The Effect of White Missionaries on an African Tribe in...

The Effect of White Missionaries on an African Tribe in Things Fall Apart by Achebe In the book â€Å"Things Fall Apart† by Chinua Achebe, we see the effect the white missionaries had on an African tribe and the antihero Okonkwo. The main character Okonkwo is a tragic hero. Achebe depicts Okonkwo as a Shakespearean hero with a tragic flaw, that tragic flaw is the fact that he will do anything in his power not to be a weak man like his father Unoka. Okonkwo did what he did because he hated his father and would do anything in his power to be the exact opposite of his father. Unoka is Okonkwo’s father, he is a very lazy man and has amassed many debts. Okonkwo is very ashamed of Unoka and seems to hate him very much. Achebe states†¦show more content†¦When the missionaries came to their land, people hated them, but when they started getting people to go their way, the Ibo started to fall apart. The missionaries came and told people, like women whose twins were left to die in the forest, that they dont have to kill their children the next time they have twins if they join them and their religion. This made many people think that they took the evil people out of the tribe but in fact they were gaining power by getting a lot of people to follow them. For example, there was a girl named Nneka who had, several times, given birth to twins who were thrown away. Achebe says, Nneka had had four previous pregnancies and childbirths. But each time she had borne twins, and they had been immediately thrown away. Her husband and his family were already becoming highly critical of such a woman and were not unduly perturbed when they found out she had fled to join the Christians. It was a good riddance. This shows us the Achebe understands and is not surprised when the women fled with Christians. We can see that because when he says that her family was not unduly perturbed when they found out she had left, this tells us that he didnt really care about the people who left. He understood why they left but as he said it was a good riddance. As we see, it is highlyShow MoreRelatedThings Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe740 Words   |  3 PagesBefore Things Fall Apart was published, most novels about Africa had been written by Europeans, and they largely portrayed Africans as savages who needed to be enlightened by Europeans. For example, Joseph Conrads classic tale Heart of Darkness (1899), one of the most celebrated novels of the early twentieth century, presents Africa as a wild, dark, and uncivilized continent. In Mister Johnson (1939), which in 1952 Time called the best novel ever written about Africa (Cheerful para. 15), IrishmanRead MoreHow Does Chinua Achebe Depict Ibo Culture In Things Fall Apart?1515 Words   |  7 PagesHow does Achebe depict Ibo culture in ‘Things Fall Apart’? 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