Okonkwo as a tragic hero Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Okonkwo as a tragic hero - Research Paper Example Although Livingstone and Stanley's explorations contributed very little to deepen the Western understanding of the people or the land, they did encourage plenty of speculation and conjecture. It was these made-up ideas that became the foundation of several of the misunderstandings the West has held about Africa since then. Because of the one-sided discussion, Africa emerged as a land of possibility for Western enrichment through the unfettered exploitation of its resources. The West thinks of African people as mostly child-like, capable only of primitive understandings, and only slightly more than bestial in their natural environment. It took several years before native writers, such as Chinua Achebe were able to align Africa’s story with the West in the presentation of Okonkwo as a tragic hero in his story Things Fall Apart (1959). The tragic hero is a frequent character in numerous plays and dramas of the ancient Greeks into the modern day. The character type was present eve n before Aristotle's time, but it was Aristotle who codified the major elements that must be present for a character to be considered a tragic hero although these rules have changed some in the millennia since they were first described. In Aristotle's time, the tragic hero status could only be applied to characters with real potential for tremendous greatness. This meant people who were destined to be kings and princes or others who had some kind of noble claim. According to Zarro, â€Å"the tragic effect will be stronger if the hero is ‘better than we are’, in that he is of higher than ordinary moral worth. Such a man is shown as suffering a change in fortune from happiness to misery because of a mistaken act, to which he is led by his hamartia (his ‘effort of judgment’) or, as it is often literally translated, his tragic flaw.† In spite of this nobility, the tragic hero is destined to fail as a result of some tragic flaw inherent in their nature. T his tragic flaw is often associated in some way with their greatest strength and is therefore an aspect of their character that the individual becomes inordinately proud to exercise (Aristotle). As society has progressed, though, and new structures emerged in which wealthy businessmen took the place of kings and princes, the focus of the tragic hero has been less concerned with his noble status than it is with his progression through a three-fold process. According to Vest, heroism today, even tragic heroism, refers more to the actions of the character who embodies many of our ideals regarding what is good and noble in human nature than it is concerned with the birth or earned social status of the character himself. Although Okonkwo is not born a tribal chief, he earns his status as a tribal elder and this modern change in tragic hero definitions allows even the West to recognize his status. Before proving Okonkwo's actions qualify him as a tragic hero, it is necessary to understand what constitutes the progression of a tragic hero. The process of the tragic hero begins when the character commits some act in the excess of their pride that inevitably leads to their downfall (Aristotle). This is the first stage of the tragic cycle. The second stage