Okonkwo as a tragic hero in Things Fall Apart

In many ways Things Fall Apart is considered a tragedy. Why would Achebe, taking into account the cultural context, choose to characterize Okonkwo using the tragic hero archetype?

Achebe chose to characterize Okonkwo throughout the book using the tragic hero archetype as to show that even though he represents the Igbo people and their culture to some extent, he can also be seen as an outsider and unable to fit in the community with everyone else. Growing up with many disadvantages in which most people would never have, a lazy and rather weak father in Unoka, Okonkwo grew to hate everything that he loved, and he might have taken that promise very literally, enabling his path to failure and for everything to eventually fall apart. With characteristics like being physically strong, respectful, brave and a man of many titles, he can indeed be considered some sort of symbol for his people. However his duality, constantly present in the book as a rather close-minded person who beheaded a lot of people in war and in times of anger can lead the audience to believe that he was made to be the tragic hero of the story as a way to represent the Igbo people and culture as well as showing their eventual downfall in the hands of the influential and forceful colonizers of the North. By characterizing Okonkwo as the tragic hero, it can evoke pity in the audience as a result of the outcome at the end of the book. After working so hard to become everything his father wasn't, and succeed in life by continuing to gain titles and respect as time goes on, his journey was interrupted by the numerous errors in judgement and misfortune by the coming of the colonizers. These descriptions lead to the definition of a tragic hero and its effect on the audience would be its awakening of emotions in sorrow for his eventual downfall which led to his suicide.