Igbo Religion In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

The Ibo people had a very sacred relationship with their landscape. Their entire existence depended on their environment and nature was sacred to them. This is unlike the English who came to the lower Niger with imperialistic goals of "civilizing" these "primitive" people. The Europeans were more technologically advanced, but in this progression they lost touch with nature and the spiritual connection with this significant aspect of the world. The Ibo on the other hand personified nature and turned to deities as well as ancestral spirits for guidance in their survival against unexplainable and often uncontrollable forces. When hardships arise they attempt to appease their

Throughout the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo is affected by colonialization which caused a dramatic change that affected his cultural sense and identity. This can be seen through the desertion of his family and being exiled from his own tribe from the overload of new traditions that are being forced upon him and his tribe by the white man. To begin with Okonkwo reacted harshly to the sudden shift in colonization and culture. Such as his murder of his friend, which caused an upset to Nwoye; Okonkwo did this to prove his strength to his tribe. Due to Okonkwo’s choices he was exiled from his tribe to Mbanta proving Nwoye right calling his father womanish and spineless.

When Okonkwo was introduced to the cultural change by the British colonial missionaries, he was angry because he felt that the colonial missionaries were trying to decrease the existence of one's manliness. “The white man is clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion”. Now they’ve put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” (Things Fall Apart, Chapter 20, Page 152) With the arrival of the white missionaries, the Igbo religion came to a disagreement upon the religion that's being changed in the igbo culture. Missionaries changed umuofia's religious traditions and turned them against their gods. Okonkwo then starts acting out in random acts of violence, such as killing. To Okonkwo this was, manliness to do that sorrow act. To Okonkwo this was important because he did not want to be like his weak father, therefore, Okonkwo continues to behave this

In the novel Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, religion, an indispensable tradition is celebrated within the Igbo people. The Igbo people, hosts gatherings, worship, and celebrate their ancestors. They are polytheistic, in other words, they believe in many gods. The Igbo people also believe in sacrifices to their ancestors and crimes are considered as sins. Their ancestors and gods serve as a role model, or a sculpture, to whom they worship and sacrifice in Igbo society. However, the arrival of the European Missionaries not only brings tremendous changes to Igbo religion and culture, but also creates conflicts among them.

In Things Fall Apart, when the missionaries first come to Umuofia, Okonkwo is very adamant in resisting their ways. He refuses to conform to them and holds fast to his traditional beliefs. He believes that Christianity is “womanly” and his own practices

Nwoye first begins to undergo changes when the missionaries set up a church.Okonkwo is very against the churches due to his religious beliefs, and would be enraged

    The Ibo culture in Things Fall Apart began to experience colonization, all after Okonkwo was exiled. He was sent away for seven years for killing a clansman. As soon as Okonkwo had left, Umuofia was greeted by Christian missionaries. They were there to convert the villagers to Christianity, to build churches, schools, and hospitals for them. When Okonkwo was exiled, Nwoye snuck off to be among the Christians. He enjoyed being around them and examined their religious views. But, Okonkwo was not happy about Nwoye’s decisions. Okonkwo chokes him by the neck, and demands Nwoye to tell him where he has been. “I don’t know, he is not my father.” (Achebe 137) Being almost killed by his own father really encouraged Nwoye to disassociate himself from his father completely and to head back home to Umuofia. Nwoye was drawn to Christianity because it made him feel welcomed, rather than when he was apart of his native religion.

Religion has the power to alter relationships between family members in a negative way. Besides being strong and successful, protagonist Okonkwo was very obedient to the Igbo religion and tried to follow it in any way that he could. Three years after Ikemefuna (a boy who was sent as compensation for the murder that his father had

Okonkwo, one of the fiercest men of Umofia, had to not only fight against Christianity, but the changes and problems it brought to his village. When Okonkwo’s son gets converted into the new faith and leaves Okonkwo, he holds a bigger grudge against the Christians for taking his eldest son away from him. Apart from all these problems, Okonkwo was exiled for seven years into his motherland and came back to Umofia, where he had tried to regain his position as the Christians coming, Okonkwo went through many changes. He wasn’t very good at change, so many times he found himself in tough situations. In the novel, Things Fall Apart, Achebe uses Okonkwo to show the message that a single character or society’s actions affects another character by Okonkwo disputing with the Christians.

