The book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe deals with many overriding themes including the oedipal conflict between a few of the characters. Okonkwo, the main character, grew up with a father that no one respected. Okonkwo became ashamed of him and vowed to never become his father. Okonkwo's son, Nwoye, denies his father and adopts the missionaries as his new father figure. Conflict erupts when Okonkwo begins to realize that the clan has also begun to embrace the colonizers. All of the conflicts involve the sons needing to eliminate the father figures. .
Okonkwo is plagued with the memory of his father's insignificant legacy. Thus, Okonkwo resents his father and is motivated to subdue the memory of him. His father was a man of no title in the clan. Ashamed of his father, Okonkwo became obsessed with the need to prove that he, unlike his father, was a man worthy of respect. "When Unoka died he had taken no title at all and he was heavily in debt. Any wonder then that his son Okonkwo was ashamed of him?" (pg. 8). Okonkwo is already a successful man in the clan and has disgraced his father for not being as successful as he is. Having a title in the clan was very important to Okonkwo and this inspires him to keep from becoming his father. "And so Okonkwo was ruled by one passion--to hate everything that his father had loved." (pg. 13). This shows that Okonkwo is determined to be exactly opposite of his father and will do anything to do so. He would even go as far as to devote himself to loathing everything his father loved. Meanwhile, Okonkwo is slowly losing his own son to the colonizers and the new religion. Nwoye no longer respects his father nor does he recognize Okonkwo as his father. ""I am one of them, " replied Nwoye. "How is your father?" Obierka asked, not knowing what else to say. "I don't know. He is not my father," said Nwoye, unhappily." (pg. 144). This shows that Nwoye rebels against his father for not being the kind of father he wants and that he no longer considers himself his father's son.