Kevin Tyson
He named me Nwoye after the second day of the week. I am Okonkwo’s first born son, and I can not escape the feeling of being insufficient. I have never felt comfortable being myself. My dad says he wants me to be stronger, but deep down I know that he only wants to see himself in me. He gave me life, but it was never really mine to live. 
Feeling lost I set out to find an alternate father figure, and I found him in my brother, Ikemefuna. He showed me it is possible to love someone outside of my family. In my father’sw1vv opinion feeling love and compassion would be too feminine. He has taught me that not all power comes from physical strength. However, the strong relationship my brother and I have was cut short when my father murdered him. Ikemefuna’s murder made me question my father’s ability to feel love, and I realised that I have no desire to be like him. 
In mourning my brothers death I started to listen to the missionaries. They told stories and sang songs about love and acceptance. These stories were much less gory and evil than the those of my father. I began to practice Christian beliefs after my brother’s death just to get my mind off of things, but I found a father in God and strength in myself. Becoming a Christian gave me independence and hope.
Bib
@babynamescube. "Nwoye - Meaning of Nwoye Name, Nwoye Origin."Nwoye - Meaning of Nwoye Name, Nwoye Origin. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.
"Nwoye+and+okonkwo+relationship - Google Search."Nwoye+and+okonkwo+relationship - Google Search. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.
N.p., n.d. Web.
“He gave me life, but it was never really mine to live.” This truly represents Nwoye’s feelings of being insufficient. Of how he even knows he is insufficient and accepts who he is, but knows that his father does not. This one sentence tells how Okonkwo wants him to be, but Nwoye was never meant to, and never will lead the type of life Okonkwo did. Kevin tells how Nwoye was meant to be Christian. How Nwoye felt comfort and safety when he accepts christianity.
ReplyDeleteThis story brings into question Okonkwo’s ability to love. During Things Fall Apart, Onkonkwo is so preoccupied in being masculine that he overlooks the idea of love. In this case, you bring up a fantastic idea that masculinity is the opposite of love and compassion. This was a really interesting point of view.
ReplyDeleteThe author’s use of very plain and straightforward language to describe Nwoye’s emotional journey from neglected son to observant Christian gives the piece a sense of simple emotion. It seems that rather than hearing an author interpret Nwoye’s thoughts, we are, in fact, just hearing this character talk to us. In addition, the unpretentious tone carries with it a defeated sense of melancholy, as if Nwoye has just given up on his tribe and his family.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the effect that religion had on Nwoye that made him independent and the effect that Okonkwo had on him which made him feel weak and “dependent.” Nwoye seems lost and confused with his emotions which lead him to a stronger faith in Christianity. The build up with having no relationship with anyone, then with Ikemefuna, and now Christianity affected the final feeling of the readers.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteI thought the gold in this story was the sentence “he named me Nwoye after the second day of the week”. Nwoye is a sort of “second day” to his father - seemingly less important than the first day, always coming after something. I also liked the juxtaposition between Nwoye’s relationship with Okonkwo and Nwoye’s relationship with Ikemefuna. Although love and compassion, according to Okonkwo, are “weaker” than ruthless manliness, love, in fact, held together the stronger of the two bonds.
Your story did a good job of giving Nowye’s actions an emotional background. You did a good
ReplyDeletejob portraying how Nowye felt he was trapped and no longer wanted anything to do with his father. I also liked how you ended the story by describing how he found freedom and hope in the church.
I really like that, in your first paragraph, you repeated the same sentence structure to emphasize the role of Okonkwo’s expectations in Nwoye’s life: you began each sentence with a statement that indicated Okonkwo’s desires, motives, or status, and then, if the sentence had several parts, introduced Nwoye’s conflicting or juxtaposed viewpoints on the same subject. You even did this in the first sentence: when you wrote that “He named me Nwoye after the second day of the week”, it immediately indicated that Okonkwo expected his son to be a second version of himself and a chance for him to prolong his legacy. Further, with the words “I am Okonkwo’s first born son, and I can not escape the feeling of being insufficient” in the second sentence, you again juxtapose Okonkwo’s opinions and views with Nwoye’s feelings of emotional alienation and lack of independence. As you carried this literary pattern throughout the first paragraph, it effectively established the father-son dynamic between Okonkwo and Nwoye, helping the reader to immediately understand their relationship.
ReplyDeleteYour story is concise and to the point so the overall theme is portrayed without confusion. The “gold(s)” of the story are the sentences because each one is descriptive and yet poetic. A couple of my favorite sentences happen in the first paragraph. “I am Okonkwo’s first born son, and I can not escape the feeling of being insufficient. I have never felt comfortable being myself. My dad says he wants me to be stronger, but deep down I know that he only wants to see himself in me. He gave me life, but it was never really mine to live.” This story makes me realize, once again, that Okonkwo and his son Nwoye are very similar in the way that both do not want to be like their fathers. Both want to follow their own path.
ReplyDeleteKevin, I enjoyed your perspective of Nwoye and his emotional struggles with his father. The line, “he gave me life, but it was never really mine to live,” stuck with me because it shows that Nwoye feels like he is not allowed to make his own decisions. I feel like this line did a good job setting up Nwoye abandoning his family and joining the church
ReplyDeleteKevin, I really enjoyed your understanding of Nowye’s relationship through his father and how his father had specific expectations he wanted him to achieve. I wrote about Ikemefuna where he influenced Nwoye greatly, and his father began to like him more. It’s interesting to see the perspective of Nwoye and how he tried to live up to his father's expectations. Great job!
ReplyDelete