His father fears raising a son like his own lazy father. As Nwoye grows up, Okonkwo tries to suppress any possible sign of this by “constant nagging and beating” (Achebe 14). From a young age, Nwoye internalizes that he is worthless. He only receives praise from his mother, who, as a woman, is supposedly insignificant. His greatest role model is constantly and violently ashamed of him. Nwoye feels like an outsider. He feels “a snapping inside him” after Okonkwo’s abuses. (Achebe 61). When the missionaries arrive, Nwoye visits the church out of curiosity and returns home to a harsh beating. As soon as Okonkwo lets him go, Nwoye “walk[s] away and never return[s],” leaving for a Christian school in another village (Achebe 152). To save himself, Nwoye has to escape his situation, but that means escaping everything. He cannot pick and choose and in the end has to leave everything that has made him who he is for a chance at…
How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind: Rediscovering the African Seedbed of Western Christianity By Thomas C. Oden Downers Grove, Ill: Intervarsity Press, 2008, 204 pp, $ 19.00 hardcover. Thomas Oden, an accomplished scholar in systematic and historical theology, and retired professor at Drew University, has offered a compelling and positively provocative work in How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind. A work of scholarly repentance, he ably repudiates the posture of western theologians and historians (i.e. Harnack, Bauer, Schleiermacher) toward Africa’s theological legacy (pp. 57-59). His present work is the fruit of thirty years of reading the early African fathers, and in the last fourteen, he has served as the general editor of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture. From this rich background, Oden develops the book’s resounding thesis: African theology (facilitated by Clement, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, Athanasius, among others) is the “seedbed”—an appropriate Tertullianism—of western Christianity and thought. Unlike his mentors at Yale (p. 130), Oden takes a servant’s posture in telling the African story. Receiving encouragement from African theologians like Tite Tiénou (p. 36), and circulating the manuscript to three dozen African scholars prior to publication (pp. 85-86), it is appropriate that the dust jacket endorsements come from African scholars Tiénou and Lamin Sanneh. A concise, well-written, and accessible work, Oden’s introduction highlights the unprecedented growth of modern African Christianity, while arguing that its Patristic tradition is largely unknown to Africans and has been ignored by Europeans. In chapter one, “A Forgotten Story,” he further raises the issues of Africa’s forgotten status and makes the case for writing the book. In chapter two, “Seven Ways Africa Shaped the Christian Mind,” he winsomely argues for Africa’s primal influence on western Christian thought. Chapters three, four, and five— “Defining Africa,” “One…
As the white men moved into the Igbo's land, their culture, values and their beliefs changed. These changes were extremely evident, but in the end the Igbo were unable to doing anything to stop the changes that had already start taking place in their society. As soon as the whites arrived, they introduced a new religion that was completely different than the natives were accustomed to. The white man told the Igbos that, “they worshipped false gods, gods of wood and stone,” (145) also, he mentioned that there was only one God, the creator of everything. Okonkwo was convinced that the man was entirely wrong, but his first son, Nwoye, had been captivated by all of these new ideas, and after a discussion with his father, “Nwoye decided to go to Umuofia where missionaries had a school to teach, to read and write the new Christians. (152)” “He was happy to leave his father to follow the missionaries. (152)” Indeed, Nwoye was not the only one convinced by the new form of religion, but also other natives, and some of them turned away from everything they were, just to be part of it. Before colonialism, the unit of the family was very important in the Igbo culture, but with the arrival of missionaries and their religion the division among families began. Sons, wives, and daughters separated voluntarily from their family to follow the new form of religion, even clans could no longer act as…
Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart exemplifies two sharply contrasting sides of the impact that religion can have on a society, being its ability to unify and segregate the people of a community. In the book’s first part, religion acts as the glue holding together the structure of Ibo society: it is the basis that helps to found the society’s rituals, moral code, and gender roles. Religion’s position as the leading authority in the tribe also helps to communicate a major theme in the book: the idea that society determines what is worthy of respect. Yet, in parts two and three of the book, the introduction of another religion, Christianity, to the tribe of Umuofia divides the Ibo people and creates immense controversy. Furthermore, even though there are major similarities in the religion of the Ibo and Christianity, the various more minor…
Updike, John. “A&P”. In The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. 560-564. Print.…
The simplification of such complex concepts makes it easier for readers who have little to no prior religious understanding to comprehend the basic themes of this novel. For this reason, Armstrong's work has been highly popular among individuals who are seeking a deeper understanding of their faith, or other widespread religions. This aside, it is not a reliable academic text. An overwhelming amount of statements and claims made in this book are coloured by opinion, and are in fact, not of any legitimate substance. Any one reading this novel must interpret it with a grain of salt, and it should not be used to contribute to any scholarly studies. Armstrong plucks what she deems to be important from religious texts, and implements it into her writing, yet she misses crucial facts while doing so. For example, there are inadequate references to the Israelites Exodus from Egypt, considering the grave importance placed on this story in Judaism. This leads one to enquire what other facts may have been left out, or over emphasized. Academic texts are meant to be impartial, yet A History of God is at times warped to prove an opinion of…