Okonkwo despises his father to an extent that Okonkwo strives to be nothing like Unoka. Okonkwo lives his life and his goal is to be one of the high lords of the clan (Achebe 131). Okonkwo’s life goal is to be the opposite of his father, who is seen as a failure in the Ibo society. Unlike his father who did not fulfill the community's ideals of success Okonkwo did, and strives to achieve his whole life to prove that he was not similar to his father, because he does not want to be like someone who he despises. Similarly to Okonkwo, Nwoye does not have a good relationship with his father, because Nwoye does not act like him. Nwoye Knew that he should act violent like his father, but he preferred to be with his mother and listen to stories (Achebe 53). From a young age Nwoye knew he did not want to be like his father, because he did not approve of the way Okonkwo acts thus he rebelled by being like his mother and preferring kindness and stories over violence. Besides not wanting to be violent like his father, Nwoye rebels by converting to christianity. Nwoye converts, changes his name to Isaac and goes to college to become a teacher (Achebe 182). Nwoye converting and changing his name is the ultimate rebellion because he literally changes everything Okonkwo tried to make Nwoye. Okonkwo attempted to make Nwoye a strong man in the eyes of Ibo society just it in turn made Nwoye rebel and turn

In Things Fall Apart, the church and the missionaries pose a threat and “cut apart” the Igbo culture. The white culture at first threatens Junior and his way of life, but then slowly Junior makes friends with the white culture. The white culture does not necessarily “cut apart” the Indian culture, but it definitely cuts Junior apart from the Indian culture. In Things Fall Apart, the missionaries ways of life intrigue a numerous amount of Igbo people.

“Civilized Society is when the culture has a social order characterized by a government, a system of justice, a social structure, and some kind of belief system”. The Igbo people are indigenous people of Southern Nigeria. The Igbo culture has many unique attitudes. They comprised of polygamy marriages, beliefs in polytheism, farming customs, and showing of masculinity. In Things Fall Apart, the Igbo society is civilized because it established a justice/ government system as well as gender roles/ relationships.

When two different cultures come together, the cause this clash. And one character in Things Fall Apart experienced this. That person was Nwoye. Now, his sense of identity was challenged because of Okonkwo. Ever since his birth, Okonkwo wanted Nwoye to be more like him.

When the new religion is brought over by the white men, Okonkwo strongly opposes to it because he felt that its qualities display weakness and would destroy the Ibo culture. He refused to change and stuck to his old ways, but as more and more of his clansmen convert, Okonkwo sees his world start to crumble. “Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer stand as one” (Achebe 176). His clan slowly divides into two clear-cut sides, but the Ibo people didn’t want to fight back the new religion. As a result, Christianity took over everything, from the government, to the judicial system. Feeling powerless, Okonkwo commits his final act of vengeance and kills a messenger, committing suicide soon after. If the Umoufia had tried to fight back Christianity, they wouldn’t have loss so much power this quickly. This reluctance was due to the absence of

These little things start to happen throughout the book where the church slowly starts to take control of the village (Achebe). When the church mostly has control over the village Okonkwo believes the only way to stop them is to go to war with them, when his ideas are dismissed he then realises how much the church has done to corrupt his home. Not only has the church taken control of the village but they have also infested his life. For example his son Nwoye is very influenced by the missionaries since he converted, therefore they disown each other and Okonkwo feels like he failed at parenting and creating a strong child. Most importantly the church has influenced their own laws in the village making Okonkwo not as respected as he used to be because most of the “honorable” things he did were considered sins to the church. In conclusion Okonkwo feels the church has ruined his life in many ways and his only option is