Ogidi, Anambra and Stratford, England, nearly four thousand three hundred and twenty two miles apart, are the birthplaces of two extremely different authors both culturally and age wise. Although very different, these authors, Chinua Achebe, author of Things Fall Apart, and William Shakespeare, author of Macbeth, both wrote popular stories in which the protagonist’s downfall is caused by a common flaw, a misconception of masculinity. To Okonkwo and Macbeth, masculinity equates to power and power equates to success.
Okonkwo, the protagonist in Things Fall Apart, vows to be nothing like his effeminate father, Unoka, who Okonkwo resents. In order to be the opposite of his father, Okonkwo works hard to gain power, and he never shows his true feelings. He is a master of deception, but Okonkwo feels that his power is threatened when no other villagers will align with him against the Christian missionaries. Similar to Okonkwo, Macbeth decieves many, and he works very hard for which he is rewarded. However, when Macbeth’s masculinity is threatened by his beloved wife, he tirelessly works to prove his masculinity to her.
Although written in completely different time periods and cultures, Okonkwo and Macbeth end up living a life full of isolation due to their overpowering desire to prove their masculinity to their communities, eventually causing their tragic downfalls. In Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo’s success is based on his personal achievements, yet his drive to be the most successful member of Umuofia is what leads to his tragic downfall. After defeating Amalinze the Cat, showing off his outstanding strength, Okonkwo gains recognition as a leading member of his society (Achebe 1).
Not only does Okonkwo verthrow the strongest villager in Umuofia, but he also attains a higher social status based on the amount of yams that he harvests every year. In Umuofia, yams symbolize masculinity. They are hard to harvest and require much labor, labor that the people of Umuofia think only men can do. Because of Okonkwo’s strength and his surplus of yams brought forth every year,”his personal achievements are such as the tribe admires– three wives, two titles, large barns full of yams. He works so hard that, even as a young man, he is already one of the greatest men of his time” (Taiwo).
Unlike his father, Okonkwo lives his life constantly dealing with the internal struggle of attaining more power. To Okonkwo, power equates to masculinity, yet “his adherence to a masculine philosophy thenceforth orders his world”, causing him to isolate himself from those surrounding him (Osei-Nyame). Okonkwo’s overpowering ambition to become the most successful member of his village and prove his masculinity in order to achieve a high social status, causes a life of isolation and loneliness which leads to his tragic downfall.
Similar to Okonkwo, Macbeth’s power and worth is contingent on his personal achievements, but his excessive need to prove his power ironically leaves him powerless which leads to his tragic downfall. As a soldier, Macbeth exudes confidence on the battlefield. In Scotland, a man should be a skilled, bloody, merciless soldier, and Shakespeare’s focus on Macbeth’s war tactics makes it evident that “throughout the play manhood is equated with the ability to kill” (French). Similarly to Okonkwo, Macbeth’s achievements do not go unnoticed as he gets rewarded, becoming the new Thane of Cawdor (Shakespeare 1. . 24-130).
Although becoming the Thane of Cawdor is a very prestigious title, Macbeth aims to achieve more power as his growing ambition challenges him to prove his masculinity. According to Jarold Ramsey, “one of the organizing themes of Macbeth is the theme of manliness” in which Shakespeare emphasizes, for “the word and its cognates reverberate through the play” (Ramsey). Shakespeare plays with this misconception of manliness with his vision of Macbeth. As Macbeth strives to gain more power in order to prove his masculinity, he entangles himself into a web of deception and lies.
Untrustworthy, Macbeth’s power and personal achievements soon go unnoticed. Tirelessly attempting to prove his masculinity, Macbeth begins to become someone who he is not, marking the beginning of his downfall and leaving him with nothing. Both, Okonkwo and Macbeth spend their days trying to prove their threatened power and masculinity, yet their efforts only hurt them more, leading to lives full of isolation and loneliness causing their tragic downfalls. Okonkwo and Macbeth both work hard to prove their threatened power and masculinity, for Okonkwo does not want to be compared to his father and Macbeth does not want to be seen as effeminate.
Okonkwo lives his life purposefully opposite to the way his father lived. In order to be the opposite of his father, Okonkwo strictly follows and engages in his village’s traditions. According to Kwadwo Osei-Nyame in his essay “Chinua Achebe Writing Culture: Representations of Gender and Tradition in Things Fall Apart”, he explains that “Umuofia’s masculine traditions are heralded and celebrated and the representation of masculine ideology is progressively played out mainly through the representation of the legendary Okonkwo and his obsessive pursuit of the fulfilment of personal power and recognition within the clan” (Osei-Nyame).
