And so Okonkwo was ruled by one passion – to hate everything that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness (Chapter 2 Pg 3).” This quote shows the truth of how Oknonkwo was not really this cruel, tyrannical man. He lives his life in constant fear of being a failure the same as his dad. Who was very weak and considered lazy by his tribe. Even his father’s death has brought shame to Okonkwo.
As the boy grows older with this point of view, he comes to know the world as predominantly evil. The isolation of the father and son from the rest of the world because of their being ‘good guys’ and the overt maliciousness of everyone else they come into contact with enforces this view point. The father’s alienation is different. He becomes consumed with the boy’s survival and well-being, not his own. This causes him to make decisions that the boy views as wrong in order to survive.
This is shown in chapter one which describes how ‘Unoka, the grown up, was a failure. He was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat.’ This deep contextual evidence of the father that represented everything Okonkwo despises shows his shallow view of acceptance in society, disregarding the values of family. This individual assertion of belief from Okonkwo contrasts with Salem’s need for collective strength to gain results. Achebe consistently refers to Okonkwo’s father, Unoka, throughout the text as a recurring image contrasting with Okonkwo’s aspirations in order to remind the reader of Okonkwo’s motivation of venturing to belong in a heavily masculine
His father, Unoka, was a well-known for his laziness in the village. He was the root of Okonkwo’s embarrassment. Since his childhood, Okonkwo was ashamed of his father, who, “In his day he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of thinking about tomorrow” (04). In the standard of his clan, Unoka was a coward, lazy, and wastrel man who spent money wastefully. When he was a child, a boy once called Okonkwo’s father an Agbala, witch means “a woman” as well as a man who has no title.
Su-Jen’s father, Hing-Wun, sacrifices everything for his family, and he struggles at the same time; these struggles continue in his whole life. Hing-Wun works so hard in the Dragon café to make money for his family, and he does not spend a single penny on himself; but his great efforts do not acquire a better future for himself. Even though he keeps working like a horse in his seventies for his family, his wife still complains about him and does not appreciate his attitudes towards life. Hing-Wun is such a kind man who always considers about his wife and he tells Su-Jen to think of and understand her mother’s situation. Therefore, Hing-Wun’s struggle against his hard work for his family is in vain.
Superficially, all seems well because his family lives a comfortable existence. Emotionally, however, his family has missed his emotional support for years. His wife, Helen, gave up “trying to compete with his work years ago.” All of his children grew up in a so-called normal family with a father and mother. At his funeral, though, they do not have enough memories about him to say a proper eulogy. Phil himself was “overweight” and unhealthy, obsessed with work and negligent with his personal life.
We are introduced from the beginning of Raymond Carver’s Cathedral to a man that seems to be perturbed and agitated. The husband “ wasn’t enthusiastic about [Robert] visit, he was no one [he] knew. And his being blind bothered [him].” (20) He is uninterested in the relationship that Robert has with his wife. (21) The only reason he knows any thing about Robert is because she told him, he didn’t ask and didn’t care to know. We see how selfish and self centered the narrator is as he has thoughts of, “this blind man” “coming to sleep in [his] house” and telling his wife “maybe [he] could take him bowling” (22).
He constantly feared that others would have negative emotions towards him because of what his father did. His father, Unoka, was a lazy man who did not think of the future. In his day he was lazy and improvident and was quite incapable of think about tomorrow. Due to the lifestyle that Okonkwo witnessed he despises a lazy lifestyle. His life was all about hard work and never failing.
He lives in a society where men rule, and it is hard for him to show love or affection towards his family. In this book Okonkwo’s character shows intolerance towards his father’s image, feminism, and the changes in his community. Okonkwo shows intolerance towards his father who was looked at as being weak. Unoka unlike Okonkwo, had no job and no money. He instead spent his time trying to bum money off other people in the village, well aware he would not be able to repay them.
Contents Introduction Chronology 11 14 Chapter 1: Background on Chinua Achebe 1. The Life of Chinua Achebe G.D. Killam In writing his seminal novel about Africa, Chinua Achebe established himself as the most prominent African writer of his generation. In all his work, Achebe has focused on dispelling the idealized images of his own people and depicting them as they live in the real world. 19 2. Chinua Achebe’s Philosophy of Fiction Jerome Brooks, interviewing Chinua Achebe Achebe recounts in an interview that his first attraction to the art of storytelling was a result of the stories told in his home as a child.