Things Fall Apart Religion Essay

Religious differences in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

One of the definitions of introduction is a formal presentation of one person to another, in which each is told the other's name. Sometimes done in a different manner, this form of communication is similar throughout many cultures. In the novel Things Fall Apart two forms of religion and believe clash. The novel describes the Lgbo’s tribes first encounter with a Christian missionary. For the most part, exchanging names is not a challenging task between cultures. Introducing another religion as an introduction is a difficult task. The Christian missionaries came preaching the salvation through Jesus Christ and did not worship their ancestors or spirits of nature. The Lgbo tribe centers

Gikandi calls Umuofia a “community in which mastery of figurative language is the core to social survival and control” (p. 39). The narrator also says “Among the Ibo, the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palmoil with which words are eaten” (p. 7). These stories and proverbs play a major role in the socialization of the younger kids. “Stories manifest the special relationship between Ekwefi and her daughter Ezinma, and stories mark a difference in the socialisation of boys and girls” (p. 53). The bible contains 30 chapters of proverbs which are examples of the Biblical wisdom tradition, and promote questions of values, moral behavior, the meaning of human life, and right conduct. Proverbs have been used by many different cultures as a way of handing down traditional values, common sense and personal

One of the biggest effects of introducing a new religion to the Lbgo is the division of those who believe the story and those who do not. The missionaries have now made the Lbgo question their beliefs. Despite the efforts of the missionaries to convert the Lbgo and find similarities in their religions, the Lbgo viewed Christianity as a white man’s religion. The missionaries and Mr. Brown came into the village with good intentions, but in the end created division and a deep mistrust of white men. Okonkwo even says “ We should have killed the white man if you had listened to me” (p. 195). The cultural balance of faith and religion has now been destroyed. Acording to ASAMOAH-GYADU (2010). “missionary activity that introduced denominationalism among Africans lead to situations in which people, who lived together in the same community before Christian evangelisation, began to look at each other as religiously different and therefore