SUICIDE PARALLAX IN ACHEBE’S THINGS FALL APART AND GOETHE’S SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF OKONKWO AND WERTHER AND THEIR UNTRAGIC HEROISM

Abstract

Since the beginning of time, man seems to be trapped in an existential quagmire in which life is marked by pains, suffering and apparent meaninglessness and from which there seems to be no escape. All efforts at achieving fulfilment slide into illusion. Philosophers have burdened themselves with the task of finding answers to questions about happiness and fulfilment in a world full of suffering, pain and meaninglessness. The great German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, who was considered a pessimist, had posited that human beings have only dragged more people into that gridlock of pain and suffering, which is the world through procreation. For Sartre we must live passionately, but on our own terms and take responsibility for our choices. For Camus, we must unleash revenge on life by consistently doing good; perhaps through that, we may yet achieve fulfilment and be happy. Kierkegaard, on the other hand, advocates a leap of faith at the limit of our struggles and hand our worries over to the Almighty God. This paper aimed to examine life as lived by Werther in Goethe’s Sorrows of Werther and Okonkwo in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart and see whether there was tragic necessity in Werther’s and Okonkwo’s suicide in the face of glaring hopelessness. The study was enabled by existentialist theoretical positions, while the method of approach was largely inductive and deductive.