Culture and Universal Principles in Things Fall Apart Essay

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Things Fall Apart and the Issue of Culture

From a cultural analysis perspective, the two main cultures represented in Achebe's Things Fall Apart, stem from opposing religious/social positions and both react to and against one another in different ways, as illustrated by the actions of the main character Okonkwo, a native Igbo and leader of his community (violently committed to defending his tribe's ways and culture against other tribes and against the incoming foreign invasion of the Christian missionaries and British soldiers), and by Nwoye, Okonkwo's son who rejects the culture and beliefs of the Ibo tribe and converts to Christianity. The split between father and son represents the split at the heart of the novel between two cultures and two worldviews; neither is without its flaws and both speak to different matters of the heart and head. However, the irreconcilable differences that arise between the meeting of the two cultures and the imminent clash that leaves Okonkwo dead (from suicide) are rooted in both the personalities of those involved (Okonkwo is extremely passionate and hard-line; the British District Commissioner is cold-hearted and indifferent to the plight of the tribal community, viewing them as "primitives" in need of pacification) and the social customs that they are used to upholding (Achebe, 1996, p. 149). This paper will provide a cultural analysis of the novel and show how the manifestation of the two opposing cultures is tied to passion, ignorance, and inhumanity, which ironically contrasts with the aims and ideals of each of the two cultures at their most basic core.

As Achebe shows early on in the novel, the Igbo tribe's culture is based on respect as the tribe pays homage to the leaders and prays for blessings and commitment to one another. Thus they pray, "We shall all live. We pray for life, children, a good harvest and happiness. You will have what is good for you and I will have what is good for me" (Achebe, 1996, p. 14). There is a hint of resolution, of acceptance and even a submission to fate that echoes in the prayer as the community gives thanks early on. What Achebe also shows, however, is that Okonkwo is a man filled with pride (not that the pride is necessarily misplaced, for he is a great man, who has succeeded well and done well for himself and his tribe), but it is evident that he scorns weak things and weak people and does not like to associate with them. This flaw in Okonkwo is not cultural but rather personal, yet it builds on the cultural inheritance that he embraces and drives a wedge between him and his son, who comes to embrace the culture of the British Protestant Christians, who send missionaries into the Okonkwo's land. The son, described as weak throughout the novel, finds the Christian message appealing because it is based on the idea of grace coming through suffering and a God who loves the weak (they shall inherit the earth, after all). That such weakness should find such favor with a God is not something that Okonkwo can stand (his pride will not permit it -- though there is nothing really in his culture that suggests that he and his people are not also dependent upon a higher power for favors and sustenance, as they all make sacrifices to these powers throughout the story). The problem is that Okonkwo is not willing to allow this foreign culture to invade his sphere or communicate its message: he is protective of what is his and views the missionaries as invaders, who ultimately must be driven out.

As Osei-Nyame (1999) notes, there is a dichotomy within both cultures -- a split that manifests itself in similar terms (strength and weakness in Okonkwo's terms; good and evil in the Christian terms), and there are elements of both in each of the characters. Okonkwo is not as strong as he would like to think himself, and there is an episode in the novel where he becomes very drunk for a number of days and displays his own inability to carry on with his normal tasks or routines, crumbling under the weight of his own internal demons. Similarly, the demons of the colonialists are evident in their approach to the natives, viewing them as individuals that need to be conquered (aka "pacified") or even broken so as to fit more conveniently into the mold that the British would prefer to be in, so as to render them the more pliable for the aims of the colonizers.

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The role that religion plays in the cultural takeover is ambiguous, as on the one hand it facilitates the submission by preaching a philosophy that is accepting of suffering and whatever burdens come one's ways, but on the other hand it is in existence for its reasons, which are religious, moral and spiritual (but which so happen to be useful to the aims of the colonizers).

At issue in the clash is the impact of two worlds that do not communicate well or that are not entirely transparent, which is "fundamentally problematic" for Caldwell (2005), who views transparency as a major factor in the establishment of rapport between cultures and of stability within organizational environments (p. 83). The religious missionaries bring their Christian culture, which, while it offends Okonkwo, does not push him to extreme violence; it is only once the regime that arrives behind the religious group begins to manifest its actual intentions that Okonkwo's fury is inflamed. He feels that the new culture has duped them all, and that the only recourse now is to resort to violence; it is the last resort that the tribe has always utilized when coming into contact with other tribes that have attempted to assert their authority over them. Okonkwo is not discouraged by the fact that the new culture is more powerfully supported by a much larger entity than he is used to fighting throughout his life; he is acting on a matter of principle (though that principle is still intertwined with his own personal motives, such as his distaste of weakness, of his son converting, and of his pride being impinged upon). He will rather die than yield to the newcomers, and this is partly born of cultural differences and partly born of personality. It is the "relationship between individual and social change" that is depicted in the final conflict of the novel, as Gilbert (1989, p. 91) notes. This means that the intentions of the individual (of Okonkwo for example versus the intentions of the Christian missionary or of the District Commissioner) are in a position to respond to social change (for Okonkwo the social change is the arrival and forced impress of the new culture on the old; for the District Commissioner it is the brief uprising of the natives against the stability and order imposed by the colonizers upon the natives). The relationship between the individual and the social order/change is like that of the two cultures, which can be viewed as a macro- manifestation of the same idea. The smaller culture (the Igbo) is like the individual culture and the British colonizers are like the representation of the social, and one or the other will prevail when conflict becomes apparent.

Langford (1999) describes this situation as the "politics of intervention" by which it is meant that when one power descends on another, less dominant power, there is a political discourse that results, which is represented in cultural ways that are not entirely understood or welcomed by the more dominant power. It is, moreover, that aim of the dominant power to dominate and subdue (which is what makes the British position so ironic in the novel -- it comes at the rear of the Christian message which is not a message of dominance but rather of acceptance; ironically, it turns out that what the natives are to accept in this case is their subjugation). For Okonkwo, who rejects the Christian cultural message, there is to be no subjugation, and this is represented by his tragic death at the end of the novel, when he takes his own life rather than put it into the hands of outsiders who do not share his values, religious beliefs, or deign to participate in the validation of his pride. Thus, the discourse between the two cultures is muddied by the already complicated and complex discourse evident within the heart and mind of the central character, who has both strength and weakness at war within him -- or, in the terms of the imposing Christian culture, both good and evil within him. The same can likewise be said of the missionary culture, which in its thirst for converts does not stop to proscribe a prudent method of infiltrating the land and disrupting the culture imperatives or norms within the territory; it views itself as correct, yet displays imprudence and disrespect for the familial supports that Okonkwo values (he is not shown any esteem….....

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