Essay on Things Fall Apart

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The Relationship between Okonkwo and Nwoye falls apart.

A relationship between a father and son can have a decidedly profound impact on each other’s lives. Whether this relationship is bifurcated, the psychological effects of having an intimate or inadequate parenting skills can have a nurturing or depriving effect on a child's personality from birth all throughout adulthood. This relationship although sustained has the potential to be either beneficial or untenable. In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, we see a breakdown between a father and son relationship which created a very detrimental effect. The carved figure of a son that Okonkwo had predicted was erased due to his egoistic character and his terrible parenting skills. …show more content…
This is not a healthy way for a father to discipline his son.

Whether corporal punishment was accepted in the Ibo culture or not, Okonkwo’s verbal and physical abuse weakened the relationship with Nwoye until he left for the missionaries. Although Okonkwo seems to want what was best for his son Nwoye, to prosper as a real man, I believe that it is immoral to impose control using violence. Okonkwo has a tunnel vision when it comes to parenthood, and this inevitably led to him disgracing his son and making mistakes just as his own father did. “I will not have a son who cannot hold his head in the gathering of the clan. I would sooner struggle him with my own hands. And if you stand staring at me like that,” he swore, “Amadiora will break your head for you!” (Achebe 60). This iterates the brutal way that Okonkwo treated his son. This incident shows the apparent faults in Okonkwo’s parenting skill as well as reflects his own weakness.

In the story there was also an atrocious and tragic incident where Okonkwo killed his adopted son Ikemefuna. He was in a dilema at a point in time but it all drawed up in him murdering an innocent kid who calls him “father”. Because of this action his biological son grew a tinge of hanger and hatred towards him. Even though
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