Compare and contrast Okonkwo and Unoka Essay Sample
Compare and contrast Okonkwo and Unoka Essay Sample

Compare and contrast Okonkwo and Unoka Essay Sample

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  • Pages: 8 (2103 words)
  • Published: August 19, 2018
  • Type: Analysis
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Thingss fall apart. written by Chinua Achebe.

has a adage like this: When the mother-cow is masticating grass its immature 1s watch its oral cavity. The adage shows that a kid will hold his behaviour like his parents. However. when the kid does non esteem the parents. he will arise and make everything opposite to his parents.

For case in this same novel. Okonkwo has showed no regard for his male parent. Unoka. who is a failure. Hence.

he does his best to act and move nil like his male parent. which lead to the contrast between Okonkwo and Unoka in their characters.First. allow us see their childhoods. We can see from Unokas memory: He would retrieve his ain childhood.

how he had frequently wandered around looking for a kite seafaring at leisure. every bit shortly as he found one he woul

...

d sing with his whole being. welcoming it back from its long. long journey. The words wandered.

sailing at leisure. sing and welcoming demo us that Unoka has a happy and unworried childhood. He has much free clip and does non hold to worry about anything.On the other manus. at a really early age when Okonkwo was endeavoring urgently to construct a barn through share-cropping.

he was besides fending for his male parents house. The words really early. endeavoring urgently. fending for show that Okonkwo has to work when he is really immature.

when the others are populating an easy life. he has to take attention of his parents and his siblings in desperate. The difference in the childhood had led Okonkwo and Unoka into possessing different backgrounds.Although holding a comfy childhood. Unoka becomes

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a failure.

Harmonizing to the Igbos civilization. a successful adult male has to hold rubrics and many married womans and barns full of yams. Throughout the narrative. we see that he merely has one married woman and when Unoka died he had taken no rubric at all and he was to a great extent in debt. Furthermore. He was hapless and his married woman and kids had hardly adequate to eat.

which implied Unoka is incapable of taking attention of his household. the undertaking considered the most of import for the male parent of a household. Because of his failure. Unoka is non respected by anyone.

even his boies friend called him agbalaMeanwhile. though Okonkwo starts with his bare manus Okonkwo does non hold the start in life which many immature work forces normally have. he inherits neither a barn nor a rubric. nor even a immature married woman. he has achieved great success.Since his male parent is a failure.

he does non go forth him anything but Okonkwo was a affluent husbandman and had two barns full of yams. and had merely married his 3rd married woman. To coronate it all he had taken two rubrics and had shown unbelievable art in two inter-tribal wars. Okonkwo has all it takes to be a successful adult male: two barns full of yams. three married womans.

and two rubrics. Okonkwo is considered the greatest warrior and is respected by the whole kin. Okonkwo was chosen by the nine small towns to transport a message of war to their enemies and they treated him like a King. In the wrestle lucifer. Okonkwo is among the seniors and

grandees although he is immature.The ground for the success and the failure of the two people is due to the different in their personality when they grow up.

Having an easy childhood makes Unoka go lazy. In his twenty-four hours. he was lazy and improvident and was rather incapable of believing about tomorrow. This shows that Unoka does non care about the hereafter ; he merely wants to bask his happy twenty-four hours. When he goes to confer with the Oracle. the priestess has told him: You.

Unoka. are known in all the kin for the failing of your machete and you hoe. When your neighbors travel out with their axe to cut down virgin woods. you sow your yams on dog-tired farms that take no labor to unclutter ; you stay at place and offer forfeits to a loath dirt.

Go place and work like a adult male The words exhausted farms. no labor and loath dirt indicate that Unoka is faineant. He does non seek to offer better conditions for his farm. He merely works every bit if he is forced to make so. Furthermore. the phrase Go place and work like a adult male and failing of your matchmaker and your hoe implies Unoka is lazy and he does non hold adequate strength to turn yams.

the male monarch of harvests.Okonkwo. on the reverse. has to work hard since childhood. During the planting season Okonkwo worked daily on his farms from cock-crow until the poulets went to perch.

This shows that he works with enthusiastic and he barely becomes dog-tired. He had told Nwakibie: I am non afraid of work and he

truly does. Okonkwo had begun to seed with the first rains ; he watched the sky all twenty-four hours for marks of rain-clouds and put wake all dark ; he had tried to protect them by doing rings of thick sisal foliages and he changed them every twenty-four hours and prayed. all twenty-four hours. all dark and everyday shows his finding and doggedness in order to salvage the yams.

In add-on. when it is the Feast of the New Yam. it says that he was ever uncomfortable sitting around for yearss waiting for a banquet or acquiring over it. he would be much happier working on his farm. This proves his joy to work.Although Unoka is being lazy.

he still has something that Okonkwo does non hold. gradualness. a feminine trait that Okonkwo hates. This can be seen from his despite war. Unoka was ne'er happy when it came to wars. He was in fact a coward and could non bear the sight of blood.

We can see that he is a soft adult male as he hate to see blood. because when there is blood there must be injured people. He can non be happy about wars because they bring decease to the kin. Another piece of grounds for his gradualness is that he consoles Okonkwo. Unoka said: Do non despair. I know you will non despair.

