In the two novels, both Okonkwo’s Ibo heritage and Kumalo’s culture exercise fear amid father and son. For example, at the beginning of Things Fall Apart the author says of Okonkwo, "his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and weakness" (13). For Okonkwo, his father Unoka represented the true meaning of failure and weakness. Okonkwo was taunted as a child by other children when they called Unoka “agbala”, which means woman or also us

ed of a man who has taken no title. In the years following his childhood, Okonkwo hated anything weak or frail, and his descriptions of his tribe and the members of his family show that in Ibo society anything strong was likened to man and anything weak to woman. Not only did Okonkwo’s fear of becoming weak or frail make him an incredibly hateful person inside, but it also caused Okonkwo to teach his son Nwoye the same hatred and put fear into his lifestyle. An example of Nwoye’s new fear from his father was when he decides to convert to Christianity. The book says, “Although Nwoye had been attracted to the new faith from the very first day he kept it secret. He dared not go too near the missionaries for fear of his father” (149). Nwoye fears his father’s opinion of his newfound religion mainly because the men are supposed to be considered tough, hardworking warriors, while the women soft, faithful church going wives. Nwoye figures that if his father finds out about his religion he will think that Nwoye is soft and does not appreciate all that he is doing for him. Furthermore, after hearing of Nwoye's conversion to Christianity, Okonkwo ponders how he, "a flaming fire could have begotten a son like Nwoye, degenerate and effeminate" (143). Similarly in Cry, the Beloved Country while atop of the mountain in his village Kumalo says, “God save Africa. But he would not see that salvation. It lay afar off, because men were afraid of it. Because to tell the truth, they were afraid of him, and his wife, and Msimangu, and the young demonstrator. And what was there evil in their desires, in their hunger?” (310). Kumalo believes the white and black races can and will only come together as one if the white understand and then begin to start loving the blacks. Kumalo’s own fear and shame for his son’s hanging creates a new feeling for himself as a person accepting of the white people similar to Nwoye’s fear of his father, which makes him convert to Christianity. Throughout both novels, father and son relationships were controlled by fear and that fear helped both sons slip away from their fathers, but not without changing Okonkwo and Kumalo forever.

Some topics in this essay:
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