His final fault against his tribe is when he unintentionally shoots a boy and kills him for this he is banished from the village for seven years and has to live in his mother's village of Mbanta. Though Okonkwo is upset, he shows his fearlessness and impartiality by slaying the boy himself. The boy, Ikemefuna, is ordered to death by the Oracle of the Hills and Caves. This shows his short temper and a tendency to act on impulse, a tendency that backfires on him later on in the novel. He even shoots at her with his gun, but luckily he misses. His fiery temperament leads to beating his second wife during the Week of Peace. His stern exterior conceals a love for Ikemefuna, who lives with him an anxiety over his son Nwoye, who seems to take after his father and an adoration for his daughter Ezinma. Okonkwo has his faults, one of them being his impatience of less successful men and secondly his pride over his own status. His importance is proved when he is sent as an emissary to Mbaino in order to negotiate for hostages, and he returns successfully with a boy, Ikemefuna and a virgin. The reader learns that he was also one of the egwugwu-the masked spirits of the ancestors.

In order to prove his ability, he had overthrown the greatest wrestler in nine villages, set himself up with three wives, two barns filled with yams and a reputation for being a hard worker. Okonkwo was opposed to his father's way of life, and always feared failure. His father was a lazy man who preferred playing the flute to tending the soil. Okonkwo was not born a great man, but he achieved success by his hard work. The novel deals with the rise and fall of Okonkwo, a man from the village of Unuofia.

Things fall apart