In “ Things fall apart” by Chinua Achebe. The main character Okonkwo is portrayed as a tragic hero. A tragic hero is a central or main character who is usually of high noble birth and demonstrates a “ fatal flaw”. A fatal flaw is a characteristic that prompts him or her to take an action or make a decision that ultimately leads to his downfall or death. Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero has four parts in order to be in order to determine if okonkwo is one he has to set examples to show that he is one. As of chapter twenty, part 3 okonkwo does seem like a tragic hero.
Aristotle’s first part in order to become a tragic hero would be: a person of noble or high status who has a mixture of good and bad in his personality. Okonkwo shows many ways of his noble status or high status some examples would be “ as the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with the kings. Okonkwo had clearly washed his hands and so he ate with kings and elders”. Going deeper into this meaning its like saying he has to earn his way to the top so therefore okonkwo has earn his way to the top so he lived like the top people in the village.
Another example of okonkwo high status would be people referring to him as ‘ the lords of the clans”. They were surprised to see him rise from poverty to fortune so quick that they considered him that. Some bad aspects of his noble status would be that “ He had no patient fro unsuccessful men”. That would be a very bad trait to have because later on he beats his wife during peace week and so in result the oracle yells him at due to the fact that his reaction to him beating his wife could result in punishment for everybody.
The second part of Aristotle’s definition would be: he has a fatal flaw or hamartia, which leads to his downfall. A hamartia would a fatal flaw that causes okonkwo to lead to his downfall. Okonkwo fatal flaw would be his fear of being recognized as weak. Later on in the novel Umuofia had decided to kill okonkwo his “ son” ikemefuma. One day they were having lunch and ezeudu had asked okonkwo to talk with him so he told him “ that boy calls you father. Do not bear a hand in his death”. So he’s saying even though he may not be your real blood son he still calls you father and he has respect for you.
So why would you kill hi if he sees you as a father and respects you. The next day he joined the men out on the walk to ikemefuma home and it was all a plan to kill him. He set out with him to kill his son “ okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak”. He didn’t listen to ezeudu and went along with what the umofia had asked him to do and kill him so he let his pride of being known as a fearless person and decided to not look weak and kill his son. The third definition would be: he has a large capacity for suffering.
Okonkwo had a capacity to overcome the killing of his “ Son” ikemefuma he first started off rough “ okonkwo didn’t taste any food for two days after the death. He drank palm wine from morning till night, and his eyes were red and fierce like the eyes of a rat when caught by the tail and dashed against the floor”. So in order to overcome his suffering of his death he decided it was best if he did something to keep him occupied. What he has said was ‘ if he had killed Ikemefuma during the planting season or harvesting it would not have been so bad; his mind would have been concentrated on his work”. So if he would of have been busy farming or harvesting and they asked him to kill his son he would have easily done it without a problem because his mind would’ve been to busy focusing on the other thing so he does have a large capacity in suffering when his mind is busy or focused on other thing to distract him.
The last definition for Aristotle’s definition as a tragic hero in Achebe’s novel would be: his downfall is often preceded by self- realization. He realized that he did wrong when he killed a clans man so he had to flee to his motherland. It was a crime against the earth goddess to kill a clansman and a man who committed it must flee from his land”. So he realized that he wasn’t the strong fearless guy who wasn’t afraid because he was running away with his family to his motherland from ezeudus quarters. “ Why should a man suffer so grievously for an offense he had committed inadvertently? He asks himself these questions because he’s wondering why do I have to pay for something that I didn’t intend on doing.
So he was starting to realize that not everything in his life was done good, e had realized the mistakes he had done and is starting it regret them because of his incident on killing the clans man he had to pay and instead he ran away and moved to his mother land. In “ things fall apart” by Chinua Achebe up until chapter 18 okonkwo has became a tragic hero. He does have the four elements in Aristotle’s definition of a tragic hero. He does have some noble/high status with a mix of good and bad. He does have a fatal flaw, which is having the fear of being known as weak. He does have a large capacity of suffering with his mind being busy.
Also his downfall was realizing that the things he have done in his life were bad and that now because he accidently killed a clans man he has so flee to his motherland and pay for the price. Gabriela Alvarado “ Work like you don’t need the grade, love like your heart has never been broken, and dance like no one is watching”. I live by this quote every day. It inspires me to become confident every morning that I wake up. This quote helps me to know that I can be myself and not worry with feeling unconfident or worried about every single move that I do.
For example there was this one time in my life that I had moved to a new school I was really worried that I wouldn’t fit in I was a ballet dancer so I was really in shape so already off the bat I was different because I was really slim. So at first it was a little rocky because nobody would talk to me. So I felt some kind of lonely, until lunch time came this one girl came up to me and asked me to sit with them so I accepted. They started to ask me question “ where do I come from? Whats my name? etc. until they came up with so where you a popular girl at your old school or not?
I didn’t know what to say so I just responded that I wasn’t into the clique status? I lived by my own rules? They asked me what does that mean? I said that I didn’t stay with a certain groups of people I went around and experience other vibes of groups. They were very astonished by my answer. so I tried to change the subject and asked how was it around that school. They told me the basics day after day I got more used to it people found out that I was a ballerina, they found out that I was smart and they didn’t mind it because they had never talked to a irl that was smart but also cool. Bravery is one of my strongest aspect. I have lived through many moments in my life that I had to be brave. There was this one time that my mom was getting divorced by my dad and I was really closed to my father but my mom had tooken full custody over me. So I was very depressed that we were gonna live seperatley so I had to be brave and realized that from my moms view the relationship was not healthy and she had to move on. So I became brave and understood my mom and where she came from
Fearless I would say would come on my personality. My mom told me that I was born fearless because when I was in her womb she wasn’t afraid of having me even though she had already had three children. So I was born fearless. The reason why I say this is because there was this one time that I had no fear in moving onto highschool. It was my eight grade year and I knew that high school wasn’t going to be easy I had to work hard and act like I didn’t need the grade. I was so used to all the classes that my sister needed help on.
So I was already kind of prepared for high school. It didn’t matter to me that I was different or strange or awkward. I was reay for whatever highschool brought me. The last one of my aspects would be giving. I love giving and helping people. The reason why would be cause I just like the feeling you get when you do something good. You feel like it’s a easy grade to a hard class. I feel happy helping people and making their day much easier and not complicated. This summer I had a chance to go one week and help out and do service.
I got the opportunity to farm for the elderly because they only ate organic stuff so they needed to plant fruits and vegtebles to eat. So once I got their my group had to go on the hottest day. So imagine having to go under the hot sun and just pick weeds out the ground for 7 hours. It was very rough because all you wanted to do was go inside and be cool, but you couldn’t do that because I had to pick weeds. So if it was difficult for me just one day imagine them having to do it everyday it just amazed me. At the end they let us go in their pool and cool down so it was very fun I enjoyed it.
