Things Fall Apart Sympathizing Analysis

Sympathizing is something we often do in today's world. In the book Things Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe , one can sympathize a lot with what's going on. In the book one sees that babies are thrown away, and woman are beaten by their husbands. One question that can be asked is,
“Can I sympathize with Okonkwo?”. The answer to that question is no. Because Okonkwo ultimately lead himself to his own downfall, was very close minded, and had violent solutions to problems, there is no sympathy for him.
Okonkwo lead to his own destruction because of his resistance to being like his dad. The thought consumed him and made him the complete opposite of his dad. Okonkwo picked up this idea of “Manliness” because his father was soft and did not like conflict. This trait of manliness was shown in text “Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak.”. Because Okonkwo did not want to be seen as “weak”, he killed Ikemefuna. Even though the Oracle told him not …show more content…
He beats his wife and that is not a good thing too be doing. One time he even tried to shoot her. In chapter 5 we see that Okonkwo did this violent action when the book says “ He pressed the trigger and there was a loud report accompanied by the wail of his wives and children.”. We see that even the elders frown upon beating your wife “ It is not bravery when a man fights with a woman” ch 10. From these examples we can see Okonkwo is a violent person. He choked Nwoye and then he wanted to kill the christians even though he didn't do anything to him. These action make readers have very low sympathy for okonkwo and his violent actions.
In conclusion, Okonkwo is not an sympathetic character. He is his own destruction, he is very close minded, and he is very violent. I think that readers should not have any sympathy for him because he was not a good guy. Why would anybody have sympathy for someone who is so

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