Igbo Life In Things Fall Apart

When two cultures meet and collide, there are often many effects on both cultures. One of such effect are people seeking answers to their questions of life using the new culture’s religion, traditions, and values. In the book “Things Fall Apart” by Chinua Achebe, the author explored this theme with the character Nwoye. In other words, incoming Western culture affected Nwoye by tempting him to seek the answers to the unanswered questions in his life. Nwoye’s confusion of traditional Igbo life originated from events happening in his youth. After his father, Okonkwo, killed Ikemefuna, Nwoye “did not cry. He just hung limp.” (Achebe 65) This drew an analogy with the incident in which he heard abandoned twins in the forest. In both cases, “something gave way inside him.” (Achebe 66) Both incidents suggested that Nwoye was both confused and frightened by the customs and traditions of his own clan, such as sacrifice killings and child abandonment. This was significant because this disagreement and confusion with his

The missionaries’ Christian religion “had only one true god” (Achebe 139) in contrast with the Igbo’s “gods and ancestors.” (Achebe 139) This highly contrasted the differences between the two religions which played a key role in Nwoye’s actions for the rest of the book. Later in the chapter, Nwoye was depicted as “a young lad who had been captivated.” (Achebe 140) “It was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him. He did not understand it.” (Achebe 140) Nwoye neither agree with nor understand the new religion. Instead, “it was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow,” that attracted him. The “marrow” likely signifies the religion’s origin, Europe. He sought after the new religion because its foreign roots might answer his confusions and “pour into his parched