The White Man In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

The historical fiction novel, Things Fall Apart written by a Nigerian author Chinua Achebe was written in the 1950’s, during the postcolonial era. The story takes place in Umuofia around nine villages and is about Okonkwo, a man who is living a life with anger and fear. He is a very respected person and is also a polygamous man. The white missionaries are represented differently. In the Ibo culture Okonkwo saw the white men as a threat due to their development in Umuofia.

From beginning to end, white men are considered to be inadequate and make the Ibo tribe feel intimidated. Just when the white man appeared to Umuofia on his iron horse, people around didn 't recognize who it was, so what they did to protect themselves was to hide. Achebe …show more content…
To elaborate, he mentioned “The three white men and a very large number of other men surrounded the market...and they began to shoot”(Achebe 139). They didn 't realize that they would have industrial-strength. Shows us that people judge others by how they see them, but don 't realize that they are way better than what they observe. All they wanted was revenge for killing one of the white man, but they also want to convert people into christians. In addition, this show how Okonkwo would be losing man and why he would feel powerless and worthless, because he is not going to have anyone to protect him. The moment that the Ibo tribe gave them the evil forest, they began to settle down. When it states “They had built their church there, won a handful of converts and were already sending evangelists to the surrounding towns and villages”(Achebe 143). This citation explained that according to Ibo tribes, the white men are not weak and do have the capacity to have power to control and create new things. As well, Okonkwo well feel hopeless because the people that follow the ibo culture will be converting into christians. People do have the ability to prove wrong others that doubt them for being different. As mentioned, “The first day passed and the second, and third..and none dead.. It became known that the white man’s fetish had unbelievable power”(Achebe 149). This …show more content…
Smith a white missionary who cared about the people that were converting and made positive changes. They have have created a small group of christians and it grows throughout the novel. He is a very harding working person and “came to be respected even by the clan, because he trod softly on its faith”(Achebe 178). Signifies that he is more comprehensible and is less violent than okonkwo, so people would not be scared of him and would like to be around him. He would try and help the people out to be a bit more free. While in the other hand, Mr. Smith is the complete opposite of Mr. Brown he could careless about what happens with the people. He wanted to change everything and “saw the things as black and white. And black was evil”(Achebe 184). Explains to use that he does not really care and was he sees dark he doesn 't even bother to look, and help. Would be a favor to Okonkwo because they would want to leave the christian world and go back with the ibo culture. Achebe’s point of view in white men is that he conjectured them the same way that the western people wrote books, dealing with the African culture. This was his first Nigerian novel, so he did have a purpose to write it. Also, Achebe’s aim towards the white men was to portray them as weedy in the beginning and after have that shift that would change the story. Additionally, Achebe wants to make the white men unneeded, but in that case he was trying to put them in negative situation to show