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The Igbo Religion

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All throughout history, religion has had an enormous influence on writing. Many memorable authors––Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and Chinua Achebe, to name few––have displayed their religion and the religion of their country in their writing. Geoffrey Chaucer wrote about the Christian religion of London in The Canterbury Tales, while William Shakespeare incorporated Catholicism and Protestantism into his plays Hamlet and Macbeth. Chinua Achebe wrote about Christianity, as well as the Igbo beliefs and customs, in Things Fall Apart. Many people that lived in London during the 1300s were Christians and prayed to several different saints for help and guidance (“What was life like in medieval London?”). Thomas Becket was a patron saint …show more content…

The Igbo religion had been passed on from generation to generation, which caused them to be so strong in their religion, so when the white missionaries came and tried to convert them, they were very unwilling to switch to Christianity (Kucharski, Mike.). The fictional characters in the novel participated in certain rituals that reflect the religion of the Igbo people. When public events take place in the novel, the egwugwu, who represent the ancestors and deities, meet with all the people of the village in one space; this shows that the Igbo had a religion that influenced their government (Ogbaa, Kalu.). In the later chapters of Things Fall Apart, Achebe uses a conversation between Okonkwo and Obierika to say that the village’s way of life works because of their land, language, customs, and religion, but the white missionaries disturbed the peace of their village and caused things to begin to go badly for the Igbo (Achebe, Chinua.). Throughout the whole novel, Achebe points out the main differences between the Igbo religion and Christianity. The differences between the two religions brings about a lot of confusion and violence to the villages. The white missionaries point out that the Igbo gods are nothing more than pieces of wood and stone, but the Igbo argue that there is plenty of information to indicate that their gods are very powerful and dangerous (Nagelsen,

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Because the missionaries do not respect the Igbo religion, tension in villagers like Okonkwo increases. Once the white missionaries arrive in the village of Igbo they immediately start criticizing the natives religion. One missionary even told the people that “they worshipped false gods, gods of wood and stone.” completely

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Prompt 1 In his book “Things Fall Apart,” Achebe introduces the reader to various aspects of pre-colonial Africa through the eyes of the Igbo people. This book explores the complex components of Igbo customs, traditions, and beliefs. Further, Achebe shines a light on how life was disrupted when the Europeans arrived in Africa. All throughout the book, Chinua Achebe uses literary devices like imagery and symbolism to push his point across to the reader.

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The story has many examples of the importance of community through tradition and religion, which also plays a major part in the story. For example, we see the community working together and supporting each other throughout the book, until change visits them and changes their culture and muddles their ideals. The introduction of the white man forever changes the Igbo culture which we see at the very end of the book when Okonkwo kills the missionary to try to bring war to drive the change out, and no one supports him. The community has changed, and Okonkwo hadn’t realized it, this change was destructive to both the Igbo culture and to Okonkwo, as he realizes that the change he is trying to prevent is inevitable, and the community he once was respected in and loved, had turned their backs on

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Colonialism is an important topic in the novel, Things Fall Apart that causes societies to flourish, but it also causes societies to fall. Ibo society is a society that functions best by itself with no competition from other societies. Ibo society is unstable as even small-scale colonialism can cause Ibo society to fail. However, the true reason for the failure of Ibo society is colonialism. Achebe portrays the use of colonialism as having harmful effects on Ibo culture and community.

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