Okonkwo: The Real Tragic Hero Tragic heroes are people who try their very best but never quite make it. There’s not a better description for Okonkwo than those two words. Okonkwo is that guy that always tries super hard to make everything the way he wants, but somehow always fails. He does that so many times in the book that his name should just be changed to “failure.” There are examples of his failure to be heroic all over the novel. Like when he tried to keep his house orderly in the Week of Peace but then hit his wife and ruined the whole thing. Also when he tried to keep everyone with the old religion but everyone else was already converted to the new one. Because of his actions, he ends up dead at the end of the book. One prominent…show more content… Okonkwo is stunned by the amount of people who give up their faith for this new religion that just came by. His clansmen give up morals and other things that Okonkwo values very much in his day-to-day life. He tries to keep his tribesmen on his side but ends up forcing people to keep the religion and looks like a bad person. Even though all he wanted to do was keep people faithful to their original religion. Okonkwo is different from the others in his tribe because of his upbringing. His father wasn’t a hard working man like he is. Okonkwo started from absolutely nothing and not a yam to his name. He vowed to never be like his father and manages to keep that vow until the very end. By making this vow, he promised to stay true to his faith forever. His own determination to forget his father was the reason Okonkwo tries so hard to keep his family orderly, hence the beating, and why he tries to keep the tribe on his side. In conclusion, Okonkwo is nothing more than a tragic hero. Someone who tries their very hardest, but always manages to mess it up somehow and ruin it for everyone. He does this in the Week of Peace and when he forces people to stay in his
