Things Fall Apart

1166 Words3 Pages

Recommended: An essay on Nigerian culture

Throughout the course of the novel, we read about a myriad amount of troublesome practices. Many of these cultural practices were considered harmful and unacceptable by outside societies such as the Europeans. Societies that were involved in such practices were deemed as “barbarians” and “savages” by the ethnocentric Europeans. In this paper, I will argue that Europeans were not justified in condemning the Igbo people because the Europeans took it upon themselves to impose their own belief system on them. I personally do not support or condone these actions but that does not necessarily justify European conquest. The fact that these practices take place does not mean that they must be christianized.
In Chapter two, we see some evidence of how the village has its own legal system which might not be the same as the Europeans’ but they do have a system in place that they follow. The clansmen are asked to gather in the market through the rings of the ogene and it is announced that someone from the village of Mbaino murdered the wife of an Umuofia tribesman while she was in their market. Okonkwo then travels to Mbaino to inform them of the message to hand over a virgin and a young boy to Umuofia. Mbaino agrees to handing over the virgin and the fifteen year old boy.1
In Chapter three we learn that Unoka, Okonkwo’s father, died of a swelling which was an abomination to the earth goddess. “When a man was afflicted with swelling in the stomach and the lims he was not allowed to die in the house. He was carried to the Evil Forest and left there to die.” Since the sickness was an abomination to earth, the victim could not be buried in their bowels. 2 We also see many examples of practices that take place in the Igbo such as the sharing...

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...longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart. 12
The motivation that drove Europeans to make free use of terminology such as “barbarians” or “savages” was for religious reasons itself. Although I personally do not support nor condemn the actions and practices that take place throughout the course of the novel, that does not necessarily justify European conquest and the fact that they imposed their own belief system upon the Igbo culture through their ethnocentric ways. Till this day, I believe that nobody is justified in judging and condemning other societies because everyone is part of a system of behavior that they were expected to conform to whether or not is agrees with your personal beliefs or not.

Bibliography
Achebe,Chinua. Things Fall Apart, (New York: Anchor Books, 1994).

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Things Fall Apart

A Collection of Book Reviews Dealing with Racism