The coming of the white man affects the people of Umuofia's religion and cause culture conflict. The people of umuofia have many gods. Agbala- the oracle of the Hills and Caves. "People come from far and near to consult it" (12). People consult it when they have dispute with their neighbors and also, they can discover what their future held for them from this god. Chi is also a personal god which judge people by the work of their hands. They also believed that if they say yes that their chi also says yes. The people of Umuofia are very obedient to their gods. They don't go to war without consulting their gods. When a daughter of Umuofia was killed in Mbaino, they didn't just decide to go for war or do things on their own; they consulted their gods and they were asked to demand s lad and a virgin from the people of Mbaino. However, if the people of Umuofia had not obeyed their gods, and had gone to war that they were told not to go, they would be defeated. Even when Okonkwo broke the week of peace by beating his youngest wife, he made the necessary sacrifice as was also demanded by their god. Okonkwo also shot Ezeudu's son accidentally, he had to go on an exile for seven years which was a crime against the earth goddess. If they had disobeyed the law by allowing Okonkwo to stay in the village, the people believe that all the clan will be punished and their leaders said "if one finger brought oil it soiled the others" (87). More so, the people of Umuofia don't desecrate their gods. Their egwugwu who gives justice is feared by the women and their children. Whenever the egwugwu is approaching, the women and children always shout and run away (63). They also don't unmask the masquerade. The masquerade's identity is not known by any...
... middle of paper ...
...school to teach young Christians to read and write. Their interpreters who the people of Umuofia know as weak people and not very strong, come from the village were they fear the warriors of Umuofia. Those are the people that are now interpreting words to them. "The white spoke through an interpreter who was an Ibo man though his dialect was different and harsh to the ears of Mbanta" (102). The white man humiliated the leaders of Umuodia. When they put them in prison, their hair was shaved and their hands were handcuffed. "At night the messenger came in to taunt them and to knock their shaved heads together" (138).
The coming of the white man cause culture conflict in the people of Umuofia's religion, their agriculture, their system of justice and their social life. The white man is ethnocentric and there was also language and non-understanding of culture barrier.
Chinua Achebe's 1959 novel, Things fall Apart, takes place in the 1890s, just before British colonization. The novel focuses on the nine Ibo-speaking villages of Umuofia, which is Ibo for "People of the Forest." Umuofia is the village in which Okonkwo, Achebe's protagonist, prospers in everything and is able to secure his manly position in the tribe. Now known as Nigeria, this land was a primitive agricultural society completely run by men. Umuofia was known, and as Achebe says, ."..feared by all it's neighbors. It was powerful in war and in magic, and priests and medicine men were feared in all the surrounding country" (11). Perhaps, its most powerful and feared magic was called .".. agadi- nwayi, or old woman it had its shrine in the centre of Umuofia ... if anyone was so foolhardy as to pass by the shrine past dusk he was sure to see the old woman"(12). The people of Umuofia are very devoted to their religion and their magic. These ancient beliefs were believed to give the people some sort of power over their oppressors.
Culture makes us who we are. Each individual has their own culture from their experiences in life and is developed from societal influences. The various cultures around the world influence us in different ways which we experience at least once in our lifetime. There are occasions, especially in history, where cultures clash with one another. For instance, the English colonization in Africa changed their culture. Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart, portrayed this change in the Igbo people’s society, especially through the character Okonkwo in the village of Umuofia; the introduction of Western ideas challenged him. In the novel Things Fall Apart, the author Chinua Achebe introduces to us Okonkwo whose character’s response to the
The men that come to Umuofia destroy the cultural balance of faith and religion that encompasses the native people in Africa. People in Umuofia depend strongly on the ancestors and gods in their culture. It is their tradition and their beginning, from which they govern their lives. Even the priestess that serves the god Agbala, "...was full of the power of her god, and she was greatly feared" (16). Without the stronghold of customs and traditions, only chaos exists. Peace, trust, and knowledge are thrown off when the new religion of Christianity is introduced. When the missionary explains that:
Through out the novel Thing Fall Apart, there are many situations have shown societal changes, and those changes always have influences to the characters. One of the specific societal change presented in the novel is the arrival of the white men and Christianity in Umuofia. White men and Christianity missionaries have arrived Umuofia and started to expand their religion. The arrival of Christianity and white men is consider as a societal change because the white men and the new religion have a lot of influence in Umuofia, they trade, built church, school and hospital, they also debates and discuss about religious with the local citizens. Many local citizens, like Okonkwo, rejected white man and Christianity at the first place, they even killed the white man who was the first one to arrive the clan. But slowly they
Culture: the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time. The idea of culture is stressed greatly, and at the same time distorted in the novel Things Fall Apart, written by Chinua Achebe. Through the main character and protagonist of the book, Okonkwo, we recognize the distortion of African culture that takes place within the Umuofia tribe when threatened by the intruding missionaries, and how this deeply affects Okonkwo, who would do whatever it takes to protect his tribe and the culture and traditions that lie within it. Okonkwo's character is collectively made up of his wealth and honor, his dedication to his tribe and everything that it withholds, his fiery personality, and lastly, his pride and courage. All of these traits are what make Okonkwo the prestigious man he is, and I believe his character is what makes the story truly tragic.
