Juan Oliva

Lit Analysis Essay

10/27/17

Ms.O’Keefe

In Chinua Achebe’s ​Things Fall Apart​, there is a struggle for power in between

the main character, Okonkwo, and his deceased father, Unoka. The novel follows

Okonkwo as he is becoming the alpha male of his household and all of the unlucky

mishaps that occur to him. ​The Office​ is a T.V show written by Ricky Gervais and

Stephen Merchant which follows a group of people whom all work for a company named

“Dunder Mifflin”. Throughout all 9 seasons, it could be seen that one character, Dwight

Schrute (Played by Rainn Wilson), was always in a struggle for power as he was always

fighting for the position of Regional Manager. In both ​The Office​ and ​Things Fall Apart​,

can characters, specifically Dwight Schrute and Okonkwo, be seen engaging in desperate

behaviors while on the hunt to acquire power.

In ​Things Fall Apart​, Okonkwo is in a constant battle of power with his father.

Since Okonkwo’s biggest fear is ending up like his father, without a title and essentially a

failure. In this way, Unoka, still has power over Okonkwo it is because of his father that

he does anything. The text reads “Dazed with fear, Okonkwo drew his machete and cut

him down. He was afraid of being thought weak” (Achebe 61). The context of this

excerpt is that Okonkwo’s adoptive son, that was taken from another village and given to

him to take care of, has been sent to die. Okonkwo was originally told to not go along

when they went to kill Ikemefuna, but he disobeyed. As they began the killing of the
child, Ikemefuna runs towards his adoptive father and says “My father, they have killed

me” (Achebe 61), and all Okonkwo does is finish his son off. According to Okonkwo, he

does this because he does not wish to be seen as weak in the eyes of his fellow villagers.

It can be inferred that Okonkwo does not want to be seen as weak because his father was

seen as a weak person and Okonkwo wishes to be the furthest thing from his father. In

Okonkwo’s eyes, to be weak signified a loss of power amongst the villagers. This betrayal

of trust in between father and adoptive son to retain power or the idea of power can also

be seen in a similar situation in ​The Office. ​During Season 3 Episode 3, Dwight is told by

his companion, Angela Martin, to tell Jan Levinson-Gould, the vice president of Dunder

Mifflin, that he should get Michael's job as he can do it better than Michael is. Dwight

goes behind the back of his trusted friend and boss, just to try to acquire more power in

the office. He ultimately fails, and is punished by Michael by forcing him to stand on top

of a box that says “Liar” and do Michael’s laundry for an entire year. Both of these

instances show that while in the pursuit for power, any and every relationship loses

importance if it gets in the way of them acquiring power.

Another instance in which the hunt for power corrupts a person is seen ​Things

Fall Apart​ when Okonkwo kills the leader of the missionary messengers. He does this

after a meeting in between the clan leaders and the missionaries in which one of the

missionaries raised his voice and ordered Okonkwo to move. The text states “The spell

was broken by the head messenger. ‘Let me pass!’ he ordered. ‘What do you want here?’

‘The white man whose power you know too well has ordered this meeting to stop.’ In a

flash Okonkwo drew his machete. The messenger crouched to avoid the blow. It was
useless. Okonkwo’s machete descended twice and the man’s head lay beside his

uniformed body” (Achebe 204). Okonkwo, being the power hungry individual that he is,

would not allow for someone to raise their voice at him and emasculate him. As stated

before, to be seen as less of a man or weak was to be less powerful. In order retain his

masculinity and therefore, his power, Okonkwo killed a man. Okonkwo’s power hungry

mind led him to believe that the proper response to a man yelling at him, was to kill

him. Although not as serious as killing a person, in an episode of ​The Office​, Dwight

almost kills the entire office and even causes a co-worker, Stanley Hudson, to suffer a

heart attack by starting a small fire to simulate a real fire. The episode, “Stress Relief”, is

the 13th episode in the fifth season is starts off with Dwight lighting a small fire in a

room adjacent to the main office. As the smoke begins to come into the room, everyone

begins to panic and run from one exit to another, all of which have been blocked off by

Dwight. This eventually causes Stanley to suffer a heart attack, and that is scene. Dwight

went through the effort of making this elaborate fire drill simulation in order to show

that he would be a capable manager to Michael, his boss, and to upper management. His

hunger for power caused a fellow co-worker to have a heart attack. This is not the only

time when Dwight’s almost obsessive need for power has hurt or could’ve hurt people in

the office. Later on in the series, during season eight episode six, Dwight creates a

doomsday device while trying to again show upper administration that he would be a

good candidate for manager. This doomsday device, or as Dwight calls it an

“accountability booster” would forward all of the emails that the office workers had

written about their new boss to him, therefore hypothetically killing them since they
would all get fired once the boss saw these emails. Through all of these instances it could

be seen how the need for power can play with the mind of people, as they can forget how

to act and their primal instincts take over.

The hunt for power can corrupt anyone. As the famous saying goes “absolute

power corrupts absolutely”. This effect can especially be seen in both ​The Office​ with

Dwight Schrute's hilarious yet selfish antics, and also in ​Things Fall Apart​ with

Okonkwo’s megalomaniac ways. It can be seen that being power hungry to the point

where you forget about your family and letting it control you cannot lead to anything

good. It will only lead to the destruction of friendships and your own person.