Okonkwo in Things Fall Apart by Chinua AchebeIn Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is a tragic hero. Aristotle's Poetics defines a tragic hero as a good and high-status man who presents a tragic flaw ("hamartia") and experiences a dramatic reversal ("peripeteia"), as well as an intense moment of recognition ("anagnorisis" ). Okonkwo is a leader and hardworking member of the Igbo community of Umuofia whose tragic flaw is his great fear of weakness and failure. Okonkwo's disgrace in the Igbo community and his eventual suicide make Okonkwo a tragic hero by Aristotle's definition. Okonkwo is “a man of action, a man of war” (7) and a high-ranking member in the Igbo village. He holds the prominent position as a member of the village clan due to the fact that he has "displayed incredible prowess in two intertribal wars" (5). Okonkwo's hard work had made him a "rich farmer" (5) and a recognized personality among the nine villages of Umuofia and beyond. Okonkwo's tragic flaw is not that he was afraid of work, but rather his fear of weakness and failure that stems from the unproductive life and shameful death of his father, Unoka. “Maybe deep down Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, fear of failure and weakness... It was not external but deep within him. It was fear of himself, for fear that he would be like his father. Okonkwo's father was a lazy and careless man who had a reputation for being "poor and his wife and children barely had enough to eat...they swore not to lend him any more money because he didn't never repaid.” (5) Unoka had never taught Okonkwo what was right and wrong and, therefore, Okonkwo had to interpret how to be a "good man." Okonkwo's self-interpretation leads him to conclude that a "good man" was someone who was the exact opposite of his father and that, therefore, everything his father did was weak and useless. Okonkwo's fear causes him to treat his family members harshly, especially his son, Nwoye. Okonkwo often wonders how he, a man with great strength and work ethic, could have had a “degenerate and effeminate” son (133). Okonkwo believed that "No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was incapable of ruling his wives and children (and especially his wives), he was not really a man."." (45).