Achebe Final Writing

Okonkwo is a person that believes in the warrior lifestyle; conquering land, being brave, and never showing emotion. The village promotes this with feasts honoring warriors and how many people they have killed. This makes it confusing when he kills himself because a person involved in the warrior lifestyle would want to go down fighting. A possible explanation is that he thought he was saving the village. After he killed one of the messengers, the ones that escaped would surely tell their superiors and a force would come looking for Okonkwo. With Okonkwo dead, the tribe would hopefully be spared the wrath of the force.



Another option is that Okonkwo was scared that the white men would torture him. This seems unlikely because it has been proven throughout the story that Okonkwo is brave. Dying for the tribe is considered honorable, but suicide is considered evil. Spending the rest of eternity as a tortured soul that angered the gods would probably be more torturous than some painful deeds by mortal men.

Considering these options, I found it unlikely that Okonkwo commited suicide because of one of these. There is probably some reason that no one outside of Ibo society would understand. This increases the excitement of the book, making the reader want to know more about Ibo culture.