You have a manfully and a proud bosom. A proud bosom can last a general failure because such a failure does non prick its pride. Unoka knows Okonkwo has a proud and manfully bosom. which can non bear the failure easy. so he tries to do him

experience better. However.

Okonkwo does non appreciate his soft bravery.Despite the fact that deep inside him. Okonkwo is soft but externally. he is violent. He is non afraid of war and he can stand the sight of blood. In Umuofias latest war he was the first to convey place a human caput.

That was his 5th caput ; and he was non an old adult male yet. The 5th human caput indicates he has already killed five work forces. demoing his art in war and combat. Okonkwo ruled his family with a heavy manus. suggests strength. and physical control he has over his household.

For case. when his youngest married woman fails to cook dinner for him because she comes to a friends house to braid her hair. Okonkwo beats her really to a great extent. The other grounds is the writer ever uses words like thundered.

roared. threatened. shouted and so on to shows Okonkwos bad-temper and force and the fright with which Okonkwo uses to govern his family.However.

we notice that sometimes Okonkwo is caring merely like his male parent. This is shown when Ekwefi goes to Okonkwos obeah and tells him Ezinma is in danger. Okonkwo sprang from his bed. pushed back the bolt on his door and ran into Ekwefis hut. sprang suggests that he gets out of the bed instantly.

ran shows that he wants to acquire at that place every bit fast as possible. which connote his concern for Ezinma. He is soft because he tells Ikemefuna that he is traveling place. in which the existent ground is that he is about to be killed and before that Okonkwo

sat still for a really long clip back uping his mentum in his thenar. The sentence indicates he has to reconsider many times how to interrupt this intelligence to Ikemefuna. The other hint for Okonkwos gradualness is when Ekwefi follows the priestess.

he has gone with his machete to the shrine. It was merely on his 4th trip that he had found Ekwefi. and by so he had become soberly disquieted. His 4th trip and soberly worried show he has gone to happen Ekwefi four times.

which suggests his great anxiousness and attention for Ekwefi. From the similarity. we can see that both Okonkwo and Unoka have passion for something.Unoka loves about everything. He loves music. Unoka would play with the small town instrumentalists.

his face beaming with beatitude and peace. Beaming with beatitude and peace. uncover his passion for music. Unoka is content and unagitated when it comes to music. Unoka loved the good menu and the good family.

and he loved this season of the twelvemonth. when the rains had stopped and the Sun rose every forenoon with eye-popping beauty. He loved the first kite that returned with the dry season. and the kids who sang vocals of welcome to them. This illustrates his love for good things and peace every bit good as his carefree and easy-going life.

Okonkwo is besides fond of a few things. He is enthusiastic when it comes to wrestling. Okonkwo cleared his pharynx and moved his pess to the round of the membranophones. It filled him with fire as it had ever done from his young person. He trembled with the desire to suppress and repress.

It was

like the desire for adult female. The words fire. desire. trembled prove he is overwhelmed with the thought of wrestle. When the lucifer becomes thrilling. Okonkwo sprang to his pess and rapidly sat down once more.

This shows he is energetic and devoted to the lucifer. Okonkwo is besides fond of Ikemefuna and Ezinma. though his fancy merely showed on really rare occasions. This implies the difference between Okonkwo and his male parent. Unoka expresses his feeling openly. but Okonkwo merely shows it seldom.

Having different childhood. different background. different personality. however.

Okonkwo and Unoka consequence in holding one thing in common which is they are both bad male parent although in different ways. Okonkwo did non hold the start in life which many immature work forces normally had. He did non inherit a barn from his male parent. He neither inherited a barn nor a rubric. nor even a immature married woman indicates Unokas failure to supply for his household and give Okonkwo some heritage which other immature work forces should hold demo his irresponsibleness.

However. Unoka is a good male parent when he encourages Okonkwo to acquire over troubles which I have elaborated above.On the other manus. Okonkwo is a responsible male parent.

He works hard in order to supply the best for his household. Although he is violent. Okonkwo has said I am disquieted about Nwoye. A bowl of pounded yams can throw him in a wrestle lucifer.

His two younger brothers are more promising. This implies his concern for the hereafter of his boies. though it besides shows his fright of his boy go a failure like his male parent. However. it

is this fright that makes Okonkwo a bad male parent. When he thinks he see the inchoate indolence in his boy.

Nwoye. he sought to rectify his boy by changeless nagging and bearing ; when he see Nwoye likes womens narratives. he rebuked him and beat him. The words pecking. bearing. rebuked and crush points out that he wants to destruct all the feminine traits in Nwoye.

This makes Nwoye has an unhappy childhood.In decision. Thingss fall apart has illustrated Unoka a foil for Okonkwo. Okonkwo is successful. hardworking and violent.

while Unoka is a failure. lazy and gentle. It is because of Unokas failure that causes Okonkwo to possess a personality really different from him. he was possessed by the fright of his male parents contemptible life and black decease.

However. Unoka is non all bad and Okonkwo is non all different from his male parent. The fright of resemble his male parent has controlled the manner he behaves. but deep inside him. he is soft and delicate.

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