Okonkwo was born the son of Unoka. His father, a lazy and incapable man, was more interested in playing his flute and drinking, rather than taking care of his family. Because of his idleness, money was scare and the family starved. Okonkwo, not having the start in life which many men had, supported his mother and two sisters by share-cropping. Okonkwo, aware of his father’s flaws, vowed to not follow in his footsteps and took a path of greatness. He is, “ruled by one passion-to hate everything that his father loved. One of those things was gentleness and the other was idleness” (Achebe 13).
Okonkwo achieves greatness, as defined by his culture, by proving that he is a skilled warrior. During the last war, “he was the first to bring home a human head. That was his fifth head and he was not an old man yet” (Achebe 10). Okonkwo is also a skilled wrestler, being considered the greatest in the nine villages. At the mere age of eighteen, he brought, “honor to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat. Amalinze was the great wrestler who for seven years was unbeaten, from Umuofia to Mbaino. It was this man that Okonkwo threw in a fight which the old men agreed was one of the fiercest since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights” (Achebe 1). Okonkwo was also a hardworking and productive farmer. He did not inherit a barn, as did many young men his age, so he labored hard and eventually had two barns full of yams to show for it. Okonkwo was unfortunate to not inherit a title nor a barn, but he also was without a young wife. In the end, he became the husband of three women and the father of eight children. As the elders previously stated, “if a child washed his hands he could eat with the kings. Okonkwo had clearly washed his hands and so he ate with kings and elders” (Achebe 8).
Okonkwo differs from normal Western heroes. The Western heroes I’m familiar with don’t have to adapt to a new society, laid out by white...