Character Foils: Okonkwo and Unoka

In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, the characters of Okonkwo and Unoka are introduced immediately as father and son. Upon reading these descriptions, I recognized that the characters are foils of each other. While Okonkwo, the son of Unoka, was brave and had defeated the cat, Unoka hated the sight of blood and never was financially stable due to his inability to harvest a crop, unlike Okonkwo who made a fortune in sharecropping. Also, Unoka was musically talented, playing the flute as well as many other instruments, this could be interpreted that he is a softer man; a man who is not a warrior, but a man of love. While his father is a man of music and love, Okonkwo was chosen by his clan to represent them, since he is the fiercest warrior of his tribe. These are among many of the features that prove that Okonkwo and his father are complete opposites, thus making them character foils.