Okonkwo as a tragic hero

During this semester we could see that Blanche and Okonkwo are some of the tragic heroes. As we could learn in the group discussion, our classmates talked about Blanche and her flaws and her tragedy that was evolving during the play A Streetcar Named Desire. Now I would like to talk about why Okonkwo is considered a tragic hero. According to Aristotle "A man doesn't become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall”. In this source (http://vccslitonline.cc.va.us/tragedy/aristotle.htm) I  found that to be a tragic hero it is necessary to meet some characteristics, for example:

The tragic hero is a character that has greatness and noble stature. The character must occupy a “high” status position but must also embody nobility and virtue as part of his/her innate character. If we consider this characteristics, Okonkwo meets most of the characteristics. Okonkwo was the leader of Umuofia, a leader with prestige and who had a lot of power.

Through the tragic hero is pre-eminently great, he/she is not perfect. Otherwise, the rest of us- mere mortals- would be unable to identify with the tragic hero. Even though he was a character of high status, he possesses a flaw. His flaw was fear, he felt afraid of failure. He was afraid of being like his father, his father was known as a lazy and coward man. So, Okonkwo tries not to imitate his father's behavior, he becomes a hard working man, respected for his community, a fierce warrior, etc. Even though, he has a lot of flaws; he was aggressive and he was distant  and  tyrannic with his family.

The hero's downfall, therefore, is partially her/his own fault, the result of free choice, not of accident or villainy or some overriding, malignant fate. In fact, the tragedy is usually triggered by some error of judgment or some character flaw that contributes to the hero's lack of perfection noted above. The hero downfall occurs when he adopts a boy from another village, and Okonkwo loves Ikemefuna as his son, more than his real son. But the village decides that the boy has to die. Even though Okonkwo feels bad for  participating in the murder, he doesn't show any emotions (because it's a sign of fear). After that, he accidentally shoots and eventually kills a boy, for what he is exiled and he has to go to his mother's village Mbanta.

The hero's misfortunate is not wholly deserved. The punishments exceeds the crime. His punishments lasts for seven years, but they don't end because Christianity arrives at Umuofia and his son converted to Christianity.

Though it arouses solemn emotion, tragedy does not leave its audience in a state of depression. Aristotle argues that one function of tragedy is to arouse the “unhealthy” emotions of pity and fear and through a catharsis cleanses us of those emotions. Catharsis appears when Okonkwo kills a missionary.  He realizes that his old village do not want to go to war against Christian men (whites) and he hangs himself, feeling devastated for the decision of his village.

To sum up, as we could see, the characteristics of a tragic hero of Aristotle are still validated in the Modern liteture.