Saturday, March 5, 2016
Are they different
Okonkwo and his father seem very different, expecially since Okonkwo has tried his every waking moment to be the opposite of his father. In the story Unoka is lazy, doesn't know how to farm, and hold no title, on the other hand Okonkwo has the most yams, many wives, many titles, and is over all prosperous. The ideals of the community they live in hold hard work to a high esteem, Unoka did not live up to these ideals. Okonkwo feels as if he has succeeded in being completely different from his father, but I think he is wrong. Okonkwo, like his father doesn't live up fully to his community ideals, which he feels he emulates. He doesn't live up to these ideals because he is a rough and belligerent man. Umuofian's, rather the elders, do not like Okonkwo's quick to anger and it eventually leads to him being banished from the village. Okonkwo should think twice before he says he isn't like his father, because both of them are disgraced.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I agree with you, Anastasia. Personally, I think that both are in the wrong with how they behave. While I can see why Okonkwo would want to rebel against his fathers laziness and work hard, I don't think he has to make every aspect of himself opposite of his father. I think that Okonkwo could definitely benefit from mellowing out a little. He is way too judgmental and hard on himself and his family. While I sometimes agree with "tough love" I don't think it is something to constantly resort to. While Okonkwo and his father are on opposite ends of the scale in terms of behavior, neither is right. Correct behavior in my opinion would be somewhere in the middle of both of their behaviors.
I think that Okonkwo would fit Aristotle's definition of a tragic hero: He is highly renowned and prosperous (one of the men with the most yams in the village), not entirely evil but not perfectly moral (he has no patience, beats his family, and bullies people around him while also having tender feelings deep inside), and his downfall (whether it is banishment from the village or something greater later on) comes from his tragic flaw - the desire to overcompensate for how un-manly his father was.
Though Okonkwo is revered as a successful man among his people, he does stray from the ideals of his community. This is because he associates success with everything opposite of his father. Though Okonkwo emulates success and his father failure, the two both have their own shares of positive and negative qualities. Yet the two's ratio of these qualities are quite different. Through this assessment of positive and negative traits between Okonkwo and Unoka, we are able to recognize that there does lie at some goodness and strengths within all people. Each of Okonkwo's traits are developed through an absolute reversal of those of his father. So, Unoka's positive qualities of understanding and emotion are negatively expressed through Okonkwo's seperation from his father.
Post a Comment