Things Fall Apart

Reading Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, I compare and contrast Igbo hierarchy, religious beliefs, and government to other societies during the time and our current society. So far, it seems like their beliefs in spirits and deities leads to a very specific, strict, and difficultly functioned society. This often leads to rejection of religion and quick decline, such as small and tight populations, increase of disease, emigrations, and conquering by other powerful forces. This obviously infers to Europeans colonizing Africa to be their center of labor. In history, colonies are meant to create or receive something valuable and give it to the leading European in the colony, named a viceroy. Viceroys are forced to give partial profit to their homeland in Europe, and they may keep the rest if they are willing to risk it. Eventually, Europeans colonize areas such as Africa, North America, and South America in order to grow and mine silver, sugar canes, and cash crops by forcing the natives to do the labor for them, leading to slavery. It surprises me how close to modern day this story is set in, and the fact that most of the women were treated as nearly meaningless trophies; meaning that the more women the man had, the higher he is on the hierarchy, but women are seen as pointless if they are not married and bare no kids. Religion plays a factor in this. Catholicism denies any married couple to divorce and remarry, but Igbo religions promote men to have more wives. With multiple wives and few men comes multiple children. Some children are isolated and left out, while others are honored. Their society specifies which child deserves the higher status, which is usually the eldest son of the first wife. With the other children feeling disrespected, they may grow up depressed or with the mindset to prove themselves, or maybe completely different. This may lead to disorganized governing - because they heavily rely on religion -, leading to internal issues and rebellion, further more leading to the decline of society. Ironically, their faith in religion is the soul purpose to their life, and is a factor that is bound to destroy their villages from the inside out.

So far Okonkwo is a so called man who let his beloved son die for the sake of region. He hid his emotions and did not admit he loved Ikemefuna, his adopted son. This does not prove he is a man, if  anything this argues against his claim. The unstable and easily broken structure of the Igbo society is going to be destroyed.