Things Fall Apart By Chinua Achebe - 1543 Words

In order to justify the slave trade, Europeans made Africans look like primitive people who needed to be trained like animals. One way they did this was through literature. Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart, said in an interview that the main reason for writing this novel was to encourage other African writers to write about their past in order to refute the stories of the Europeans, claiming that Africans are uncivilized animals, but also shows that the Ibo were not a perfect society, highlighting the parts of Ibo culture that are considered heinous crimes today, in order to prove that there were no truly civilized societies. In his novel Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe effectively educates his readers about the culture†¦show more content†¦This shows that the clansmen fear their gods and do not wish to offend them for fear of their lives. Moreover the Ibo followed strict rules set to not upset the gods and if they were broken, harsh and quick punishments were imminent, even if they were a respected leader, similar to the conviction of heresy of a Christian noble and their punishment, commonly death. Similarly to the â€Å"civilized† British who are Christian, the Ibo have a main deity. When conversing with Mr. Brown, a Christian missionary, Akkuna, a prosperous villager said â€Å"We also believe in Him and call Him Chukwu. He made all the world and the other gods† (Achebe, 179). By saying this Akkuna shows that the Ibo religion is similar to Christianity since they both have a supreme god who created everything. This, in turn, means that they are similar to civilized nations, making them more civilized. Achebe also acknowledges the Ibo’s Feast of the New Yam a festival carried out before every harvest and is very similar to holidays celebrated by Christians honoring saints and other religious figures. It is significant to their religion because it is meant to â€Å"honor the earth goddess and the ancestral spirit s of the clan. New yams couldn’t be eaten until some had first been offered to these powers first† (Achebe, 36). This festival shows us that the Ibo offered food to their deities,