The Colonial Impact in "Things Fall Apart"

In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe white missionaries from Great Britain come to the various Ibo/Igbo villages in Nigeria. Many men and women from those villages are converted to the christian faith in the process. Also, the leaders of the village slowly began to lose power and influence as the missionaries began to convert more people and build more churches and buildings. Besides the fact that they converted so many to their cause, their more advanced technology also easily allowed them to take over.

The missionaries first began to arrive in chapter fifteen, when the main character's (Okonkwo) friend Obierika visits him in his second year of exile. A little ways into their conversation, a village named Abame  was talked about. Obierika tells Okonkwo that it had been wiped out after they had killed a white man that had appeared. Two years later, Obierika pays another visit to tell Okonkwo that the missionaries had arrived in their village of Umuofia. Obierika tells him of the people that were converted by the missionaries; "None of them was a man of title. They were mostly the kind of people that were called efulefu" (143).  Efulefu are people who were basically not respected by the clan and held no titles. This is how most colonial takeovers are started. Those who feel rejected and underappreciated by their society look to the missionaries who welcome them with open arms. As more and more people join them, they gain more influence in the form of manpower, as well as changes the convert's viewpoints to that of their own. Essentially it steals the hard power and soft power of the village, until the Ibo/Igbo find that they are no longer in control. An example of someone who felt rejected (which we had seen throughout the entire novel) and was then converted was Okonkwo's own son, Nwoye; "What moved Obierika to visit Okonkwo was the sudden appearance of the latter's son, Nwoye, among the missionaries in Umuofia" (143). 

The slow and total takeover of the villages in Things Fall Apart was due mostly to the missionaries' ability to convert so many of the lower class of the Ibo/Igbo. As people left their original society to join the missionaries, those who refused to join, and even those who did join, found themselves being subjugated and controlled. The biggest reason for this was that there were simply not enough people left to defend their way of life.

The role of women in "Things Fall Apart"

   Women in Things Fall Apart and in Igbo/Ibo culture are definitely not the dominant sex. Most people seem to see their role as subservient, and tend to get a little angry about it. While women in this culture are not seen as important as men (at least so far in the novel), this is not necessarily the case.

   Some of the jobs that women were assigned are growing crops, although these are considered "women's crops"; "they grew women's crops, like coco-yams, beans and cassava" (22-23). They are called this because yams are considered to be the "kings of crops", and thus a man's crop. While the yam may be important among Igbo/Ibo culture, crops like cassava are a "major staple food in the developing world, providing a basic diet for over half a billion people". Without these "women's crops", the clan would soon die out. In the novel, the person chosen to represent their one of their most important godesses, the oracle Agbala, is a woman named Chielo. One interesting thing to point out is that the definition of agbala is woman or a man without title. It seems curious to me that they decided to name one of their most important deities this.

   Although women in this culture may be mistreated, they are also honored, which we must not forget when complaining about another people's culture. Women in the novel must not be so mistreated or undervalued as some may think if they are the one's chosen to grow their main food supply as well as representing their gods.

"Cassava." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2016.

On the subject of Chi

From what I understand, chi in Igbo/Ibo culture is something similar to a guardian angel. Chi is a person's "personal god", whom you depend on for good health and fortune, as well as determining your destiny. Your chi is seen as a fragment of the "universal" chi, the god Chineke. At one point during Things Fall Apart, we learn that each person has a shrine to his or her chi in their own hut, showing that a person's chi is very important among society, maybe almost as important as the greater dieties. Also, on page 27 of the novel, it is said that "when a man says yes his chi says yes also". This further reinforces how a deeply intertwined a person's chi is with his or herself. All in all, chi seems to be very important among Igbo/Ibo culture, determining how one is viewed by the others in society.