Okonkwo, The Tragic Hero

Aristotle defined a Tragic Hero as “a [great] man who is neither a paragon of virtue and justice nor undergoes the change to misfortune through any real badness or wickedness but because of some mistake."

Has Chinua Achebe strategically crafted the character of Okonkwo to reflect the untold story of the fall of the Nigerian society?

Okonkwo, a tragic hero, not merely by coincidence but rather to mimic the story of the fall of the Nigerian society. Okonkwo was a man of great prestige, a hard working umofian. The flaws which ultimately led to his demise are ingrained within his personality. Okonkwo was psychologically incapable of amending his beliefs at the cost of his honor. The structure of his persona would have collapsed had the Igbo culture been eradicated from him. Later in the novel, when the British colonizers made their way through Nigeria, Okonkwo refused to accept change and his resistance led to his demise.

Henceforth, it is evident that there is a correlation between Okonkwo and the Nigerian society. As the British colonizers intruded into the Nigerian lands and began to expunge Nigerian culture and religion, the Nigerian society lost its structure and as a result it crumbled. A change in the dynamics of the Nigerian society caused things to fall apart.

Okonkwo was not place in this novel in order to portray an admirable protagonist. Okonkwo was placed in the novel in order to encompass the untold story of the demise of the authentic Nigerian culture at the hands of the British colonizers.