Is Okonkwo a tragic hero?

Okonkwo is a tragic hero in a typical sense, although he is a superior character, his tragic flaw,the combination of manliness with rashness, anger, violence,and arrogance brings out his own destruction. The author writes, "AT an early age he had achieved fame as the greatest wrestler in all of the land." In the village Umuofia, this title was held with great esteem. It was a huge determination of ones manliness. Another characteristic of being manly in Umuofia is how well one does at war. "He was not afraid of war. He was a man of action, a man of war." At a very young age, Okonkwo was supporting his family instead of his useless father, Unoka, supporting his own family. Okonkwo had survived through one of the worst drought seasons anyone has ever seen in Umuofia. Because of Okonkwo's accomplishments at such a young age, he took the success to his heart and became very arrogant. He also had a respected reputation for this success. "An old man said about Okonkwo looking at a king's mouth, one would think he never sucked at his mother's breast." His arrogance was focused in and around his tribe and daily life. Arrogance is characteristic of a tragic hero because near the end of the book, OKonkwo kills the messenger to the courts in hopes that the tribe will stand behind him in a war. The destruction of Okonkwo was revealed slowly though out the book. His inability to have patience towards anyone with a trait like his fathers was a slow leak of his sanity throughout the book," He had no patience with unsuccessful men" His view was that hard work, effort,and what you had in terms of material values was the true way of living and if you didn't have any of those you were not worthy for his praise of acknowledgment. The whole idea of a tragic hero over just a hero is that they have all the behavioral traits that a hero does but in addition, they have a trait like violence or arrogance to pull away and terminate all of the heroic traits. Okonkwo's death of hanging himself depicts the irony in that a man of such high esteem and tribal values would kill himself.