Changes In Igbo Culture In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Oops, you dropped something. Yes, you dropped your mom’s favorite mug and now it lies cracked on its side. You realize that you can no longer use the mug since coffee would spill out. Now, think of the mug as the Igbo people, and think of the coffee as their culture. When the missionaries arrived in Abame, Mbanta, and Umuofia they cracked the mug and let the Igbo culture flow to its waste. With this destruction set in motion, the missionaries were able to add different materials or different institutions to the mug to ensure that the mug would no longer spill and make it whole once more. These pieces were added too late, the Igbo culture had already spilled, however, there was more space for the missionaries to implement their own culture. The cultural change that missionaries brought, like religion, and different institutions might’ve forced many to succumb to the

It was then seen as the mug that you broke. Your breaking of the mug made way for change to occur, changes to the Igbo culture and a transition to the missionaries’ culture. The cultural changes of religion and institutions that the missionaries brought convinced many that their own culture was no longer worth saving and so they did nothing to try to stop the change from occurring; however Okonkwo still believed that the Igbo culture was worth saving but with this belief came the realization that he no longer had the power to stop such a change because the theme of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is that change is inescapable. The Igbo culture underwent much change: transitioning from a polytheistic religion of many gods to a monotheistic religion of only one god, and transitioning from a religious and community based “government” to a moral and secular based government. Along with all these cultural changes, Okonkwo went through his own change from powerful to powerless. That mug, your mother’s favorite, never to be the same