In Things Fall Apart, the witch doctor’s many unorthodox forms of treatment for Ekwefi’s ogbanje, or evil spirit, show how the values of religion and society can lead the members of the Igbo tribe to commit atrocities. After the witch doctor diagnoses the cause of death, he gives Ekwefi many treatments for getting rid of the ogbanje, one of these being the mutilation of a baby’s corpse in order to keep the evil spirit away. The witch doctor then throws the scarred body of the child into the Evil Forest, where it presumably rots away and is eaten by wild animals. Unnecessary violence like the murder of twins, and the murder of Ikemefuna is not the fault of an individual, but the result of a society that has told African people these acts of violence are not only good, but necessary in order to maintain order. …show more content…
He performs a ritual of sorts to discover where Ezinma’s iyi-uwa, a stone in this instance, is located. To a villager, it seems as if this unorthodox method actually works, and Ezinma has finally been freed from her mysterious, antithetical oppressor. Whether it is a willful ignorance or the trickery of the witch doctor, the people wholeheartedly believe that the removal of the iyi-uwa has saved Ezinma. To the reader however, it is a stretch to say that the witch doctor has miraculously cured Ezinma of her affliction, and instead more likely that the witch doctor placed the stone in the hole using his sleight-of-hand. Because the villagers belief the cutting of the baby and the removal of the iyi-uwa has played a part in Ezinma’s survival, the authority of religious leaders is extended. As a result, a spiraling vortex forms, justifying increasingly immoral crimes as the villagers begin to believe that these acts of violences are
The paranoia of the elite spooked the villagers and the antagonistic aspects of village life turned into a situation where the villagers were able to take aggressive action and essentially vengeance. However, later changes would mark the end of the
In this passage of Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, the protagonist and main characters of the novel, Okonkwo, has just been sent into exile away from his land of Umuofia , Nigeria . The crime he has committed to receive such a punishment is the sin of murder. While he is attending a funeral for a man named, Ogbuefi Ezeudu, Okonkwo’s gun accidentally explodes and kills Ezeudu’s sixteen-year-old son. Killing a clansman is a crime against their earth goddess, thus, Okonkwo and his family are sent into exile, being forced to go back to his motherland of Mbanta. The men of the family who have experienced the loss in this accidental death burn Okonkwo’s houses and kill his animals to cleanse the village of his sin of murder. They do this to
Based off the book Things Fall Apart, the videos we watched in class, and the poem “The White Man’s Burden”, the white man’s burden of spreading Christianity was more harmful than helpful. In both the book and the film the African Tribes were already fully functional as a whole. They had systems in place such as forms of government, art, social systems, and economic systems. After the whites came to convert them, things started to fall apart and become chaotic.
Many things in our own society parallel the villagers’ actions. What do most people do when they see a car accident? They fear it and then they look for carnage; we have to slow down and stare at an accident Not only do we electrocute criminals, we want to watch the executions live on television. Perhaps Jackson received the best example of this aspect of human nature; she claims that most of the letters she received about the lottery "wanted to know where these lotteries were held, and whether they could go there and watch" (Friedman 87). People were not shocked into examining their own lives. They wanted to know where they could go see a live stoning.
Calling them superstitions is not merely using alternative vocabulary, but is a conscious degradation of the practices. In Things Fall Apart, the religious practices of Okonkwo's tribe are taken very seriously and the white man's religion is described as crazy and their god as merely a fetish. However, the villagers do not fail to notice that "the white man's fetish had unbelievable power" when the men who built a church within the evil forest failed to die as they should have (149). Rather than dismissing the European religion because of its difference, the locals noted its power even though they did not understand how it worked. After conflict with the new church, the village "decided to ostracize the Christians" (159). The new converts were pushed outside of the community because they had become involved with the strange, foreign superstitions and customs. Through the tribe's relation with the new church, Achebe reversed the roles that African and European religion had played in previously existing colonial literature: the European religion became mere superstition while African religion remained true religion.
