an offence against the Earth, and a man who commits it will mot be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it. That is why we ask your people to bring him down, because you are strangers.(Achebe 147) For a man and warrior who had such intense pride and worry about his place in the clan and the minds of the people of the clan, this was a shocking thing to go through with. Okonkwo knew the customs and traditions better than anyone, so he would obviously know that his body would be evil and his reputation tarnished badly. The fact that he still went through with hanging himself shows the great distance Okonkwo had fallen from society.Another failure inspired by society is how Okonkwo will be remembered by his clan and how his death and the way he died will affect his remaining sons. Okonkwo believed his own father to be a hindrance to his success and a model of what not to be. It would be an ironic twist if the sons of Okonkwo were shamed by the suicide and actions of their father, therefore causing them to think of Okonkwo exactly like Okonkwo had thought of his own father. If this was indeed the case, then ironically the only son that would forgive his father would be the one son that Okonkwo was ashamed of Nwoye. Because of Nwoyes new religion that stresses forgiveness, Nwoye would be the only son that would ultimately love him in the end. And it would be the religion that Okonkwo hated so much that would made this possible.In closing, as I was looking through the back of the book and the glossary of Ibo words and phrases, I came upon the word efulefu. Efulefu is defined as, a worthless man. As I thought about this term and its definition, I found it ironic that the story begins with it applying to one man and ends with it applying to a very different man. In the beginning of the story, it is Unoka who was thought of as a worthless man by Okonkwo due to his having no titles and in general no...