Okonkwo’s obsessive need for power is ultimately what leads to his downfall. As Okonkwo strives for power, he pushes away the people closest to him. Alone, Okonkwo’s power becomes powerless. Macbeth’s power also becomes powerless. He spends his life trying to prove his masculinity after his beloved wife, Lady Macbeth, threatens it by saying, “What beast was’t, / then, / That made you break this enterprise to me? / When you durst do it, then you were a man” (Shakespeare 1. 7. 53-56). In order to prove his power to her, Macbeth plots to become the king of Scotland.
Soon, his overpowering ambition takes over as he begins to kill anyone that stands in his way of the crown. Macbeth’s guilt weighs heavy on his conscious until his wife threatens his masculinity again, but “those tears locate a measure of affect in the king, and hint at the authority over emotion that the crown claims in the play” (Bruckner). As soon as the crown is placed atop Macbeth’s head, not only does he change but all of Scotland changes. Macbeth becomes an evil dictator with the conscious of a murderer, and Scotland becomes everything that Macbeth strived to be.
Scotland becomes strong and powerful, uniting to overthrow the evil Macbeth. Macbeth’s need to attain and enforce power is what gets him killed. His power becomes powerless just like Okonkwo’s and the two suffer the same tragic fate as a result. Like every tragic hero, Okonkwo and Macbeth’s tragic downfalls become a result of their excessive want to prove their egos; in this case, Okonkwo and Macbeth’s downfalls are caused by their overpowering need to prove their masculinity. Okonkwo and Macbeth spend most of their lives working for their success.
Okonkwo devotes his life to working and harvesting yams which symbolizes masculinity and strength. Vowing to be nothing like his father, Okonkwo rules harshly over everyone to exhibit his power. Showcasing his power, he rules his family under strict control. His aggressive power and strict control causes members of his family to turn against him. Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son, resents his father just like Okonkwo resents Unoka. Nwoye is not proud of his father’s hard earned achievements, instead, he is ashamed.
He is ashamed that in order to be successful his father would rather be feared than loved, and in turn, Nwoye leaves his family and everything he was raised to know in order to escape his father’s harsh rule. His whole life, Okonkwo strived to become a leader not just within the village but in his family life as well, but “a leader is supported by his followers as long as he does not govern too much” (Uchendu). Unfortunately, Okonkwo governs too much, leaving him with no followers and no power. Just like Okonkwo, Macbeth begins to put his personal achievements in front of everything else.
With his constant need to prove his power, Macbeth isolates himself which leads to his downfall. Throughout the play, Shakespeare emphasizes Macbeth’s misinterpretation of masculinity, so that it is evident that “the more Macbeth is driven to pursue what he and Lady Macbeth call manliness-the more he perverts that code into a rationale for reflexive aggression-the less humane he becomes, until at last he forfeits nearly all claims on the race itself, and his vaunted manhood, as he finally realizes, becomes meaningless” (Uchendu). Macbeth realizes that masculinity and power mean nothing if he has no one to assert his power over.
Alone and powerless, Macbeth ends up with nothing just like Okonkwo. They work their whole lives to become successful only to realize it means nothing if no one is listening, Okonkwo and Macbeth seal their fate as they alienate themselves by exhibiting too much power, leaving them powerless. Although Things Fall Apart and Macbeth were written in two completely different time periods and cultures, Okonkwo and Macbeth both live their lives trying to prove and exhibit their power which leads to a life of isolation, eventually causing their downfalls.
Both, Okonkwo and Macbeth live their lives in fear that they will become powerless. In order to avoid this constant threat, Okonkwo and Macbeth spend their lives solely aiming to attain and exhibit more power. This constant want for power leads to an overpowering ambition in both protagonists. Okonkwo and Macbeth soon become obsessed with trying to prove their masculinity and power, and this obsession causes them to isolate themselves from everyone around them.
Once both tragic heroes attain power however, they realize that it is hard to rule when no one is following. Okonkwo and Macbeth’s thirst for power caused them to isolate themselves from those who would have been their supporters, and once their power is attained, they have no one to exhibit it over. Okonkwo and Macbeth’s tragic downfalls are the perfect examples of a misconception of masculinity. To them, masculinity means power, but they realize too late that power means nothing when no one is there to listen.