-After Nwoye is lured into the Christian religion and abandons his culture and family, Okonkwo is ashamed and states, "you have all see the great abomination of your brother. Now he is no longer my son or your brother. I will only have a son who is a man, who will hold his head up among my people" (172). Nwoye's father disowns him only because he chooses a path untraditional to his culture. The serious, frustrated, and unhappy mood that is created in Okonkwo's statement gives the reader an idea of how much the Ibo culture values tradition, choice, and family.…
Eliot, T.S. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” The Norton Introduction to Literature: Shorter Tenth Edition. Eds. Allison Booth and Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2010. 1015-1019. Print.…
The Christian religion believes in one God, the God is the father of all children in humanity. Chinua Achebe describes the impact of Christianity towards the Ibos of Umuofia in his historic novel Things Fall Apart. In a land where ancestral spirits hold powers to the Ibos, it settles in section three when Mr.Brown (the father of the Christian church) preaches the Christian faith by using a translator towards the Ibos. An Ibo with title, Okonkwo, builds up anger towards the Christian religion when he views his people of Umuofia changing their ways of the beliefs of ancestral spirits, transitioning those beliefs to the pathway of Christianity. Chinua Achebe uses the religion of ancenstral spirits and Christianity for the readers to have an ideal thought on how religion plays a large role to the ill temper man, Okonkwo. Okonkwo’s anger results from his disagreement with the Christian religion that has moved in to his tribe, Umuofia.…
He observed Nwoye writing in dirt with a twig about the good karma of Christianity for weeks at a time after Ikemefuna's one year anniversary. I could see it in his oak irises; full of discontent and disappointment. Once Okonkwo stopped, the two bloods stared into each other’s with deep concentration. The tension was thick enough between the father and son that it could be cut through with the machete Okonkwo had tight in his fist. “Boy, are you mad?” He was the first one to speak since they made eye contact. “I don’t want this life anymore. I want to be with Ike!” Okonkwo cackled heartily grasping his built abdomen. “No religion would do that son. You propose it as if you were infatuated…
Although the full meaning within T. S. Eliot’s dense poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” proves difficult to grasp, the deep meaning packed into every word makes the pursuit to understanding this poem a never-ending adventure. Scenery in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” represents an intensely psychological account which should never, in any instance, by taken literally. The loss of time, the confusion of past, present and future tenses, the static movement, and the eternal metaphor of the question produces this psychological scenery which in turn amplifies the intensity of the poem.…
T.S. Eliot was a literary and social critic, play writer, and publisher. The poem that made him well known was called “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. It was started in 1910, and was finally published in 1915. When poems are written, they typically reflect the emotional state that the author is in at the time. Due to the tone of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, the reader can interpret that T.S. Eliot may have been in a dark stage of his life.…
While this is a great point, the missionaries eventually pull Igbo people into their own culture, breaking some traditions. The people who did not fully agree with the Igbo traditions decide to break away and confirm to Christianity. For example, Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son, does not believe in certain rules and is interested in Christianity. A couple years into Okonkwo’s exile, Obierika stumbles upon Nwoye among the missionaries in Umuofia. Obierika decides to visit Okonkwo for an explanation. “He finds that Okonkwo does not wish to speak about Nwoye. It is only from Nwoye’s mother that he hears scraps of the story” (Achebe 144). Okonkwo believes Nwoye is a disgrace to the family and never wishes to speak of his “womanly” self again. Due to the Europeans converting members of the Igbo clan to Christianity, they are forced to change their cultural traditions. As Obierika said, “it is too late, our own men and our sons have joined the ranks of the stranger” (Achebe 176). These illustrations display the conditions for questioning and constructive change of violent traditions are present in the Igbo society (Hoegberg 60), but simply from the amount of time and new actions interfering with their own culture putting them in…
Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Oxford History of the American People. New York, New American Library, 1985…
“The Feast of the New Yam was held every year before the harvest began, to honor the earth goddess” (Achebe 37). The Ibo people constantly live in fear that they would be punished by their gods and that their harvest would turn out unsatisfactory. At no time is this more evident than when Okonkwo beats his second wife during the sacred week of peace, which is a time between the harvest and planting season to please the gods. People in the society simply do the “justice of the earth goddess, and they were merely her messengers” (125). They do whatever it takes to please their gods, but when it comes to certain things it leaves a few puzzled. Nwoye begins to search for answers when “the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed”. It ultimately leads to his and many others’ conversions to Christianity. In the British Christianity, it is said that “the same God created you and them”, and that he “who has promised everlasting life to all who believe in His holy name” and there was no more fearing the gods, only praising (157).…