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The role of religion in the development of a society
The role of religion in the development of a society
The role of religion in the development of a society
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When a culture falls apart During the late 1800s, the Ibo culture was thriving in the villages of Southeastern Nigeria, but specially in the village of Umuofia. Okonkwo is one of Umuofia's strongest leaders and is also a very masculine man that has no clue that everything around him is about to change (Achebe 3). An invading British culture is about to challenge everything the Igbo people know about their world (138). The story is mainly about how the Igbo culture is held together, the changes the new culture is imposing , and how everything led to Okonkwo's downfall. What initially held the Ibo culture together was their religion and their views on masculinity. Their religion controlled almost every aspect of their life. For example, if a women gave birth to twins they would have to throw them away in the Evil Forest, which the Igbo people believed held evil spirits (62).Their views on masculinity were also very important. A man in their culture needs to be strong and would need to have titles in order to be considered a real man. But Okonkwo’s view of a man were little more extre...
Chinua Achebe?s Things Fall Apart is a narrative story that follows the life of an African man called Okonkwo. The setting of the book is in eastern Nigeria, on the eve of British colonialism in Africa. The novel illustrates Okonkwo?s struggles, triumphs, and his eventual downfall, all of which basically coincide with the Igbo?s society?s struggle with the Christian religion and British government. In this essay I will give a biographical account of Okonwo, which will serve to help understand that social, political, and economic institutions of the Igbos.
Okonkwo, the main character in Achebe’s novel, begins as an individual who holds great power in the Umuofi...
Okonkwo’s fear leads him to treat members of his family harshly, in particular his son, Nwoye. Okonkwo often wonders how he, a man of great strength and work ethic, could have had a son who was “degenerate and effeminate” (133). Okonkwo thought that, "No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man" (45).
Overall, Okonkwo is a crucial part to the story Things Fall Apart, for he represents African culture, and helps demonstrate how colonization can change everything. Through this book we see how colonization changed history, and how it is important for groups, tribes, societies to stay together in times of invasion, in order to protect their own customs and traditions; and how crucial a sense of unity would've been for the Umuofian tribe. Okonkwo was the sense of unity of the tribe, doing everything he could could to protect it. His collection of honorable titles, his love for his tribes culture, his drive and passion, and even his booming pride all contribute to his district character, a true hero in my eyes.
This fictional book may be biased because it is written through Okonkwo’s point of view. It does not present the conflict from a neutral viewpoint, which may swing the bias in favor of the Igbo people. The author, Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian writer, who personally experienced the change of religion of the Igbo people.
by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo depicts his masculinity in many different ways, even if it hurts the people closest to him. He feels it is necessary to display his manliness so he does not end up like his father Unoka. “He had no patience with unsuccessful men. He had no patience with his father” (4). Okonkwo correlates virility with aggression and feels the only emotion he should show is anger, leaving him no way to cope with the death of his culture.
The story focuses on Okonkwo, a warrior from the Umuofia Clan, and the impact of European Colonization on daily life for himself and his village. In particular, it focuses on how
Women in the Ibo society are dominated by men. “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand.” (Achebe 13). Okonkwo's wives lived in “perpetual fear” because of his actions and temper. In chapter five Okonkwo beats his wife, as a result from it he was only punished because it was the Week of Peace.
In Umofia, manliness is associated with strength and womanliness with weakness (Okhamafe 127). There is no such thing as a strong woman, and all men should disdain weakness. In Umofia, “all men are males, but not all males are men” (Okhamafe 126). Only the strong men who hold titles deserve to be called “men”. The Igbo word “agbala” is an alternate work for “woman” and for a man who had no title. Women in Igbo society are expected to act a certain way. Okonkwo scolds his daughter, Ezinma, when she does not “sit like a woman” (Achebe 44). He will not let Ezinma bring his chair to the wrestling match because it is a “boy’s job” (Achebe 44). Eve...
Okonkwo is a self-made man. He achieves greatness through his own hard work and determination. Okonkwo started his life without the benefits that other young men had. His father, Unoka, was a lazy man. He had acquired no honorary titles. When Unoka died, Okonkwo did not inherit any barn, title, or young wife. He merely acquired his father’s debts. Therefore, Okonkwo sets about to make a name for himself and to achieve greatness in his community. He diligently plants and harvests his yams, building a farm from scratch. He builds a large commune for his family. He marries three wives; one of them was the village beauty. He acquires two titles. Okonkwo is not a failure, like is father was. In Umuofia, “achievement was revered”, and Okonkwo’s achievement was immense (8). He was “clearly cut out for great things” (8). To the Igbo people, Okonkwo epitomizes greatness and success.