It is common knowledge that Africa has always been represented as a continent that is full of wild savages. It is perceived as fact that the people within this continent are running around with spears and live in small huts. The people who actually believe this are ignorant to the truth that Africa is a very large continent. It has many different cultures that deserve to be respected in their own right. These different cultures have their own laws, their own religion, and their own art. In Things Fall Apart, Umuofia is explained extensively. The whole first half of the novel goes into great detail of all that makes the culture so great. These people have a well developed religion, rules that they all follow, and even their own justice system. These people are very civilized in their own individual way. The disconnect comes in when, even though they have all the same elements as western civilization, they are are so different that those difference are considered unworthy. In the novel, the missionaries that visit Umuofia constantly ignore the people’s custom and consider those customs savage. One of the missionaries blatantly makes this clear when discussing their religion and says, “that they worshipped false gods, gods of wood and stone” (Achebe 145). From the outside, yes, it does look like all these people worship inanimate objects. What Achebe tries so hard to show is that the religion that the people of Umuofia followed is way more complicated than that. Their religion, along with their whole culture, is very complex and needs half a book to just scrape the top layer of it. Many of their beliefs even mirror many early Christian ideas. These people pray to their ancestors who will in return talk to the Gods they worship. This is parallel to how Catholics pray to saints as an indirect way to speak to God. The core of
Upon an initial reading of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, it is easy to blame the demise of Okonkwo’s life and of the Umofia community on the imperialistic invasions of the white men. After all, Okonkwo seemed to be enjoying relative peace and happiness before then. He did have a few mishaps; one of them resulted in him being exiled for eight years. Nonetheless, he returned to his home town with high spirits and with prospects of increased success. However, everything has changed. The white men have brought with them a new religion and a new government. Okonkwo’s family falls apart. The men in his village lose their courage and valor; they do not offer any resistance to the white men. Consequently, Okonkwo kills himself in disgrace and Umofia succumbs to the white men. However, the white men are not the only people responsible for demise of Umofia. The Igbo culture, particularly their views on gender roles, sows the seed of their own destruction. By glorifying aggressive, manly traits and ignoring the gentle, womanly traits, Umofia brings about its own falling apart.
This crime from Okonkwo left him away from his homeland for seven years, and during his escape, his old culture would soon be evolved. This unintentional action also played a domino effect, first moving his family away and having his home destroyed, then having his son, Nwoye turn back on him and become a missionary in Umuofia joining the white culture. Achebe describes how Nwoye declines Okonkwo being his father towards Obierika who is doing favors for the family (144). Hearing this, his father seems to not be harmed and is disappointed in his son. These missionaries began assembling into Umuofia, convincing the clansmen that there is only one God, and He is the creator of everything unlike what the clansmen had believed. They had a god for everything, but they now were being persuaded. Hearing this, Okonkwo is in shock and believes that the only way to solve the issue is to chase the men out of the village some way (Achebe 146). Nwoye is attracted to the new religion but has yet to reveal it to his father for fear of him. When Okonkwo heard the news, he is infuriated with anger. “… sprang to his feet and gripped him by the neck”
The Ibo culture is also depicted as primitive and unjust by Achebe. This is noted in the primitive aspects of the Ibo people’s system of belief, which appears uncivilised and unjust. These examples of the Ibo culture are then combined with and redisplayed by the other primary method that Achebe uses to depict the dual aspects of Ibo culture, the two missionaries figures. Firstly Mr. Brown is utilised in a way that acknowledges the sophisticated structure and beliefs of the Ibo culture and improvement brought to the Ibo people through the missionaries involvement in the village.
The government of Umuofia and their religion are tightly intertwined. The people of Umuofia are polytheistic meaning they have more than one god. The supreme god of Umuofia is Chukwu who made the world and all the other gods (179). The gods were responsible for telling the people what they should and shouldn’t do hence also forming their government. When Okonkwo accidently kills Ezeudu’s son, it is a crime against their Earth goddess, Ani. Their religion dictates that
Often these gods (spirits) communicate and instruct the men and woman of Igbo through a high priest or priestess. The spiritual gods of Igbo play a big role in the tribe, as many rely on them to settle and create resolutions with other tribes, answer decisive questions and take care of punishments in relation to justice. When news that a nearby tribe has killed an Umuofian woman in the marketplace, the people of Umuofia turn to their gods to see what is best fit for the punishment of the neighboring tribe who committed this act of murder. With the gods order, Okonkwo (representing Umuofia) is sent out, bringing back a young boy and a virgin girl as payment for the crime Mbaino (the tribe) has done. Another example of when the tribesmen call upon the spiritual gods is when consulting with Chielo, the priestess of Agbala (Oracle of the Hills and Caves). As she is possessed by a god, Chielo is one of the most powerful figures of the tribe bringing many go as a practice of rituals and practices. Those who come to the oracle often pose questions of various matters only to be answered by the
The arrival of the white man in the latter part of the novel turns the traditional setting in Umuofia into an archetypal colonial situation that reveals a classic co...
The story of the conversion process that took place in Umuofia was the same throughout africa as a whole. The christian missionaries came and began preaching christianity and peacefully began to create relations with the native population. As soon as the missionaries had enough followers they used that to their advantage and started to brutally enforce the conversion of the rest of the native population to christianity. This isn’t the story that is strictly restricted to the conversion of Umuofia, but the african continent as whole during the imperialistic land grab of major European powers.
Have you ever wondered what would happen when two cultures collide? Well in the novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, a culture clash takes place, with the main character Okonkwo’s village being overtaken by Christian white men seeking to influence and change his tribe and possibly other tribes.
Throughout the world there are many conflicts. It has been that way all throughout history. Since the dawn of man, there have been many conflicts. These conflicts led to wars and changed the lives of many forever. Almost all of the conflicts are due to discrimination by different groups of people. Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, provide examples of discrimination between groups of people. The story focuses on the life and suicide of Okonkwo, a well-respected clansman of Umuofia clan. He struggles between the traditional strong masculine culture in a Nigerian Village and the new customs brought by white missionaries. The book shows the disastrous effects of prejudice and intolerance leading readers to reflect on the similarities of present and history. Achebe’s, Things Fall Apart, strongly represents the vast amount of bigotry between those of different genders, religious groups, and social statuses throughout history.