The thoughts of the great mathematician Aristotle, where recorded in writing The Poetics circa 330 B. C. He sought to analyze the structure of Athenian tragedy using the example of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Aristotle believed that the classic tragedy must contain a character who plays the role of the tragic hero.
China Achebe plays out the plot of a tragedy in his book Things Fall Apart. The story deals with the country of Nigeria in the 1890 s. The most prominent character, Okonkwo, follows in the characteristics of an Aristotelian tragic hero. Okonkwo’s status in the tribe of Umofia, is that of a tragic hero.
Aristotle believed that the tragic hero was to be of noble birth. This provides the story with dignity because the tragedy of commoners was not of interest to most. It also generates the feeling in the audience that if tragedy can happen to the advantaged, it can happen to anyone, therefore, producing fear. This is one of the few ways that Okonkwo differs from the set characteristic of a tragic hero.
His father was far from noble. Okonkwo has no patience with unsuccessful men. He has no patience with his father (Pg. 4).
The hero must also be a man of great importance to his culture, possibly because that gives him farther to fall. Okonkwo is just that to his fellow Umofians. As a winning wrestler, a great warrior, and a wealthy farmer, Okonkwo is considered to be a socially acceptable and well respected person. He also has three wives and two titles to show that he is powerful (Pg. 8).
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Another characteristic of the classic Aristotelian hero is that he must represent his tribe.
A respected and trusted man can give insight on the culture of his people to the audience, and the hero’s story is generally that of his state. Okonkwo represents Umofia in a few ways. He represents his tribe in battle as a fierce warrior (Pg. 8), and even literally when he is called upon to collect and care for Ikemefuna and the virgin from Mba ino (Pg.
12).
In keeping with the Aristotelian tragedy, Okonkwo is neither entirely good, nor entirely bad. This allows the audience to relate to the hero. We are to see in him someone who is essentially like us, although possible elevated to a higher position in society. Okonkwo demonstrates this trait in the kind and caring way of helping to care for Ezinma in sickness (Pg. 86) and waiting with Ekwefi outside of the cave for her daughter (Pg.
108), as well as in the evil way of murdering Ikemefuna (Pg. 61).
Aristotle also believed that in the tragedy, there would be disastrous outcome for important actions of events involving the hero, to show the downfall taking place. This is clearly true in the life of Okonkwo. The accidental killing of Ezeudu’s son at the funeral of his father (Pg.
124) and the murdering of the messenger (Pg. 204), are clear examples of unfortunate outcome at a time of importance. Okonkwo displays a disregard of divine law, as is a trait of the classic tragic hero. This is apparent he near to kills his wife Ojiugo during the sacred week of peace (Pg.
39).
This demonstrates that as a result of his hubris, or arrogant pride, Okonkwo has little rule to constantly contain him. It is clear that passion is a part of who he is, although he despises his father for it. Another characteristic of a classic tragedy is that it leaves the audience with a sense of pity. Aristotle argued that one function of a tragedy is to arouse the “unhealthy” emotions that are pity and fear through catharsis, which comes from watching the hero’s tragic fate.
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The audience is to be left with the feeling that an injustice occurred to the hero. In reading Things Fall Apart, I found that I was left with that sense of pity for Okonkwo whose main desire was to have his tribe succeed in destroying the white men to save themselves. His wish was not granted through the developing division of the Umofians. Aristotle also believed that the hero was to be a product of destiny or fate, and that he would try to escape it. He must wish to avoid his approaching demise and tries to escape the fate he finds to leave him not option but destruction. It is demonstrated that Okonkwo is a product of fate through his ending.
Okonkwo is killed even though he tries to escape it. The attempted escape is through blaming others and this is done often. For example when Okonkwo blame one of his wives for “killing” the banana tree (Pg. 39), and when he blames his son Nw oye for the destruction of the clan that he believes will come (Pg. 152) The tragic hero classically find is moved from in a ruinous change of fortune the zenith of happiness into the nadir of misery.
Okonkwo displays this shift because he went from the point of being the wrestler, wealthy farmer, great warrior, titled and multiply married man (Pg. 8), to a man who chose death over life (Pg. 206).
The hero find that he has a desire to change himself in a moment of recognition, in which he realizes his approaching demise and wants to quell it, however, as he is a product of fate, it cannot be done. Okonkwo’s realization that the tribe would not be going to war was one such moment. The tragedy is usually triggered by some error of judgment or some character flaw that contributes to the hero’s lack of perfection noted above.
This error of judgment or character flaw is known as hamartia and is usually translated as “tragic flaw.” Often the character’s hamartia involves hubris. The harmatia that Okonkwo exhibits has to do with his rage and excess of emotion. The emotion is found in his by “passion – to hate everything that his father Un oka had loved” (Pg. 10).
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These flaws of disastrous proportions lead to many conflicts and unfortunate outcomes throughout the book. His demise was achieved through suicide, and he played the tragic hero throughout it.
A tragedy is “a drama… which recounts an important and casually related series of events in the life of a person of significance, such events culminating in an unhappy catastrophe, the whole treated with great dignity and seriousness.” The plot of Things Fall Apart and the outcome of Okonkwo comply with this description of a tragedy given by Aristotle. The novel is a classic tragedy that contains a piece of the history of Niger within an entertaining story. Upon being questions about Okonkwo as an Aristotelian hero, Achebe rejects the idea that Okonkwo is meant as an Aristotelian hero.
He, however, explains that Thing Fall Apart can certainly be read in Aristotelian terms.
