Like Father; Like Son: Analyzing father-son relations in “Things Fall Apart”

by Chinua Achebe   

The people we are surrounded by as children evidently impact the person we grow up to be. This is especially true for father-son relationships where the son looks up to his father as a positive role model in his life. In essence, this therefore affects the way we eventually raise our own children. Naturally, influences can either be positive or negative; they can either be strong ones or weak ones. In “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, we are introduced to a young Okonkwo whose father (Unoka) has strongly influenced his son’s values and belief systems both positively and negatively. Likewise, the way Okonkwo interpreted his father's role in his life has seriously affected the decisions he later makes when raising his own sons.

Every son’s dream is to have a father who has worked hard to provide financially and emotionally to their needs. They look up to their fathers for a sense of security. This was however not the case for Okonkwo. Everything that he has accomplished in his life was through his hard work and strive for a better life for as Achebe accounts “anyone who knew his grim struggle against poverty and misfortune could not say he had been lucky. If ever a man deserved his success, that man was Okonkwo” (27).  Okonkwo did not have that positive figure of a father while growing up and naturally this was his motivation for working so hard. Unoka was a lazy, poor man who accomplished nothing in life, and as Achebe puts it he was “quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow” (4). He was a shame to his son and his impotence was often chastised by others, notably by the Agbala, who at that time was a priestess called Chiaka. Disgusted by his impotency, she in no doubt failed to drastically compare him to his hard working neighbours. She finally dismissed him saying “go home and work like a man” (Achebe 18). Unoka was someone who owed large amounts of money to almost everyone in his neighbor yet his talent for words allowed him to borrow even more. He had no title or wives; attributes synonymous with wealth. Also, he did not own lands and when he eventually died it was as though his son was forced to mature beyond his years since he had to care for his mother and sisters at such tender age.

Witnessing this, Okonkwo wanted no attachment with his father and so he grew up to “hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness” (Achebe 13). He was extremely determined to be successful despite the way he grew up. His struggle was indeed admirable for he aimed to be nothing like his coward father. His father was often described as weak and this was Okonkwo’s motivation in life, he wanted to be everything that his father was not. This lack of a positive fatherly influence in his life caused him to resent his father more, even in death. He had eventually died of stomach swellings which in the village was an abomination. Luckily for Okonkwo, you were not judged based on your family’s reputation but merely on your own abilities and this was when he got that start to life.

Okonkwo’s fathers’ failure dictated the rest of his life. Okonkwo was so obsessed with trying to avoid his father's traits that it caused him the chance to fully embrace the joys of life. He allowed anger to take over his life and became extremely emotionless, cold hearted and constantly displaying a lack of empathy thereof. These were traits he did not associate with his father, since these were believed to be traits that a woman should possess. He has now created a name for himself however his road to downfall is not quite distant. He becomes obsessed with always appearing “manly” that it has affected his relationship with his own children. His problem was the fact that he wanted to be polar opposites to his dad, no matter the cause. However, he took extreme measures to ensure this. He was impulsive to act and never missed the opportunity to shape his sons in his own image and when his sons were lazy in his eyes, he laments “I will not have a son who cannot hold up his head in the gathering of his clan. I would sooner strangle him with my own hands” (Achebe 33).

Okonkwo’s downfall began following the adoption of Ikemefuna, who spent three years in his care. They eventually grew fond of each other; they somewhat developed a father-son bond. His biggest regret would definitely be from partaking in Ikemefuna’s killing. How can a man, who has grown to love this boy take part in his murder? The answer is simple, Okonkwo did not want to be weak, like his father was. Little did he realize that this decision has affected his relationship with his biological son Nwoye, who had grown fond of Ikemefuna. Eventually, all of Okonkwo’s impulsive decisions drove his son further and further away from him.

The highlight of Okonkwo’s relationship with his son was following his return to the Umuofia after being exiled for seven years for “accidentally” killing someone. Upon his return, Okonkwo was greeted by many changes to the culture he once grew to deeply respect, that is, christian missionaries were taking over and were preaching christianity to the people. Their efforts were becoming successful since villagers were rapidly converting to christianity. Okonkwo felt further betrayed when his own son, Nwoye eventually joins the missionaries who preached that they “have been sent by this great God to ask you to leave your wicked ways and false Gods and turn to him so that you may be saved when you die” (Achebe 145). Okonkwo was obviously distraught by his son’s decision which he refers to as an “abomination”. He continues to state to his other children that Nwoye “is no longer my son or your brother. I will only have a son who is a man, who will hold his head up among my people” (Achebe 172). He then continues by hoping that his daughter Ezinma was a boy for “of all his children she alone understood his every mood” (Achebe 172).

One can certainly infer that Okonkwo’s obsession of not wanting to be like his father eventually caused him in the end to be an unhappy man. He has lost the very things he tried to draw close, yet what he failed to realize is that a child’s influence come through guidance and not by having parents dictate their lives. In his case, he had a father who on occasions offered words of advice to him, yet he was more caught up by the fact that his father was only known for his use of words and not action. Indeed, words go a long way even if we are likely to model what we see than what we hear.  His situation is indeed a sad one, for the very thing he tried to avoid is what he got in the end. His death, like his father was an abomination in the sight in the Igbo culture. Okonkwo’s initial response to his father’s lack of fathering was indeed credible, however he was too caught up with being perfect that in the end he ended up just like his father.

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1994. Print.