Rawipol Prasertboon (Matt)

Joy Kuttappan

English 1203

27 Nov. 2020

Prompt: Analyze the power of social forces and how they benefit and/or harm one or more

characters in Things Fall Apart.

Summative Assessment

Sometimes we are forced by a society to do something that we don’t want to. Chinua

Achebe’s novel, “Things falls apart”, clearly demonstrates how social forces have taken a

leading role in Okonkwo's personality, who is often pressured to make a harshful decision

towards his loved one. However, social power is a two-edged sword that one can take both as

advantages and disadvantages from.

Okonkwo, son of Unoka, pursues his way in society full of complexity and compulsion.

In doing so, he forces himself to be productive, wealthy, thrifty, and brave, in order to prove

himself to the society that he is the opposite of his father who only brings shame to the Umuofia

“Okonkwo’s fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself. It was a

fear of the fear of himself , lest he should be found to resemble his father” p.13. He uses the

social force to an advantage to himself by applying those pressures to push him to be productive.

As mentioned many times in the story how much Okonkwo hates his father, “his whole life was

dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness” p.13, he is frightened to be like his father.

Okonkwo considers many of his father's behaviors a weakness. Much of Okonkwo's behavior is

a pressure from both society and himself to be unlike his father. Eventually, this internal fear of
Okonkwo results him in a beneficial way, such that he becomes very wealthy, holds a high rank

position, and gian so much respect from the people in Umuofia. Not only do the social forces

affect Okonkwo's individual life, but it also affects his sons’ and his wife's life too. Because of

his strict personality, his sons also learned a lot from him of how to be a hardworking man.

However, every coin has two sides, just like most people have two faces. Okonkwo’s

personality and emotions tend to be intense, and the social forces often enforce him to take

action which are unnecessary and cruel. His fear of being weak led him to an assasination of

Ikemefuna, beating up his wife, and threatening his wife with a gun. Okwnkwo’s family

relationship is a complete dictatorship, in which he is taking charge of everything, and whoever

disagrees with him will get punished. In chapter 4 “ He walked back to his obi to await Ojiugo’s

return. And when she returned he beat her very heavily. In his anger he had forgotten that it was

the Week of Peace '' p. 29, this quote clearly shows Okonkwo’s unnecessary extreme behavior

which led him to receiving a deserved punishment at last. From Okonkwo’s point of view, his

family is more like a slave rather than a family member. By that end, he beats up his wife heavily

without any guilt or regret just because she made a minor mistake. Another example of

Okonkwo’s behavior that was heavily influenced by the social forces is when he almost shot

down his second wife just because she murmured: “ He [Okonkwo] pressed the trigger and there

was a loud report accompanied by the wail of his wives and children. P.39''. In this incident, it is

readily apparent that whenever someone sees any weaknesses within him, he quickly responds

by using violence toward that person. His internal fear slowly drags him towards the dark side

little by little. Later in the story, it even becomes clearer that even though he also has emotions in

many situations, he chooses to keep it to himself rather than showing it to the others because he

believes that emotions are the sign of weakness. This idea was being shown through the quote
“Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut him down. P.61”. Okonkwo could have

saved Ikemefuna, and the others won’t have a chance of taking him down. However, he chose

his reputations in front of the others over Ikemefuan’s life, a kid whom he loved like his own

son. Again, he does not need to kill Ikemefuna, but he was forced to by the society around him.

In conclusion, it is of note that Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things falls apart” obviously

reveals Okonkwo’s personality caused by social forces in two ways, good and bad. Social forces

can be two-edged swords where a person can be beneficial and problematic too. On one hand, it

pushes us to work harder for the purpose of our own benefits in front of the society; for example,

you must work harder than others to gain a higher ranked position . On the other hand, it forces

us to make poor decisions just because others say so, which is why employees always feel like

they’re less responsible for wrongdoing if they work under the direction of their bosses. To

conclude, Chinua Achebe’s novel informs us not to use those disadvantages of the social forces,

but we rather should be focusing more on how to gain the most benefits from it.