Okonkwo's Relevance in Things Fall Apart

Prompt: Why does Achebe choose a tragic hero for his protagonist in his colonial counter narrative? 

How does Achebe use Okonkwo to develop specific themes in Things Fall Apart?

Many literary works have tragic heroes and in Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is portrayed as the tragic hero. A tragic hero hero is a literary character whose error in judgment leads to his/her own downfall. Due to Okonwkwo's fate and the error in his judgments, he ended up committing suicide, which I believe is very tragic. An important thing to note would be that Okonkwo himself didn't realise or acknowledge the flaws in his decision but it was rather Obierka who marked these flaws. In that way, Obierka could be a representative of Okonkowo's conscience.

The purpose of Achebe chosing to portray Okonkwo as the tragic hero would be to depict the downfall of a culture, identity and community; in this case it would be the Igbo community. The community was at its peak when Okonkwo's position in his village was at its greatest, the colonizers started to seep into their village when Okonkwo was exiled by the village and finally the colonizers had full control of Umofia village and other neighbouring villages around the same time as when Okonkwo hung himself. This shows how the progress of Okonkwo as a character was parallel to that of the basic storyline. Additionally, Okonkwo was the protagonist in this novel yet he also had numerous flaws which were directly and indirectly stated throughout the novel. Achebe's purpose of doing this was to use Okonkwo as a symbol to portray the Igbo community. The Igbo community had many good qualities and one could even call their society 'ahead of its time,' however Umofia was no utopia and it also had its flaws. From this, it can be concluded that no person, place or society represents utopia and they all have their flaws; some more visible than others. 

Achebe uses Okonkwo to signify any theme that is about to emerge or make an appearance in Things Fall Apart. The main theme in the this novel is fate. Okonkwo committed many sins throughout the novel and he did pay for it however, the one misdeed he was a part of which was not on purpose because the gun was faulty and it shot by itself led to him being exiled. This was the first instance in the novel where the audience sees that fate in not on his side and through this scene in the novel. Achebe demonstrates the theme of fate. There have been events on a minute scale before this main event which showed Okonkwo's misfortune such as his very first yam harvest; that particular year, the rain patterns were very inconsistent which led to a bad harvest. The only difference between the minute scale events and the main event of him being exiled is that Okonkwo didn't suffer too much in those as he did when his gun accidentally shot the boy. 

Word count: 500