Okonkwo Selfishness Towards His Family

“As Okonkwo sat in his hut that night, gazing into a log fire, he thought over the matter. Sudden fury rose within him and he felt a strong desire to take up his machete, go the church and wipe out the entire vile and miscreant gang. but on further thought he told himself that Nwoye was not worth fighting for. why, he cried in his heart, should he, Okonkwo, of all people, be cursed with such a son?”

From this scene you can see that Okonkwo pride is getting the best of him, we are shown even more how Okonkwo doesn’t care about his family  he only care about himself and his self-image. Okonkwo care about using the land he was given by his uncle in his motherland to try to prove that he will never give but he doesn’t worry about this own family feeling about be exile all he care about is when the seven years will end and he can go home to gain back his respect from his fatherland. Okonkwo hate the fact the these white man come to his country and try to destroy his faith to his gods. For Nwoye making one mistake by talking to one of the priest, Okonkwo go crazy and beat his son and almost try to kill him if wasn’t for his uncle to stop Okonkwo from doing that to his son, Nwoye would’ve die if he didn’t answer his father and from that Okonkwo disown him and told his son to never  come back. That was not fair for Nwoye because when his father made that mistake by killing his own clan mate, his son never said anything or hated his father for having to leave his home and friends for seven years. He just went with his family and never argue about it but Okonkwo doesn’t care about his son he wouldn’t even understand what his son was doing or try to convince him to not do what Nwoye was going to do because Okonkwo only cares about his self, he doesn’t want to know why Nwoye was doing this but why he was cursed with such a son.

One thought on “Okonkwo Selfishness Towards His Family

  1. margarita moctezuma

    i in a way disagree with that Brandon has to say the only reason why Okonkwo feels like he wants to go and kill the church is because these white man are changing the ways of the people and what mainly bothers him is that his own son left to go to the church. for a long time Okonkwo wanted his son to follow in his footsteps but now someone else has influenced him. and i don’t really think he had ever imagine that his own son would defy his authority.

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