Ezinma - Characters

Characters

• Okonkwo is the novel's protagonist. He has three wives and eight children, and is a brave and rash Umuofian (Nigerian) warrior and a clan leader. Unlike most, he cares more for his daughter (Ezinma) than his son, Nwoye (who is later called Isaac), who he believes is weak. Okonkwo is the son of the effeminate and lazy Unoka, a man he resents for his weaknesses. Okonkwo strives to make his way in a culture that traditionally values manliness. As a young man he defeated the village's best wrestler, earning him lasting prestige. He therefore rejects everything for which he believes his father stood; Unoka was idle, poor, profligate, cowardly, gentle, and interested in music and conversation. Okonkwo consciously adopts opposite ideals and becomes productive, wealthy, brave, violent, and opposed to music and anything else that he regards as "soft," such as conversation and emotion. He is stoic to a fault. He is also the hardest-working member of his clan. Okonkwo's life is dominated by fear of failure and of weakness—the fear that he will resemble his father. Ironically, in all his efforts not to end up like his father, he commits suicide, becoming in his culture an abomination to the Earth and rebuked by the tribe as his father was (Unoka died from swelling and was likewise considered an abomination). Okonkwo's suicide represents not only his culture's rejection of him, but his rejection of the changes in his people's culture, as he realizes that the Igbo society that he so valued has been forever altered by the Christian missionaries.

• Unoka is Okonkwo's father who lived a life in contrast to typical Igbo masculinity. He loved language and music, the flute in particular. He is lazy and miserly, neglecting to take care of his wives and children and even dies with unpaid debts. Okonkwo spends his life trying not to become a failure like his father Unoka.

• Nwoye is Okonkwo's son, about whom Okonkwo worries, fearing that he will become like Unoka. Similar to Unoka, Nwoye does not ascribe to the traditional Igbo view of masculinity being equated to violence; rather, he prefers the stories of his mother. Nwoye connects to Ikemefuma who presents an alternative to Okonkwo's rigid masculinity. He is one of the early converts to Christianity with the arrival of the missionaries, an act which Okonkwo views as a final betrayal.

• Ikemefuna is a boy from the Mbaino tribe. He is given to Okonkwo in a settlement when an Mbaino tribesman murders the wife of an Umofian. Ikemefuna is ultimately murdered, an act which Okonkwo does not prevent for fear of seeming not masculine.

• Ezinma is Okonkwo's favorite daughter, and the only child of his wife Ekwefi. Ezinma is very much the antithesis of a normal woman within the culture and Okonkwo routinely remarks that she would've made a much better boy than a girl, even wishing that this was the case of her birth. Ezinma often contradicts and challenges her father, which wins his adoration, affection, and respect. She is very similar to her father, and this is made apparent when she matures into a beautiful young woman who refuses to marry during her family's exile, instead choosing to help her father regain his place of respect within society.