February
27, 2002
The European Impact:
First Impressions and Lasting Effects
In Part I and II of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Achebe describes the Africans’ viewpoints and
perceptions of the “white” men. The white men are foreign, mysterious,
strange and powerful. Their ways are different from the ways of the Africans.
Later, In Part III, Achebe introduces the European colonizers and missionaries
and the effects they had on the Igbo people, their culture, and their
religion.
The first time white men are mentioned in Achebe’s Things
Fall Apart is on pages 51 and 52 when Obierika states to Okonkwo that
people have said white men are white, like a piece of chalk is white. “And
these white men, they say, have no toes” (Part I, ch.8, pg.52).
I am almost positive that white men not having toes is
implying that they were wearing shoes. It would be very hard for the Igbo to
understand the concept of shoes. Just as it is equally hard for me to
understand the concept of never wearing them.
Also on page 52 Machi tells Obierika that he has seen a
white man named Amadi. Amadi had leprosy and the Igbo called leprosy “the
white skin”. White men being associated with lepers gives us a glimpse of
the Africans’ feeling about the European colonizers.
In Part II Obierika is telling Okonkwo about a white man
appearing in the Abame town during the last planting season. “He was not an
albino. He was quite different. And he was riding an iron horse. The first
people who saw him ran away, but he stood beckoning them. In the end the
fearless ones were near and even touched him. The elders consulted their
Oracle and it told them that the strange man would break their clan and spread
destruction among them. And so they killed the white man and tied his iron
horse to a tree because it looked as if it would run away to call the man’s
friends” (Part II, ch.15, pg. 97).
The Oracle did know what was to come and shortly there
after the Abame tribe was wiped out. I think the iron horse was a bicycle (pg.
102). The Africans believed the white men had supernatural powers. They feared
and didn’t understand the white men just as the Europeans didn’t
understand the Igbo people.
I believe Achebe doesn’t bring in the European colonial
presence until the last third of the book because he wants us to really get a
good picture of what life was like in Africa before the Europeans showed up
and completely changed things.
Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith are two missionaries introduced
in Part III of Things Fall Apart. “Mr. Brown was respected by the clan,
because he trod softly on its faith.” He became friends with Akunna, who was
a great man of the clan. “They spent hours talking through an interpreter
about religion” (Part III, ch. 21, pg. 126). I believe that Akunna and Mr.
Brown were talking about the same Supreme Being. Mr. Brown called him God and
Akunna called him Chukwu. Both religions had specific similarities as well as
differences. Akunna pointed out the similarities, but Mr. Brown didn’t
agree.
It’s too bad that Mr. Brown didn’t accept their
religion as part of the same. In the notes before the story begins, Don C.
Ohadike gives us an overview of the Igbo culture and history. He points out
many similarities between Igbo religion and Christianity. “The Igbo believed
in the Supreme Being (Chukwu) and in life after death. Chukwu lived far away
in the sky; he was the origin of all things and directed the activities of all
things” (Ohadike, xxxii). “The Igbo also believed in the existence of
Ekwensu, the equivalent of Satan, whose prime occupation was to lead people
astray (Ohadike, xxxiii).
Mr. Smith was the complete opposite of Mr. Brown. He saw
things as either right or wrong. And he decided what was right and wrong for
the clan. Many of the clan’s traditions made Mr. Smith furious, like the
killing of the ogbanje. He only wanted followers who would obey his commands
whole-heartedly and deny their loyalty to the clan. He wanted a few true
believers as opposed to a huge congregation of idolaters.
One of Mr. Smith’s followers was Enoch. Enoch created a
huge mess between the clan and the church and this led to the destruction and
demise of Okonkwo. …Enoch, the sons of the snake-priest who was believed to
have killed and eaten the sacred python. …villagers called him The
Outsider… (Part III, ch. 22, pg. 131). Enoch unmasked an egwugwu in public.
This was one of the greatest crimes committed against the clan. He had killed
an ancestral spirit, and Umuofia was thrown into confusion (pg. 132). All the
egwugwu’s got together and burned down the church. Okonkwo was happy for the
first time in a long time.
