Things Fall Apart

When I began reading Things Fall Apart, I started to dread the assignment. The simple language and the diverseness of the culture (many hard-to-pronounce names), as well as the slow plot, signaled a slow read for me. However, as I trudged on in the book, the plot got better and I found myself curious to find out how the story would end.

When I reached the second half, I felt like there was a sudden turn. The Christians arrived and the Ibo people were all shook up. As a Christian myself, I was curious how they would be portrayed and how the Ibo people would react. I wasn't surprised when the Ibo people began to resist their arrival, nor that some of the Ibo people broke from their villages and families and converted to Christianity.

I did not suspect, however, that the ending would occur as it did. Things truly did fall apart for the family of Okonkwo and the Ibo people. Even though he had received help from friends and neighbors to change his life earlier, in the end he made choices that he later regreted and I think it finally hit him that he never would be the successful man he dreamed of, not with 2 murders to his name.

Because the arrival of the Christians changed the tone of the novel, I decided to find out more about the Christian missionary influence in Nigeria. Apparently Christianity was introduced by Catholic priests who arrived with traders and officials at Benin along the West African coast in the 1800s to serve the Portugese community and a small number of African converts, but left when the Portugese did and then was reintroduced later by the British Church of England Church Missionary Society and were followed by other Christian groups.

I was also amazed to find in my search a blog about 2 missionary families that had to leave Nigeria in 2006 after having been there since 1920 because the people there threatened to kill them and ended up destroying their village and killing many of their people.