Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

There is a huge struggle between tradition and change. In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe we see this struggle happen with the main character, Okonkwo. He is a man who has gained respect with his people by hard work throughout his life without having a role model father who eventually died while in debt. Okonkwo’s identity is challenged by the cultural collision because it endangered his role within his people, changed his people’s ways and views toward him, and caused his family to break apart. The Ibo tradition was challenged to the western ways, and it failed due to the force set out by the British and how they were able to convert much of the villages. For Okonkwo, he couldn’t handle all this change, which brought him to his despise
and his death.

Okonkwo, along with higher class men view the church as a threat because it can overpower their positions and make their title meaningless.
On the beginning of chapter 17 is states that “It was not very easy getting the men of high title and the elders after the excitement of the first day.” Of course it wasn’t. How do the white men expect these men to easily give up their positions that they have worked for their whole lives? The higher class men understand that converting to Christianity means giving up being the high roller of the village and having to be ruled by someone else who doesn't even understand the culture they have now. “These outcasts, or osu, seeing that the new religion welcomed twins and such abominations, thought that it was possible that they would also be received.” Everyone was welcomed in the new religion, even the outcasts of the village. The church was growing with converts, mainly from the efulefu (titleless, worthless men). Okonkwo, among with other high class men, know that without men of lower status around their titles and positions as religious leaders lose force and prestige. They are thinking more for themselves than for what's best for the village. However, they have the right to do so since they have worked hard to earn the positions that they are in now. Okonkwo needs the lower status men that are converting in order to gain his position as a higher class man because without them there could really only be one
class.

The British were mostly able to convert a certain type of people, the weak. That's how Okonkwo sees it as he says that the people of Mbanta have a “womanly” clan and that the people of Umuofia would not have let the white men take control of the fatherland. He, however, is wrong. The people of Umuofia, Okonkwo's people, had greatly changed. Many of them, including Ogbuefi Ugonna, who had taken two titles, converted to the new Christian religion as the British had brought not only their culture, but their government as well. Life itself change for the people of Umuofia. The church had weakened the kinship ties between the people which made it hard for them to run them out of the village and even if they didn't want to change, it was easier to do so then try to live with them stopping and putting barriers on them on what they could and couldn't do. “He (Okonkwo) discerned fright in that tumult. He heard voices asking: "Why did he do it?" At this moment Okonkwo realizes that his people are not really with him after he kills the white messenger. The way his people look at him is a completely different way than what he expected after this action. Everyone sees that Okonkwo has become slightly crazy, and we see this foreshadowed by the way he fantasizes I chapter 20 about obtaining the highest title of Umuofia upon his return.

Okonkwo still believed that Nwoye could become a great clansman, up until he learned about him being around the white men. He almost killed Nwoye by strangling him which pushed Nwoye to leave the family and convert. He then went to writing and reading school to become a future teacher. From then on, Okonkwo did not want to talk about Nwoye. After Nwoye left, Okonkwo showed no sign of changing how he taught his younger kids about true masculinity, refusing the fact that aggressiveness and pensiveness are not gender-defined. He thinks this as he regrets that Ezinma is not a boy.