Life Forecast: Partly Sunny, Partly WAY TOO MUCH EXPECTATION
In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, we get to see a successful man and his community, Umuofia, go through many changes. In the end, however, this successful man doesn’t meet all of his goals. Instead, the opposite is true. Okonkwo's high expectations end up being his downfall. As a man, I believe that Okonkwo has set his standards for a male in his community extremely high. I think that this stems from the “failures” of his father Unoka.
Unoka was a gentle, kind man, and he preferred music and relaxing to war, or anything warlike. (Achebe 1-2) However, Umuofia typically does not value those same things. Instead, the tribe places a very high value on masculinity. The strongest men tend to thrive. “Go home and work like a man” Unoka is told by one of his clansmen (Achebe 17). They don't care for his love of the arts, but rather wish he was more driven and focused on farmwork.
This does make a lot of sense because the way of life in Umuofia revolves highly around farming. If you are strong, you are more likely to do more work on the farm, produce more crops, get more money, and ultimately get more wives and children. This gains more respect from clansmen; more titles and honor.
Unoka probably sees and understands this, but chooses not to base his life off of the expectations of others- including his own son’s. Okonkwo, on the other hand, is quite the opposite.
He sees the value placed on the typical idea of masculinity, and he lives up to those standards and even dramatically surpasses them. Okonkwo is haunted by his fathers past and makes it determine every part of his future.
Unoka loved peace; Okonkwo tried to bring violence to almost every situation. He had always seen it as a solution. Unoka had one wife; Okonkwo started with three and eventually worked his way up to five. It is not mentioned, but pretty easy to guess that Unoka was not fond of beating; Okonkwo beat everyone, his wives, his children. He killed men who got in his way- including his adopted son.
Some of the people that he killed got in the way of his victory, some of his honor or his reputation, but no matter who he killed it was always because of one fear- the fear of failing to meet expectations. He saw his adopted son -who he had started to bond with- coming at him, crying for help, and he knew only fear. “Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak” (Achebe 61). Because of not wanting to appear vulnerable, he killed his own child.
Because Okonkwo knew that his father was not a well-respected man, he always did his best to do the exact opposite of what Unoka would do in any situation.
This kind of caused a chain reaction. Nwoye, Okonkwo’s first son, also saw the way that his tribe viewed his father, and as Okonkwo did with Unoka, he chose to go a different path- to rebel against his father’s ways.
Okonkwo saw that masculinity was respected, and he did his best to meet those expectations. But he set the bar too high. Instead of always being respected he often times made his clansmen look down on his behavior by just “taking it too far”.
Nwoye saw how the people reacted to this and tried to meet a different expectation- being less aggressive than his father. He was more aligned with the values of his grandfather, Unoka, than anyone else, and was seen as lazy.
However, Nwoye too took it too far! His father thought of his peacefulness as laziness and beat him often for it. But if you think about it, Nwoye probably would not have survived well as a farmer; he preferred stories over actions. He never did become a farmer, but instead joined the Christian missionaries that came to Umuofia, because he certainly felt that his peaceful nature belonged there more.
With each of these three men; Okonkwo, Unoka, and Nwoye, expectations were their downfall.
Unoka was too lazy. He didn't give himself enough expectation and therefore was frowned down on by the tribe. Okonkwo gave himself too high of expectations, causing him to be cold and cruel, and very often offending his clansmen. Nwoye gave himself an expectation of peace- to be unlike his father- and ended up leaving his tribe altogether.
Now I’m not saying that all expectations are terrible things. Washington said in his farewell address that “that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant,” He basically says that we need taxes, that taxes are good, we do need them. We just don’t need too many, because they aren’t exactly everyone’s favorite (6). Taxes help our system to function, but many useless ones will do nothing other than anger the people.
Expectations are the same way. If we expect too much out of ourselves or others, we are always going to be disappointed. We have to set realistic goals that can be reached and are reasonable, otherwise we are just doing ourselves damage.
Meursault in The Stranger was placed on death row, and when he was in jail he realized that he may not have been able to control everything, but this was what his life had become. He had killed someone unnecessarily and things got out of hand. I think that Okonkwo felt the same way, he had killed a man and that was now what his life was. However, I think that his hanging himself was a reaction to things other than killing the missionary’s messenger.
Earlier in the book, we heard about how some men hung themselves when they had bad crop turnout. Okonkwo was always on top of his crop production; where he fell was the maintaining of his family. He planted the seed of life but didn’t tend to his crops (children) the way he should have.
While staring at his fire, he said that living fire creates dull ashes; him being the former and Nwoye the latter. Even before he hung himself, I noticed the word living in there, read it as “Living fire creates dull ashes,” and I think that Okonkwo was thinking the same way. Just his existence was causing Nwoye to be the way he is. However, killing himself was, again, a high expectation.
