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Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
not disappeared, but had been lying dormant inside him.
Uchendu is quite an important character in the story, despite his relatively small part in the proceedings. The main point we should extract from this section of the story concerning him is the change that has occurred in the Igbo tribe throughout his lifetime. This is shown when he says how Obierika’s father used to visit Mbanta regularly and had many friends there. He then goes on to say how people don’t travel or visit other villages or places anymore. A good example of something he significant he says is, when speaking to both Okonkwo and Obierika, “You stay at home, afraid of your next-door neighbor. Even a man’s motherland is strange to him nowadays.” This quote also helps to show us how much more fear has become a part of everyday life in the Igbo culture. This is extremely relevant later in the story, when we see how fear stops the villagers from taking action against the settlers.
The most important part this passage plays in the story is the introduction of the white missionaries. This is a major turning point in the story, as it is where things really begin to fall apart on a large scale, not just for Okonkwo. It is because of the missionaries that Okonkwo loses his son and his culture, and ends up taking his own life. The story tells us of one white man who turned up at Abame. The inhabitants consulted the Oracle who told them he would break their clan and spread destruction among them, and that more white men were following. This said, they killed the white man and tied his motorbike to a tree, referring to it as an ‘iron horse’, for fear of it running to tell the other white men. This helps to show us how primitive the Igbo culture is, and how they would be easily susceptible to more advanced ideas taking them in. this act also led to several of the white man’s fellow missionaries coming to Abame and massacring the villagers leaving very few survivors. This shows us that the white men are far more powerful, but that they will not use violence unless provoked, giving us further clues about Okonkwo’s fate. This is a new idea to the Igbo people, as they usually sort out any quarrels they have through fighting of some sort. We can see by the missionaries’ relative success in this small conquest that many Igbo people would surely be happy to give up their old way of life, as it is obvious that it had become dated.
After Obierika has told the story of Abame we see Achebe introducing some dramatic irony through Obierika. He says, “We have heard stories about white men who made the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no-one thought the stories were true.” This is [next page]