Character sketch of Okonkwo
Okonkwo was a very well respected man in Umuofia. He was a wealthy farmer, had three wives and to top it all off he had received two titles and had proven to be an excellent fighter in two ‘inter-tribal wars’. From the beginning of the novel we are informed of how great a guy he was. On the very first page it describes a fight that Okonkwo was in against the greatest fighter of all the neighbouring villages; he won the fight and this began his fame. “As a young man of eighteen he had brought honor to his village by throwing Amalizine the Cat” (1).
We learn that the reason for his success is ultimately due to the fact that his father was a lazy man who was continually borrowing cowries from neighbours whom he could never pay back. Okonkwo didn’t like his father and was ashamed of him and so he strived to be a great respected man who was not lazy. “He had no patience with unsuccessful men. He had had no patience with his father” (2).
In Okonkwo’s society a man is successful if he is respected, has titles and can support his family. An example of an unsuccessful man in Okonkwo’s society is Unoka, Okonkwo’s father. Unoka was a lazy man who loved music and also loved to have fun. None of these things provided his family with food to eat so he was forced to ask neighbours if he could borrow money from them. “People laughed at him because he was a loafer and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back” (3). A successful man should not have to borrow money from neighbours to support his own family. Unoka certainly was not respected by the people of the village because they laughed at him.
Our society is not all that different from Okonkwo’s. In our society, if a man cannot provide for his own family some might laugh and others might shake their head in pity. Of course in our society we do not have titles like they would in Okonwo’s society since not every one can be the president or prime minister, however; respect is something that our society values. Respect is definitely a key to success in our society as well; if someone is not respected then naturally no one trusts them or can rely on them for anything.
“Proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten” (4), means that proverbs are extremely important to the Ibo. Western culture does not value conversation as highly as the Ibo; on page 4 it even says, “Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly”. Western culture just tries to get what they’re saying out of there mouth quick enough so people don’t get bored listening to them. Western culture does not try to make conversation long or beautiful with proverbs the way the Ibo does. Again on page 4 the man talking to Unoka begins a long speech; it says, “Okoye was a great talker and he spoke for a long time”. It is obvious that the Ibo do not like to make their conversations short or simple. We can also tell that they like to make their conversations longer than necessary because it says, “In short, he was asking Unoka o return the two hundred cowries he had borrowed from him more than two years before” (4). It says ‘in short’, that implies that the narrator is summing up what the man said because his long speech could have been made in less time and words than what he said it in.
Achebe’s story does sound authentic yet it sounds like an old myth or a story passed down over the years.