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Essay On Religion In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

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Religion in Things Fall Apart Religion is the belief in a greater power, which shapes the way someone lives their life. Religion can bring people together, or it can pull them apart. The novel Things Fall Apart, a work by Chinua Achebe, is about a man named Okonkwo and how he and his village deal with the colonization of Christianity. In the end, it pulled Okonkwo away from his people, leading him to his death. Not only did Okonkwo face the new idea of Christianity, but so did Chinua Achebe. During Achebe’s interview with The Paris Review, Achebe says “My parents were early converts to Christianity in my part of Nigeria” (Brooks). He saw the effects of the Christian religion moving through his village, something that Okonkwo couldn’t bear to live through. Religion is a major topic in the novel. Chinua Achebe uses religion to show the reader the God in the Igbo culture, their belief in reincarnation, and the colonization of Christianity. In the Igbo religion, Chukwu is their primary God. He created the heaven and the earth, just like the god of the Christian faith. Although they have this belief in common, the Igbo religion differs because they believe in other Gods. As Mr. Brown and Akunna discuss Chukwu, Akunna brings up the other gods. Akunna says, “He made all the world and other gods” (Achebe 109). Here is where the …show more content…

Chukwu is their primary god along with others, and the Igbo fear him. They believe that their souls were given to them by ancestors and that they will eventually pass their soul down to their grandchildren. The spread of Christianity was not welcomed by all, but it found a way to sneak into the lives of all the Igbo people. Achebe uses these ideas to show the Igbo were civilized people who had their own beliefs before Christianity replaced the Igbo religion and ultimately changed their lives

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Similarly, Nwoye also resists the reputation of his own father by rejecting this masculine regime of Okonkwo and Igbo culture, showing feminine virtues instead. His intention to carry his beliefs on to his children is established when Okonkwo thinks to himself after he learns of Nwoye’s conversion to Christianity. Nwoye made the decision to leave Umofia after the realization that his views do not coincide with those of his society any longer due to the life time of exposure to the toxicity of Okonkwo’s masculine behavior. It is because he refuses to conform that Nwoye wishes to alter the reputation of himself and his family by joining a culture that he finds to reflect the values that he believes in, instead of those he was dejectedly forced into following by his

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