Theme Of Culture Clash In Things Fall Apart

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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.
Okonkwo is one of the respected leaders of his village. When a man from a neighboring village kills one of the women from Okonkwo 's village, a peace settlement requires the son of the man who killed the women to come live in Okonkwo 's village. Unfortunately, a decision is made to kill the boy. After the boy dies, Okonkwo accidentally kills Ezeudu’s son. For his crime, the village determines he must spend seven years in exile to appease the gods. …show more content…

Not all of the Igbo people, but the ones that don 't like the new culture. So they had destroyed the white man 's church. But after they destroyed it, Okonkwo knew that they (the white men and the influenced Igbo people) would come and find them and possibly kill them for it. So Okonkwo was telling the others to prepare and gear up for an attack. Usually, in a story, warning others to be fully armed means war. That is what comes with the problem of others not understanding your culture …show more content…

The two cultures have definitely shown their differences among each other. They believe in two totally different cultures, beliefs, customs, religion, and etc. “He had lost the chance to lead his warlike clan against the new religion, which, he was told, had gained ground.” (Achebe, 171) Okonkwo had lost his chance to lead his warlike village to fight the missionaries while he was in exile and because of that, the new religion has gained ground. The new religion has influenced many and but also many have stuck to the original religion. The two cultures obviously have two different types of people because when he said that his village was “warlike”, that is a hint that the other culture is not warlike because he 's staring the difference between the two. The both have many many differences and beliefs, but that just shows that you cannot force a whole new culture into a whole different culture that is nothing like yours. Chinua Achebe’s purpose for writing the novel was to inform people outside of Africa what happened because people that weren 't even from Africa were writing about Africa. Chinua Achebe’s purpose of writing this novel was successful. “Until the lion has a voice, stories of safaris will always glorify the hunter.” That basically means is that until someone from Africa speaks up about the problem, all the stories will amuse and excite

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