English Monologue

This is my monologue of Nwyoe (Okonkwo's father) talking to his friend Okoye.

Okoye, my closest friend, my friend of many years. Please just listen to me, hear me out. I promise, I really do promise you that I will return the two hundred cowries that I have borrowed, but I just have far bigger debts to pay. Do you think I have a bottomless pocket? It’s not like they grow in the yards of maize. If they did, I would surely give back what I owe.  I work hard at my own pace, why should we rush our lives? All I see are people running back and forth and working until the sun has gone to bed. Insanity! A failure?! I am definitely not, how could you say such a thing? I live my life with merriment, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Is that what people think of me, lazy and improvident? I have spent my life playing my flute; it brings inner peace to all who hear it. That is an achievement is it not? To be one of the best in Umofia. Look at yourself, you spend your time playing the ogene. You are just like me. You have great pride in your music. Sure I may quiver at the sight of blood, and I have not gone to war, but that does not make me any less of a man than you. Far from it.  Is that how my young Okonkwo thinks? Is he not proud of me? He has been so successful in his short life, more than I have. Is he ashamed? Ashamed of being like me? I am not a father that a son should be ashamed of; I’m just different from the other men in the tribe. No not an agbala, just different values, different morals. Oh how can I prove to Okonkwo that I am worthy of his pride?! There is nothing, nothing I can do now that will change his mind. His views on me seem set in stone. I am old and weary, there is no more time for me to change my ways, though I want to...for Okonkwo’s sake. How hard it must be to have a father be called such names, when he knows it is not true. At least I hope he believes in me. Who knows when my time will come to pass on, maybe then he will be grateful...