found Ekwefi, and by then he had became gravely worried." (pg 112)
ReplyDeleteI also think it is admirable that he took his life into his own hands and built up his reputation. "His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat." (pg 1)
I believe Okonkwo is unsympathetic. Many of his actions seem like he is selfish. He does things that hurt his entire family and he doesn't care. "And before the cock crowed Okonkwo and his family were fleeing to his motherland." (74) When Okonkwo killed the clans man it changed every person in his family. They had to pack all of their belongings and leave their friends because Okonkwo did something wrong.
ReplyDeleteWhen Okonkwo found out that Nwoye was with the converts he responded without thinking about the consequences. "But he left hold of Nwoye, who walked away and never returned." (92) Okonkwo made his son leave his family forever because of the decisions he made. He didn't care that Nwoye left, he thought that Nwoye deserved what happened to him and was happy he was gone.
I believe that Okonkwo is very unsympathetic. His greatest fear is to turn out like his father, lazy and unable to take care of his family. He is always worried about what people think of him. It started from the very first sentence of the book on page 1. "Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to the village by throwing Amalinze the Cat". He was always trying to seem more than he was and didn't let his family know how he really felt. The author let the reader see just a little of that side but the unsympathetic side always won out. He was an uncompromising man's man. That treated his family like a dictator. He feels like he has complete ownership over his family. When he accidentally killed the boy in chapter 13 p. 124 "Okonkwo's gun had exploded and a piece of iron had pierced the boy's heart. The only course open to Okonkwo was to flee from the clan". It didn't bother him that he killed the boy only that he had to leave and go to his mothers family taking all of his family with him with no consideration for them.
ReplyDeleteOkonkwo really just isn't my favorite. He beats his wives. "And when she returned he beat her very heavily." (Loc 330). He beat his son, Nwoye. "He seized a heavy stick that lay on the dwarf wall and hit him..." (Loc 1679). He's obviously emotionally unstable and cannot deal with change, so he kills himself. "Then they came to the tree from which Okonkwo's body was dangling..." (Loc 2242). I don't see how he could come across as admirable in any shape or form.
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ReplyDeleteKayla JohnstonAugust 22, 2013 at 9:05 PM
I found Okonkwo very unsympathetic and admiarable in different ways. Yes, he beat his wives and many more things which are not acceptbale in our society. In the African society, Okonkwo was totally acceptable. Everyone who has read this book has such a biased opinion toward's Okonkwo's culture and their traditions."Okonkwo, unlike his father, has no fear of violence, but actually revels in it. Fearlessness in war is a highly respected quality in Umuofia." (4.) I personally admire the way he doesn't let his father's failures mold him into the man he became. "Okonkwo is afraid of showing his emotions too openly, unless they are feelings of anger or aggression. Because he fears being effeminate and losing community respect, he shies away from showing even his favorite child affection" (6). He had to grow up at a very young age, has three wives, seven children, an admired warrior, and none of his family is starving. On the other hand, I do not feel sorry for him at all as the book progresses. He neglects Nwoye and often refers to him as effeminate which is very hateful. "Despite all of Okonkwo’s showy manliness, he is ruled by fear – a profound fear of being deemed weak and feminine, like his father. Essentially, Okonkwo fears nothing but himself." Okonko began to get too big of a head with his successful and like Rome, all great things must come to an end.