Things Fall Apart #2

In the last post, I expressed my disdain for the novel, stating how the plot took too long to unfold and how a bulk of the novel was, in my opinion, exposition. Despite my previous dislike of the novel, I have come to enjoy the book in its last chapters.

I admired the character development of Nwoye and his boldness in converting to Christianity, despite the society's pressures to remain in the religion of his ancestors. From early on in the novel, it was seen that Nwoye possessed a calm, more feminine disposition, feeling "snapping" inside of him whenever an event occurred that did not sit well with his conscience. His sensitive nature and his discomfort with the Igbo religion's rules, such as the abandonment of twins, led you to predict early on that Nwoye would break off from the Igbo traditions.

The plot became more interesting for me as soon as the arrival of the white Christian missionaries was introduced. The semi-tolerant relationship that the Igbo population had with the Christians, and vice versa, was very interesting to me. The granting of a plot of the Evil Forest for the Christians to set up a church in the village of Umuofia was humorous to me. The fact that the Christians did not die from the Forest and its evils, despite the villagers' beliefs, was quite interesting and caused me to wonder if the villagers would learn from that incident of their beliefs failing to hold true, perhaps leading to a mass conversion. But, alas, that did not happen. If anything, the polytheistic beliefs of the Igbo people became even stronger when pressured by the new religion.

I especially enjoyed the descriptions of the conflict between the Christian converts and the Igbo egwugwu, as seen in Enoch's act of stripping an egwugwu spirit of his mask, consequently killing him. The village officials were ready to act violently against the Christians who had adopted Enoch into the faith, but as soon as they reached the church to carry out their revenge, they ceased the violence and simply settled with ordering the Christians off of the land. 

Despite my previous criticisms of the book, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart turned out to be rather enjoyable in the final parts. I would recommend this novel because of its description of the colonization of Africa by the Europeans and the detailed literary prose in which that significant historical time period was described.