Unoka playing his flute.
Unoka is one of the few male characters in Things Fall Apart who is victimised by his peers. People look at him with resentment and they are embarrassed by him. Unoka is Okwonko's father, and the main reason to his fearless and tough nature. Okwonko's psychological perspective is defined by his father, someone who he thought was an "agbala", or woman. Okwonko is the person that Unoka had most influence on, and Okwonko's whole life is dedicated to erasing his father's name and humiliation.
Unoka, in the movie adaptation of Things Fall Apart is depicted in the picture above, as him wearing rags and playing his flute. His rags represent his care-free life, which is not an honored life among the village.
Ten years after his horrible death, the novel starts, with the victory of his son Okwonko over Amalinze the Cat, the feared warrior. This is ironic because Unoka never became a warrior due to him not standing the sight of blood.
Overall, Unoka is presented to the reader as a man who knew what he liked, and was not afraid to be who he wanted to be. Because of this, he could never be a hero among his village, due to their chauvinistic nature. Nonetheless, a reader from our time will relate more to Unoka, because in our culture people like him are completely normal.
