Things Fall Apart Missionaries

In the tragedy, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, missionaries are represented in a negative way. Achebe demonstrates missionaries as a threat to Nigerian tribes because of their brute actions and religious beliefs. For instance, the villagers did not really think of the missionaries as good people because of the Oracle’s prophecy and stories that prompted possible enslavement by the missionaries. The missionaries were also looked upon as a danger to their community because they were able to convert some of the Igbo people to Christians. Achebe also showed how manipulative the missionaries could be. The missionaries would treat them well but with the interest of converting them into Christianity.

Throughout the story, the author shows the

That is one of the reasons why most of the Igbo people disliked the missionaries. The missionaries introduced Christianity to the villagers. The new religion either changed or upsetted people. For example, when one of the missionaries started talking about christianity, Nwoye's attention was caught. Achebe said, “The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness that haunted [ Nwoye’s ] young soul-the question of twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. 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. On the other hand Okonkwo disliked the christian ways, he was all about his tribe and its beliefs, so when he heard that his first son, Nwoye, was starting to follow the missionaries he became