Expectations have to be lowered in order to be met. This might sound fake, or like cheating the system, but it has to be done. If we set the bar too high, we can do nothing other than fall; and then we live life thinking that we are failures. The right amount of goals can lift us up, but too many expectations are often our downfall.
Unoka was a gentle, kind man, and he preferred music and relaxing to war, or anything warlike. (Achebe 1-2) However, Umuofia typically does not value those same things. Instead, the tribe places a very high value on masculinity. The strongest men tend to thrive. “Go home and work like a man” Unoka is told by one of his clansmen (Achebe 17). They don't care for his love of the arts, but rather wish he was more driven and focused on farmwork.
This does make a lot of sense because the way of life in Umuofia revolves highly around farming. If you are strong, you are more likely to do more work on the farm, produce more crops, get more money, and ultimately get more wives and children. This gains more respect from clansmen; more titles and honor.
Unoka probably sees and understands this, but chooses not to base his life off of the expectations of others- including his own son’s. Okonkwo, on the other hand, is quite the opposite.
He sees the value placed on the typical idea of masculinity, and he lives up to those standards and even dramatically surpasses them. Okonkwo is haunted by his fathers past and makes it determine every part of his future.
Unoka loved peace; Okonkwo tried to bring violence to almost every situation. He had always seen it as a solution. Unoka had one wife; Okonkwo started with three and eventually worked his way up to five. It is not mentioned, but pretty easy to guess that Unoka was not fond of beating; Okonkwo beat everyone, his wives, his children. He killed men who got in his way- including his adopted son.
Some of the people that he killed got in the way of his victory, some of his honor or his reputation, but no matter who he killed it was always because of one fear- the fear of failing to meet expectations. He saw his adopted son -who he had started to bond with- coming at him, crying for help, and he knew only fear. “Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. He was afraid of being thought weak” (Achebe 61). Because of not wanting to appear vulnerable, he killed his own child.
Because Okonkwo knew that his father was not a well-respected man, he always did his best to do the exact opposite of what Unoka would do in any situation.
This kind of caused a chain reaction. Nwoye, Okonkwo’s first son, also saw the way that his tribe viewed his father, and as Okonkwo did with Unoka, he chose to go a different path- to rebel against his father’s ways.
Okonkwo saw that masculinity was respected, and he did his best to meet those expectations. But he set the bar too high. Instead of always being respected he often times made his clansmen look down on his behavior by just “taking it too far”.
Nwoye saw how the people reacted to this and tried to meet a different expectation- being less aggressive than his father. He was more aligned with the values of his grandfather, Unoka, than anyone else, and was seen as lazy.
However, Nwoye too took it too far! His father thought of his peacefulness as laziness and beat him often for it. But if you think about it, Nwoye probably would not have survived well as a farmer; he preferred stories over actions. He never did become a farmer, but instead joined the Christian missionaries that came to Umuofia, because he certainly felt that his peaceful nature belonged there more.
With each of these three men; Okonkwo, Unoka, and Nwoye, expectations were their downfall.
Unoka was too lazy. He didn't give himself enough expectation and therefore was frowned down on by the tribe. Okonkwo gave himself too high of expectations, causing him to be cold and cruel, and very often offending his clansmen. Nwoye gave himself an expectation of peace- to be unlike his father- and ended up leaving his tribe altogether.
Now I’m not saying that all expectations are terrible things. Washington said in his farewell address that “that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant,” He basically says that we need taxes, that taxes are good, we do need them. We just don’t need too many, because they aren’t exactly everyone’s favorite (6). Taxes help our system to function, but many useless ones will do nothing other than anger the people.
Expectations are the same way. If we expect too much out of ourselves or others, we are always going to be disappointed. We have to set realistic goals that can be reached and are reasonable, otherwise we are just doing ourselves damage.
Meursault in The Stranger was placed on death row, and when he was in jail he realized that he may not have been able to control everything, but this was what his life had become. He had killed someone unnecessarily and things got out of hand. I think that Okonkwo felt the same way, he had killed a man and that was now what his life was. However, I think that his hanging himself was a reaction to things other than killing the missionary’s messenger.
Earlier in the book, we heard about how some men hung themselves when they had bad crop turnout. Okonkwo was always on top of his crop production; where he fell was the maintaining of his family. He planted the seed of life but didn’t tend to his crops (children) the way he should have.
While staring at his fire, he said that living fire creates dull ashes; him being the former and Nwoye the latter. Even before he hung himself, I noticed the word living in there, read it as “Living fire creates dull ashes,” and I think that Okonkwo was thinking the same way. Just his existence was causing Nwoye to be the way he is. However, killing himself was, again, a high expectation.
Expectations have to be lowered in order to be met. This might sound fake, or like cheating the system, but it has to be done. If we set the bar too high, we can do nothing other than fall; and then we live life thinking that we are failures. The right amount of goals can lift us up, but too many expectations are often our downfall.
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