Things Fall Apart Extended Response

Unoka’s and Okonkwo’s success is based on performance, which is a reflection of their self determination and hard work. Unoka was a very lazy man with little drive and that reflected on his success; he was a debtor, unsuccessful with yams, and a drunk. “In his day he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow. If any money came his way, and it seldom did, he immediately bought gourds of palm-wine, called round his neighbors and made merry” (Achebe 4). Unoka’s lack of effort and bad performance (self determination and hard work) results in his unsuccessfulness.

On the other hand Okonkwo is a very successful man. He saw how unsuccessful his father was and strived to be different and better than him. He did this by getting two titles, being successful with yams, having 5 human heads, and having 3 wives. All those traits and things succeeded by Okonkwo were what made him successful and manly in the Igbo culture.

Okonkwo believes self determination and hard work will help you be successful because his father was the exact opposite if successful; lazy, undetermined and had little drive to accomplish anything himself. He saw how his father was and set himself to be the exact opposite on a path to success. “With a father like Unoka, Okonkwo did not have the start in life which many young men had. He neither inherited a barn nor a title, nor even a young wife. But in spite of these disadvantages, he had begun even in his father’s lifetime to lay the foundations of a prosperous future. It was slow and painful. But he threw himself into it life one possessed. And indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father’s contemptible life and shameful death” (Achebe 18). With this said Okonkwo obviously planned his life ahead to be successful, by learning early on from his fathers unsuccessfulness, he showed true self determination. Unoka’s performance is what lead them to their successfulness or unsuccessfulness; Unoka was lazy and he was unsuccessful and Okonkwo was self motivated/determined and hard working from the very beginning, coming from nothing, which resulted in the ultimate successfulness.

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1959.