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  1. I believe that the problems that Reverend Smith caused between the church and the clan, are meant to depict the issues with the European colonization. The scene in the novel that I felt showed this was when the egwugwu assembled to destroy the church in response to Enoch killing an ancestral spirit. During these events, Okwonko wished to respond to the church in an even more violent fashion. Rather than simply destroying the church, Okwonko wanted his clan to kill the Christians. Even though Okwonko wanted to kill the Christians, it was not mainly due to the disrespect that they showed to his culture. The main reason was to gain greater respect by the village. After his exile, Okwonko was looking for some way to redeem himself. I think that similarities can be drawn between Okwonko and European colonization. Both had ulterior motives for their actions. The reason for European colonization was not to simply spread Christianity. Some of the primary reasons for the colonization were economic and political. Just like Okwonko, the colonist justified their actions as something for the greater good even though their motives were most beneficial to themselves.

“Does the white man understand our custom about land?” “How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad; and our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us? The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”

In this quote Obierka is having a conversation with Okwonko which centers on the events that have occurred since the colonists (white men) arrived.The people who have converted to Christianity now question all the customs from the religion they grew up with. Obierka thinks that the Umuofians have turned their backs on their own “brothers”. This is very upsetting to Obierka because he feels like the white men snuck into their village peacefully just to take everyone away from their own religion. With everyone questioning their religion it effects the social status of the people who are in charge. People have power in the village only because of the religion so if their own people just stop believing in the religion the status of the higher ups lessen and soon will be nothing. Obierka is very angry and Okwonko feels even worse because his own son went to the white man’s religion and almost killed him for it. It just looks like things are really falling apart for the village.

Okonkwo Journal Entry (group 4)

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i have had it up to here with those white men. Not only do they take me away and tortured me with whips and starve me. They make me seem less of a man now. Who are they to come to my clan and destroy all that was good in this great clan. They have come to ruin everything, they have corrupted the minds of many of the people of Umuofia, that including the person that i had once called my son. In the eyes of those white men Umuofia must be seen as weak. But now is the time to act. If the clan decides to avoid war with the white men than i shall take revenge myself. i have always known that these men in the clan are weak. Only I am the strongest of them all. Ive have said it once and ill say it again. If i do not do the job, the job will never be done. i shall wait and see what the meeting will be about tomorrow morning. But until then, i will wait with my armer and weapons to be ready to go into war or go alone myself.

 

I’ve decided to write this Journal Entry because as we get to the ending of the novel we start to see a lot more emotion coming from Okonkwo. We are able to see a lot more on what goes on in his mind. in the beginning of the book we were not sure what kind of man Okonkwo really was. But now that we get to this part of the novel we see that Okonkwo is very revengeful and likes to take action by his own had. He makes it seem like the clan will never be able to take control unless its with war. So during part 3 it seems like the Narrator does not restrict us from okonkwo’s mine and it seems like the narrator does not justify Okonkwo anymore as much as he did in the beginning of the novel.

HW for 12/12

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Hi class,

We’re so close!  Please finish Things Fall Apart for Monday’s class.   Group 4, you’re up to blog by 5 pm on Sunday.  Whether blogging, commenting, or merely reading closely, pay attention to the themes and questions that have come up in this unit so far – regarding images of Africa, Okonkwo’s character, the place of culture, the villagers’ relationship to nature, religion and myth, etc.

Moreover, as one last annotation exercise, please upload a scanned page or .jpg of one page from part III of Things Fall Apart by the beginning of class.  This exercise will count towards your blogs/comment score.

Finally, a reminder that Monday is the last day to show me drafts of your paper.  We will be doing some work with organizing your analysis on Monday’s class.  To that end, please bring Things Fall Apart as well as “At The Mountains of Madness.”

Cheers,

Professor Kwong

Okonkwo Selfishness Towards His Family

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“As Okonkwo sat in his hut that night, gazing into a log fire, he thought over the matter. Sudden fury rose within him and he felt a strong desire to take up his machete, go the church and wipe out the entire vile and miscreant gang. but on further thought he told himself that Nwoye was not worth fighting for. why, he cried in his heart, should he, Okonkwo, of all people, be cursed with such a son?”

From this scene you can see that Okonkwo pride is getting the best of him, we are shown even more how Okonkwo doesn’t care about his family  he only care about himself and his self-image. Okonkwo care about using the land he was given by his uncle in his motherland to try to prove that he will never give but he doesn’t worry about this own family feeling about be exile all he care about is when the seven years will end and he can go home to gain back his respect from his fatherland. Okonkwo hate the fact the these white man come to his country and try to destroy his faith to his gods. For Nwoye making one mistake by talking to one of the priest, Okonkwo go crazy and beat his son and almost try to kill him if wasn’t for his uncle to stop Okonkwo from doing that to his son, Nwoye would’ve die if he didn’t answer his father and from that Okonkwo disown him and told his son to never  come back. That was not fair for Nwoye because when his father made that mistake by killing his own clan mate, his son never said anything or hated his father for having to leave his home and friends for seven years. He just went with his family and never argue about it but Okonkwo doesn’t care about his son he wouldn’t even understand what his son was doing or try to convince him to not do what Nwoye was going to do because Okonkwo only cares about his self, he doesn’t want to know why Nwoye was doing this but why he was cursed with such a son.