Mr. Smith talked to the District Commissioner and had six
men arrested for the burning down of the church. The six men were tricked into
going into town and were put in jail. Okonkwo was one of the six. However, he
escaped and killed the court messenger. He was sure this would start a war and
that the clan would finally be rid of the missionaries and the colonizers and
the clan could go back to their way of doing things. The clan did not respond
the way Okonkwo had hoped and shortly thereafter, he committed suicide.
Early on in the novel, the “white” men were not taken
seriously. They were looked at as inferior, as lepers. The Igbo’s
perceptions of them were just as wrong as the “white” men’s view of the
Igbo. Later, the Igbo figured out what the “white” men were really up to,
but by then it was too late. They had already caused a rift between the
members of the clan. They had managed to convert many of the clan members.
They had brought schools, law, and government to Igboland. Things were
changing rapidly and because the clan was not united, and because Africa was
not united, the European colonizers had a huge impact on Igboland, which
ultimately led to “Things Falling Apart” for Okonkwo, the Igbo society,
and Africa as a whole.
In the book Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe we all saw how one
man,
Okonkwo, constantly confronted his culture with taboos and
inadequacies.
In the beginning of the story, Okonkwo is a great man
who
throws the undefeated Cat. As a young man of eighteen he had
brought
honour to his village by throwing Amalinze the Cat. (Part I,
Ch.
1, PG, 1) Although Okonkwo was a very successful man, in part
because
of fear he would turn out to be like is lazy father, he had a
fiery
temper. “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His
wives
especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his temper,
and
so did his little children.” (Part I, Ch. 1. pg. 9). His entire
life
is governed by fear. Fear that he will fail his wife and
children,
fear that he will fail as a man, and fear that he will be
weak.
Given the fact that Okonkwo did not have the means to start life
like
most young men in his village had, he made the most of what he
had.
“He neither inherited a barn nor a title nor even a young wife.
But
in spite of these disadvantages, he had begun even in his
father’s
lifetime to lay the foundations of a prosperous future. It
was
slow and painful. But he threw himself into it like one
possessed.
And indeed he was possessed by the fear of his father’s
contemptible
life and shameful death.” (Part I, Ch. 1, pg. 13). This
fear
ultimately led to the expedition to triumph over and gain
control
of a prolonging, flourishing culture. In addition, Okonkwo
would
succeed in his quest to dominate his village. In chapter three
Okonkwo
seeks out Nwakibie, a wealthy man in Okonkwo’s village who
had
taken the highest title a man could have in the clan. He takes
palm-wine
and a chicken to Nwakibie and asks for yam seeds to plant
in
his new cleared land. Nwakibie doe not refuse a man that wants to
work
and gives Okonkwo more than enough seeds. However, this very
same
year was the worst year ever. “Nothing happened at its proper
time;
it was either too early or too late. It seemed as if the world
had
gone mad. The earth burned like hot coals and roasted all the
yams.”
(Part I, Ch. 3, pg. 17). This misfortune is the start of the
fall
of Okonkwo and his people.
His next error occurs when he beats his first wife Ojiugo during the
Week
of Peace. Because of this Ezeani prophesies that the earth
goddess
whom Okonkwo has insulted might look down on this evil crime
and
kill the entire clan. For this he has to sacrifice a goat, hen,
cloth,
and one hundred cowries. Although Okonkwo is forgiven in the
eyes
of his clansmen, he is not forgiven in the eyes of his chi or
the
earth goddess.
Later on Okonkwo faults yet again when he carries a hand in the death
of
his adopted son Ikemefuna although he was warned not to. “That boy
calls
you father. Do not bear a hand in his death.”(Part 1, Ch. 7,
pg.
40) As Ikemefuna is led out of the village towards that of his
homeland,
he is killed by one of the clansmen and he cries out to his
Okonkwo
that they are killing him. Okonkwo, fearing that he will be
looked
upon as weak and pathetic finishes his son off.
