Things Fall Apart Cultural Diffusion

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 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

In Things Fall Apart, Achebe depicted an African people which humanizes them and their country. This could partly be because he understands the African people, speak their

He is impulsive. He acts before he thinks. He often offends the igbo peoploe and their traditions as well as the gods of his clan. When the white man brought Christianity to Umuofia, Okonkwo felt that the changes are ruining the Igbo culture. This is his tragic flaw, the inability to accept change. For him, hard work and effort were the true way of living and if you didn’t have any of those you were not worthy for his acknowledgement.

More and more villagers were falling under this new idea of a single God, not only villagers from Umuofia but from surrounding villages. The locals were no longer against the new religion. Okonkwo was one of the few who still was. The local villagers were sort of thankful for what the white men had brought to Umuofia. “The white man had indeed brought a lunatic religion, but he has also built a trading store and for the first time palm-oil and kernel became things of great price, and much money flowed into Umuofia.” (Achebe 178) The white men had slowly convinced the local people that what they were doing was productive after all. The arrival of the white men in Umuofia allowed for larger flow of commerce. This is yet another effect of imperialism over the African villages, though it isn’t negative. The next effect however, is indeed negative and

Lastly, the missionaries drive Okonkwo to violence and brutality through the mere presence of them in Umuofia. For example, Okonkwo ‘trembles with hate, unable to utter a word’ (204) as they integrate Christianity into his village. Thus, Okonkwo’s hatred and closed mind with his son, his community, and the missionaries drive him to mental stress, causing his life to turn into bad struggle and savagery. Firstly, after Nwoye shows disloyalty towards his father, Okonkwo disowns him. He tells his other children the ‘great abomination’ Nwoye is and how ‘he is no longer his son or their brothers’ (172). This dispute within the kinship is due to Okonkwo’s resistance to embrace his son's beliefs and admiration for Christianity. His unwillingness to see through the ‘betrayal’ of his son leads to division in family, hurting his mental state. Furthermore, the people within his village create angst in his life as well. With all the change in Umuofia, Okonkwo develops a new outlook on the men and people, seeing them as weak and frail. To illustrate, he exclaims that ‘he mourned for the clan’ and ‘mourned for the warlike men of Umuofia, who had unaccountably become soft like women’

Okonkwo is misunderstood like the Igbo culture. The commissioner and missionaries make no attempt to understand the Igbo culture, just as they make no attempt to understand Okonkwo. “The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate. There was so much else to include, and one must be firm in cutting out details” (Achebe 208-209). The commissioner reduces the complex character of Okonkwo to a savage and just as the rest of western society reduces the Igbo culture to heretic and barbaric. In a way Okonkwo is like the missionaries because he too makes no attempt to understand western culture. This is because no group wants to forsake their culture to assimilate into

“A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people” (“Mahatma Gandhi Quotes” 1). The culture of a certain tribe, clan or group of people is not found written anywhere but it is found in the knowledge of its people because that is what they’ve grown up to learn. To them that is the only way they know. In Chinua Achebe’s book, Things Fall Apart, the people of Umuofia keep their culture close to what it was when it was discovered by their ancestors. The only changes that they made were made to fit the community as time had changed since their ancestors had been alive. However, their beliefs and morals remained relatively the same because that is what they have been taught for as long as the Ibo tribe has been around. These beliefs are all they know and they all live by them. Throughout Achebe’s piece, it is evident that he wants to emphasize the distinct Ibo culture in this book. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe stresses the importance of culture to a community by using cultural aspects such as, the Ibo language, their religion, and the traditions of the Ibo people.

The novel, Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe centers around a man named Okonkwo, and it explores Igbo culture through two tribes that Okonkwo is a part of, the Umuofia and the Mbanta. The novel demonstrates a number of core aspects of the Igbo culture which include religion, tradition, discipline, and unity. After exploring these aspects of Igbo culture, the novel shows how they are affected and changed by European colonialism. Achebe specifically uses interactions between Okonkwo, his tribes, and European missionaries to portray what happened to Igbo culture once European colonialism was introduced.

Okonkwo is reluctant to change his beliefs to fit theirs when he fears that in doing so he will become just like his father. Okonkwo’s fear is one of the reasons why he would rather stick to his way of living than convert to theirs. But, according to the book not everyone thought the same way as him. On page 178 It stated, “There were many men and women in Umuofia who did not feel as

The missionaries persuasion and the church pose a threat to Okonkwo, his way of life, and the health of the tribe because of many reasons. First, they threaten to take family away from Okonkwo. “What moved Obierika to visit Okonkwo was the sudden appearance of the latter's son, Nwoye, among the missionaries in Umuofia.” (143) Also, Okonkwo likes to follow all the customs and rules in his culture, and so do many other Igbo people. A large component in

All these changes were due to christianity coming in and colliding with the Igbo culture. Christianity brought in new changes for the people in Umuofia and nobody really cared for the changes. Okonkwo though despised the changes and wanted to drive the Christians out. But Okonkwo’s clan had grown soft and weak because of the christians and that made Okonkwo's fear for his clan and culture. In ch 21 pg 183 it says “Okonkwo was deeply grieved.

The fact that these missionaries have started to really make an impact was unprecedented by the Ibo people; their continuous misunderstandings of one another contribute to make this situation frustrating to both the Ibo clansmen and the Christians that view their religion as superior. Okonkwo returns back to his home village of Umuofia after his exile to Mbanta, and he arrives to see missionaries have overtaken the village, created a government, and many Umuofians have joined the church. As Okonkwo and his friend Obierika are talking, Obierika says of the missionaries and their impact, “He says that our customs are bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us?...He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart” (176). The white men and missionaries have been successful in coming in and gaining power. They believe the customs to be “bad”, showing their disregard of Ibo culture, and how their motives for infiltrating Ibo life is based off of selfish ideas- only to gain more followers to their religion. Furthermore, by actually being successful in drawing Umuofians into their religion, they have turned

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

Achebe’s image of the African people is depicted extensively in his novel. Achebe gives us a look at life in an African village and what it was like during African colonialism. Tribal life in Nigeria is told from an inside perspective through the life story of a man, Okonkwo.