Things Fall Apart

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Recommended: The nature of African religion

In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo is forced to watch the collapse of his clan due to the establishment of a foreign church and government. The novel shows that the effect of colonialism on the Ibo culture. The topic of colonialism is a controversial one that many has different perspectives. The two main perspectives that will be analyzed are of a cultural anthropologist and a Christian missionary with similar ideas to that of Mr.Smith. I believe that the cultural anthropologist would see the collapse of the Ibo culture as a tragedy and the Christian missionary would see the act of colonialism as necessary to bring the native clansmen to god and civilize them. The first half of the book is dedicated to showing and explaining how the Ibo culture works. This is done to show the values and mindset of the clans. One of the values …show more content…

The local village elders believed that the missionaries would die within the 4th day due to the many evil spirits that inhabit the forest. When they did not die the church was able to successfully convert several of the clansmen. With that, the clan began to split apart and its culture started to crack. The anthropologist would be distressed at the sight of the clan’s cultural fading away due to their belief that a lot can be learned from the clan and that its culture should be allowed to exist. They may attempt to help preserve the clan’s beliefs and attempt to convince the church to limit contact with the clan as much. The missionary would see the establishment of the church as the step in the right direction and may even believe that the church is not being aggressive enough. One of the church leaders, Mr. Brown, would be criticized by the missionary as too soft and sympathetic with the clans. Instead, the missionary would believe that the church should attack their beliefs and force the clan to see the error of their

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