This difference in individual’s moral standpoints is one of the main factors in causing a conflict. Achebe tells his story through the tragic hero of Okonkwo, who is a traditional man who believes in the Ibo culture as it had been established during his life. One of these traditional views he holds is the weakness of femininity, which is disputed by his uncle in his motherland, Uchendu. Uchendu’s dispute of Okonkwo’s views “your mother is there to protect you...and that is why we say that mother is supreme” when Okonkwo gets exiled from Umuofia to his motherland highlights his limited knowledge of these traditional values he believes in, as Okonkwo was fairly clueless as to the importance of women prior to Uchendu’s teaching. Okonkwo’s blind trust in traditional Ibo values, and his unwillingness to adapt to changes in these values results in the climax of the novel.
The distinct writing style that Achebe used to narrate his novel led me, as the reader, to feel as if I were a fellow tribesman of the Igbo people. This differing perspective, rather than being an outsider looking in on the people, led me to see that the Igbos are a people with strong beliefs, culture, and identity. An example of their identity is the description of one of their dwellings, more specifically of Okonkwo's compound; it is described as a "large compound enclosed by a thick wall of red earth" and we read further on about the barn for Okonkwo's yams and the shed for his goats (1429). The Igbo people are obviously agrarian, and led me to the question, how different are they from us? My answer is, there are not a lot of differenes. Based upon my experience--my father was raised on a farm--I see stark similarities between us and them...
Consequently, the native traditions gradually disappeared and in time the whole local social structure within which the indigenous people had lived successfully for centuries was destroyed. Achebe spends the first half of the novel depicting the Ibo culture, by itself, in both a sophisticated and primitive light describing and discussing its grandeur, showing its strengths and weaknesses, etiquettes and incivilities, and even the beginning of cultural breakdown before the introduction of the missionaries. The collapse of the old culture is evident soon after the missionaries arrived, and here Achebe utilises two of the primary missionary figures, Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith, to once again depicts both sides of the Ibo culture between them, with Mr. Brown depicting the sophisticated and Mr. Smith depicting the primitive aspects. The main focus in this novel is on one man, Okonkwo, the protagonist who symbolises the many Nigerians, or Africans who were struggling against the white missionaries, who brought their religion and policies and imposed them on Okonkwo’s and the other surrounding tribes. Achebe also shows how great the effect is when something seemingly un-invasive, such as a church, is set up in a Nigerian or African culture.
From the very beginning he had distinguished his masculinity from all the others in the village. He wished to prosper in the way great Igbo people always had. Okonkwo’s form, ideas, and life, all represent the African tradition and memory. The western culture and memory ruined everything that Okonkwo held dear. This was seen as early as Okonkwo’s banishment from the tribe. Okonkwo had brought his gun to a festival that was honoring the marriage of a girl in the village. That gun accidently exploded and killed a clansman. This was seen as the ultimate disgrace and he was banished for seven years from the tribe. The gun, which was a western tool, had caused Okonkwo to be separated from his people. While Okonkwo was away, Christian missionaries started to settle down among the tribesman of several different villages including Mbata, where he was staying. Okonkwo was very much against this, but he had been banished so he did not have a say. Eventually, as colonialism’s appetite increased, they set up administration buildings and courts to solidify their control over the people. The people feared the white men because of what happened in Abame, “… And they began to shoot. Everyone was killed, except for the sick and the old…” (Achebe 81). Many people did not want the white man there, but they were afraid of being killed. The new courts were enforcing the laws of Great Britain, and punishing people for doing things that just years earlier, would have been deemed
]k Adegbite O. came to a similar conclusion about Okonkwo’s views on masculinity and femininity when he makes the remark in his essay that, “Okonkwo is of the opinion that traditional men have lost their place in society and cannot be termed ‘worthy’ anymore as Western culture has softened their resolve; men have been turned to weaklings by colonisation and the white man’s religion” (Tobalase, “Masculinity and Cultural Conflict in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart”).