In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe tells a story set during the British colonialism of Nigeria in the late 19th century. Of the descriptions that Achebe makes, one of the most significant is the British District Court officers and the egwugwu. There are several superficial similarities between the District Court officers and the egwugwu. These similarities include their relationship with the people of the culture. The egwugwu are masqueraders who impersonate the gods of the Igbo culture and settle disputes of the people of Umuofia. Most of the time the impersonators are local leaders of Umuofia. While the District Court officers work in the courts of the British Empire and settle disputes of the people and enforce the laws
A man will always have to face adversity in one way or another, the way that you address adversity is usually called a conflict. A conflict can be described in multiple ways such as man vs man, man vs nature, and man vs nature just to name a few. Conflict is inevitable in life, but the manner in which you handle is your own choice.
Religion was involved with many things in a person’s life. It affects things like social status, relationships, the economy, culture, and politics. The complex ideas of religion and politics have shaped societies. The Puritans have set their goal to make their society and way of living connected to God in every way, shape, and form. In the seventeenth century this standard to keep God by your side has deeply affected politics and lawmaking, and has even caused some people to be continuously persecuted. From the strength of their religious beliefs stemmed these radical ideas, which deeply affected lives in the 17th century. Though these ideas were a way of life at one point in time, if these ideas were applied to our government today the
In Things Fall Apart there are many cultural collisions created by the introduction of Western ideas into Ibo culture. One example of a cultural collision caused by the introduction of Western ideas into Ibo culture is when Okonkwo’s first son, Nwoye converts to Christianity. This causes a cultural collision between Okonkwo and Nwoye because Nwoye wants to become a Christian, but Okonkwo doesn’t like the white men or Christianity. This cultural collision is caused by the white men bringing in western ideas to Ibo culture. This collision is very important to the book because it leads to the destruction of Okonkwo and fuels his anger. This collision shapes the meaning of the novel as a whole by symbolizing many things
Religion has changed dramatically over the past few decades. Where years ago, it was limited to a few specific set of beliefs in which the majority of people conformed to and few people deviated. Nowadays, religion is immeasurable and varies depending on where you live. Despite all the changes, there are a few basic elements that every religion follows such as; a set of stories, sacredness, community, belief of a higher power, rules/ethics, offer hope and a way to connect with the divine. Although the building blocks are the same, each organizations, religious practices and beliefs are unique.
The novel Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe is a story about personal beliefs, customs and also about conflict. There is struggle between family and within culture and it also deals with the concept of culture and the notion of the values and traditions within a culture. The word culture is Latin and means to cultivate. To cultivate has several meanings; it can mean to plow, fertilize, raise and plant, to win someone’s friendship, woo and take favor with, to ingratiate oneself with, to better, refine, elevate, educate, develop and enrich. In Things Fall Apart all these words are accurate in describing the culture of Umuofia. A culture is an
I found your essay to be very intresting. You taught me something knew that I didn't know before about my religion. I didnt know the Aghori people were the ones who ate human flesh, but i knew a certain hindu group did. I am personally from another Hindu sect. that does not eat human flesh Thank God. Though I do eat meat unless I'm
When discussing religion, many people have different perspectives about religion beliefs and how to approach it. Religion is grouped in different sections such as, religion and spirituality, religion and philosophy, and religion and politics. Religion has many different views from different cultures because everyone approaches it differently with different beliefs also. To make something religion, is to have some type of belief in God, but everyone’s belief is different depending on the culture someone is located in. In society back then and today, religion has no set essence of a definition because of the different aspects people group religion in. This paper will explain the different aspects of what people believe constitutes different types of religion.
Question ( 2 ): Discuss Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe 's “Things Fall Apart” is a tragic hero.
Women are often thought of as the weaker, more vulnerable of the two sexes. Thus, women’s roles in literature are often subdued and subordinate. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, women are repressed by an entrenched structure of the social repression. Women suffer great losses in this novel but, also in certain circumstances, hold tremendous power. Achebe provides progressively changing attitudes towards women’s role. At first glance, the women in Things Fall Apart may seem to be an oppressed group with little power and this characterization is true to some extent. However, this characterization of Igbo women reveals itself to be prematurely simplistic as well as limiting, once