There
were two major instances that provoked the destruction of the
Igbo
people. The first is when Okonkwo kills a sixteen-year-old boy
on
accident and is sent in to exile for seven years. The second is
when
the missionaries came and built their church there. They were
quite
successful “ they won a handful of converts and were already
sending
evangelists to the surrounding towns and villages.” (Part II,
Ch.
16, PG 101). The sudden disappearance of his son Nwoye among the
missionaries
led Okonkwo to visit his friend Obierika. The moment in
time
this chapter takes in the story seems to reflect the same time
that
the Igbo people doubt their own culture and beliefs. The dumber
of
people that convert to Christianity reflects the discouragement
and
abandonment the people are having about their own religion. The
spread
of Christianity was in part successful because it was the only
alternative
the Igbo people had at that time. There were no other
people
coming to them with new ideas and philosophies, thus, what
other
choice did they have than to accept one of the two ways of
life.
The supposed evil forest was proved false when the missionaries were
granted
this land to build their churches and homes. They did not
perish
as some people of Mbanta thought they would. The entire clan
was
at a complete loss, how could such a thing possibly happen. There
was
only one explanation that the people could come up with, the God
of
the white man must possess immense power. This ultimately led to
yet
another triumph of the new white men and their religion.
Concurrently,
however, it further dismantled the Igbo religion. This
assumption
led the Igbo people to believe that their religion had
faults
in it, how could the God of the white men have answers to some
of
the concerns Igbo people have about their own religion? In
conclusion
to this episode, the Igbo people had no choice but to
abandon
their own religion who did not provide all the answers to
their
endearing questions and convert to Christianity who at the time
seemed
to provide all the answers. When Okonkwo returned to Umuofia
after
his seven years in exile he was astonished at what he saw. “The
church
had come and led many astray. Not only the lowborn and the
outcasts
but also sometimes a worthy man had joined it. Such a man
was
Ogbuefi Ugonna, who had taken two titles, and who like a madman
had
cut the anklet of his titles and cast it away to join the
Christians.”
(Part II, Ch. 20, pg. 123).
The fall of the Igbo people’s theology ultimately led to the fall of
the
entire Igbo village. Even though the white men, namely the
Reverend
and District Commissioner, caused the destruction it was the
submissiveness
of the Igbo people that allowed them to do so. They
had
never been taught how to fight against someone else’s God, and
they
had no idea how to gain control of a God that permitted people
to
live without perishing in the Evil Forest. The reason why
Christianity
took over Umofia and obliterated the people is because
they
allowed Christianity to stay, if they would have said no and
forced
them out of their territory, maybe none of this would have
happened.
They could have easily permitted the white man to live on
their
land, only to take their beliefs and churches elsewhere, where
they
would not be in direct contact. I cannot imagine that the two
could
have coincided, that probably would not have worked. Although,
in
the film Keita, the old man is destined to tell Mabo of his
ancestral
story whether or not Mabo’s parents permit it or not.
Perhaps
this is similar to the case of the Igbo and the Christians,
one
way of thinking is relatively old, and one is relatively new, if
they
could have accepted their differences and learned to live
peacefully,
Umuofia could have prevailed. In the end, Okonkwo kills
himself
when the village is near complete destruction. His friend
Obierika
asks the strangers to take down his body. I thought this was
an
interesting point that Obierika makes without knowing it. His
culture
is still in him, the white man has not taken everything from
him
yet. He explains to the Commissioner that strangers are the only
ones
that are permitted to touch Okonkwo and he tells him that they
will
make sacrifices to cleanse the desecrated land. Even after all
that
has happened and the changes made to the Igbo people, there is
still
a glimmer of their culture left in the end.
As Chinua Achebe states in an interview “ what we do not control I
think
we should think about seriously…. Where one story stands, bring
another
one to stand beside it, and if that’s a better story, then it
should
displace the bad one. It on the other hand, it is necessary to
have
the two of them side by side, then you don’t; lose anything.”
(Quoted
by Rob Baker & Ellen Draper “If One Think Stands, Another
Will
Stand Beside it”, interview with Chinua Achebe).
© Jen Bowen, 2002
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