Fear In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

In the village of Umuofia, the Igbo people worship a religion of many deities. Their polytheistic religion consists of gods related to nature such as rain, sun, etc. The most important deity is the goddess of the Earth; Igbo people frain from committing sins against the goddess of the Earth in fear of complete genocide. The European missionaries introduce Umuofia to a monotheistic religion, Christianity. The Igbo people fear what they can’t understand, such as medicine. Igbo people feared the “white man”, however, missionaries successfully convert some Igbo people into Christian, causing them to be shamed by the hierarchy of men in the village. The conversion caused changes in Igbo culture and influenced the Igbo people to behave in a way that was unheard of before the European missionaries arrived. Enoch, a recently converted Christian, committed one of the worst crimes in

In the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, it carries a very common theme; fear is destructive and can provoke the most daunting actions. Okonkwo and his village went through a bunch of disasters and events because they feared a lot of stuff. Okonkwo was driven to madness by fear and most of his actions were driven by fear.

The Effect of White Missionaries on an African Tribe in Things Fall Apart by Achebe

1. Page #______ Why do the Mbanta people begin to believe the white man’s religion has great power?

While some in his audience might understand what he is saying, others do not care about what the Native Americans believe because the Americans have the right to do anything they desire. Yet by elaborating that they have the same God, he attempts to influence them to acknowledge the kind of people they are because they have the right to keep their land. Further, he seems to suggest that because the government is pressuring the Natives out of their land, the audience is damaging the overall society because is causing them to lose their homes. Chief Tecumseh outrageously states “you thought he was dead and you were mistaken” (paragraph 8) during the early 18th century. Tecumseh revisits that equality has not died because Jesus Christ did, but because people choose to disobey it. While some in his audience would understand his request, others believed Natives should revert to traditional life to please the “Giver of Life” and to give up all white-made products such as guns, cookware, alcohol, iron,

In the African heritage they see the whole universe as scared, they also had many gods and different cults. Upon their arrival in to America in the early day’s ‘negroes’ were immediately stripped form their social heritage (Frazier,1964). They were now considered property of the whites and forced to be baptized in to Christianity, the white’s

In the precolonial era, an individual’s identity was deeply rooted in their religious beliefs, if not a direct product thereof. For example, the Native Americans, though separate and distinct, generally viewed their entire world as sacred and significant and thus treated it as such (Goff & Harvey, 2004, p. 7). Conversely, precolonial Europeans saw sanctity much more limitedly than the Native Americans and, with the official religion being Christianity, were heavily reliant on an institutionalized church and its clergy to attain deliverance (Goff & Harvey, 2004, p. 9). Like the Native Americans, many West African tribes, which would soon be subjugated to the American slave trade, had commonalities amid their various religious beliefs, mainly, that there was one supreme god and many secondary gods. This theistic belief necessitated the worship of many deities in attempt to gain favor (Goff & Harvey, 2004, p. 8). Though these precolonial people varied greatly, their identities were all deeply embedded in their respective religions.

“That was a source of great sorrow to the leaders of the clan; but many of them believed that the strange faith and the white man’s god would not last. None of his converts was a man whose word was heeded in the assembly of the people. None of them was a man of title. They were mostly the kind of people that were called efulefu, worthless, empty men” (Achebe 143). Little did the people of Umuofia know that, oftentimes, people whom one individual may consider insignificant, there is someone else who will see their significance. All it takes is one person to make a difference, and eventually, those numbers will begin to multiply to make incredible changes.

William Apess persuades that Natives and Whites are on the same level in the eyes of God. In An Indian’s Looking Glass for the White Man, William Apess condemns White Men with relentless assaults and references in the form of exegesis and anaphora. Apess directly addresses a white audience (Apess, 1). He considers his audience and recognizes their pathos, and uses exegesis to appeal to their spiritual beliefs. “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” are two Testaments used to show the hypocrisy of white Christians (Apess 3).

Achebe’s text does indeed show how when cultures collide and there is refusal to change, there will be many negative consequences. First, one character, Okonkwo refuses to convert to the new religion of Christianity because the beliefs of Christians contradicted those of the Ibo culture and, as a consequence devastation follows him. Foremost, the Ibo people believed in many different gods and goddesses of the land, so when the white missionaries came to Umuofia and said that “they worshipped false gods”(pg.145), it caused some of the people like Okonkwo distrust them. An example of this is shown where Okonkwo believes very strongly that the white missionary "man was mad" (pg.147) as he told the Ibo people about the Holy Trinity. This is also shown where some of the new converts in Mbanta “boasted openly that all the gods were dead and impotent”(pg.154).

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown." (H. P. Lovecraft) In Chinua Achebe's novel "Things Fall Apart" the theme of fear is constant and persistent. It is shown through a great and respected warrior named Okonkwo. While he is wealthy, with many wives, and some high titles within his clan he is still plagued with his fear. He fears the unknown,

In the novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the characters Okonkwo, Nwoye, and Uchendu all possess fears. First, the main character, Okonkwo, fears the repetition of following the pathway his father, Unoka, followed. In the novel, Chinua Achebe writes, “It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his

Their methods of persuasion often insulted the clan’s culture when they state, "All the gods you have named are not gods at all. They are gods of deceit who tell you to kill your fellows and destroy innocent children. There is only one true God and He has the earth, the sky, you and me and all of us” (52). They attempt to make the clan doubt their beliefs by telling them they are wrong. Okonkwo found their beliefs to be foolish because they only believed in one God. Achebe uses an exaggeration, “Okonkwo felt a cold shudder run through him at the terrible prospect, like the prospect of annihilation… If such a thing were ever to happen, he, Okonkwo, would wipe them off the face of the earth” (55) to describe how true Okonkwo stays to his culture.

In Umuofia, the village people clearly show their distaste against the missionaries. Foremost, contact between the native people and the Christians, resulted in harsh comments from the natives. For example, they referred to the missionaries as “efulefu” or “worthless, empty men” (Achebe, 143). Also, the priestess of Agbala, Chielo, called those who converted “excrement of the clan” and called the new faith “a mad dog” that came to eat the converts (Achebe 143). In addition, the arrival of the missionaries caused the native Igbo clan to question the new faith. For example, an older man asked about the god, and the white man said the Igbo have “gods of deceit” (Achebe 146). Further into the conversation, the white man referred to the gods as

This situation caused a culture conflict between the white man and the people of Umuofia. The white man wants to impose his religion on the people of Umuofia. The white man believes in one God which he believes to have made heaven and earth. Also said his God made the entire world and the Umuofia's gods. He wanted the people of Umuofia to abandon their gods and follow his own religion. The white men belittle the people of Umuofia's gods by saying different things about their gods. The white man says that the people of Umuofia's god are gods of deceit who tell them to kill their fellow and destroy innocent children. The white man says that their gods are not alive and cannot do them harm and that they are made of piece of wood and stone. Hearing and seeing all these from the white man, the people of Umuofia were not happy with the white man's religion which was a reason for a culture conflict.