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How Does Nwoye Deal With A Cultural Collision

836 Words4 Pages

Grace La Greco
21 March 2018
English ll
U3EA2

“If you don't like someone's story, write your own.” says award winning author Chinua Achebe. In Nwoye's igbo culture his father was determined for him to become like him, a leader to the igbo society, but Nwoye had other plans for the bettering of himself by following western ways. All around change is what you make of it. In the novel, Things Fall Apart, author Chinua Achebe demonstrates how when faced with a cultural collision one may choose to be open-minded and seek new opportunities through a character’s shift in identity.
Nwoye prior to the European colonists didn’t fully go along with everything his father Okonkwo had taught him to continue his clan ways and traditions. Even though Nwoye participated in cultural events such as celebrations, his father Okonkwo still considered him to perceived as weak just like okonkwo …show more content…

Nwoye prior to the European colonists didn’t fully go along with everything his father Okonkwo had taught him to continue his clan ways and traditions. The invasion of the European settlers threatened to extinguish the need for the mastery of traditional methods for the igbo people. This reason is why the invasion was disliked by many, but some clan members chose to go about this impact with a positive outlook and were willing to adapt to the new culture, christianity. Nwoye chose to be open minded and seeked acceptance towards the new culture instead of continuing to try and follow the cultural norms of his own religion. Ultimately Nwoye Converted from his religion of the igbo community to the religion of the European settlers. He then chooses to change his name to Isaac in an attempt to change his identity and Christianize himself. This all eventually lead to him attending missionary school in Umuru. Altogether, Change is what you make of

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Cultural collisions can have a negative or positive effect on people. Trying to change such a big part of you and the way you have always lived can be very hard on people. Others will choose to embrace it. Nwoye’s sense of identity was challenged with the introduction of Western ideas into the Ibo culture. Nwoye started out the novel sensitive and confused, but the cultural collision of the British colonists and Ibo people affected Nwoye, positively to the point of changing cultures and leaving his clan.

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In Chinua Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, Nwoye battles an internal conflict of whether to stay on his tribe’s side, or to go against them. Nwoye ultimately resolves this conflict by choosing to follow the British instead of his father; however, this choice also illustrates his true character as both timid and bold. Nwoye’s decision to following the British also reveals the universal theme that you can settle on a path that you choose instead of following a path you were designated to follow. Nwoye struggles to choose which path to take, his father’s or the British.

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In the novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the character Nwoye creates the meaning that traditions change for better through his opposing views, beliefs, and experiences from his father

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He felt a relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul” (147). In other words, Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye, started to follow the christian missionaries because he found answers that his religion could not provide. For instance, the twins ,if women gave birth to twins, they were forced to dump the twins in the “evil forest”. To the Igbo people, that did not seem bad, it was a normal thing to them but to Nwoye it was not ok. Nwoye did not understand why the Igbo people did the things they did.

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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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