Since the beginning of the story, I had always had the question of how Okonkwo’s past would affect his future? A man who grew up without a role model and who lived in constant fear of being compared to his father. Also that the fact that he is a man who can’t express any emotion except that of anger. This leads me to think of Okonkwo as a character who would not want to resolve things peacefully, if it was up to him, as well as a man who doesn’t wish to be look down upon by anyone. For example even when it came to the death of Ikemefuna he did not hesitate to kill his “son” who had influenced his family and had already became part of them. He did this even though Ikemefuna pleaded “My father, they have killed me!” due to the fear of being thought of as weak by his people. Looking towards the future this type of characteristic may cause him more problems than there should have originally been.
3 thoughts on “The Unforgettable Past”
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I agree with most of your points about Okonkwo. He is clearly a man with deep fears of being the failure that he viewed his father to be. One thing I disagree with is your view point that he will always avoid peaceful resolutions to his problems. I believe that he will only avoid solutions that would make people percieve him as weak. From the reading so far, it appears that he is well aware that some of the things that he does crosses the line. An example of this is when he broke the peace. He acknowledged that he was in the wrong. He just wasn’t willing to admit it to his people because of his pride.
Okonkwo fear lead him in participating in the killing of Ikemefuna. Even though, Okonkwo had admired the boy like a son his fear was stronger that his love. Okonkwo action shows a lot about his charter. He is mostly described as a man full of insecurity. However, the killing of Ikemefuna also represent the important of the Oracel. The Oracel was the representation of God on earth for the Ibo community. What the Oracell said they must always obey and fallow.
i completely agree with Jonabellb on this one simply because there are still many questions regarding what kind of person Okonkwo really is. there are some parts of book where we start to think that Okonkwo has no emotion but then again there are some parts of the book where we see a quick moment where he does have some sort of feeling towards some of the other characters in the book. but because this is the case we cant really determine what kind of guy Okonkwo really is just yet. what we can say is that he’s very troubled with the memory that he has of his father and the kind of guy that he was, so by him not wanting to be like his father he would rather be the opposite of him. which in the end we know makes him be this very intimidating person.