Failure is Inevitable

In the novel “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo strives to become everything his father Unoka was not, a weak failure. However, as the novel unravels, it is apparent that failure is an inevitable aspect of human nature.

Unoka, Okonkwos father, died a failure; he never managed a successful harvest and proved deficient in providing for his family.  Okonkwo’s passion was to not have the same fate as his father, and embody the qualities of gentleness and idleness.

“Okokokwo [also] wanted his son to be a great farmer and a great man. He would stamp out the disquieting signs of laziness which he thought he already saw in him” (Achebe 33). Despite trying to be masculine in the eyes of his father, his weak feminine qualities were unavoidable. This is apparent as Nwoye is listening to his father’s masculine stories of the land of bloodshed and violence and he “knew that it was right to be masculine and to be violent but somehow he still preferred the stories that his mother used to tell” (Achebe 53).

Despite Okonwo’s efforts, he falls into the doomed light of his father, Unoka. His exile from his village in Umofia for his inadvertent murder of a teen boy is one sign of this. This shows how even the most powerful men cannot journey through life without running into obstacles. Similarly, despite okonkwos hatred for feminism, he is living in exile in his motherland. As Ofeudu, Okonkwos uncle, says, “when there is sorrow and bitterness, [a man] fins refuge in is motherland” (Achebe 134). This shows how the feminine side of every person is inexorable in their nature.  In addition, even though Okonkwo values never giving up, his suicide is a sign that he gave up fighting to preserve his religion and remove the Christians from his country.