Power In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

Superior Essays
There have been many cases in which money has determined power and status. One such example was during the conversion of African tribes by Christian missionaries. In Chinua Achebe 's book, Things Fall Apart, the reader is told the tale of a village being slowly taken over by the Christian missionaries from England, from the point of view of one of the most revered men in the area, Okonkwo. Okonkwo has always been afraid of being perceived as weak, and this promotes him to fight against the opposing force that wants to ruin their way of life. Although the missionaries came for religious reasons, they also wished to "civilize" the area, so they installed their own government and began to improve the trading system, making much of their power …show more content…
Later on in the book, the leaders of Umuofia are told to visit the District Commissioner to discuss a recent upsetting of the peace. The leaders have violent intentions regarding the meeting. The Commissioner foresaw the hostility and the leaders are imprisoned. The bail to set them free is set at 200 bags of cowries and the punishment for the leaders, should the bail not be paid, is to be hung. The messengers of the court who tell the people of the bail raise it to 250 so that they can get some money for themselves. The situation is expressed clearly in the message given by the court messengers: “Unless you pay the fine immediately,” said their headman, “we will take your leaders to Umuru before the big white man, and hang them.” (Achebe 265) The people of the clan have power in their cowries, and the white man is demanding it in exchange for their leaders ' lives. The white man has much power and significance as well because they have gotten ahold of many cowries themselves through trade, explaining how they could make such a demand. The transfer of power can be seen in how the people of Umuofia submit to the District Commissioner and give him the cowries in exchange for the power of their leaders. Not only was one kind of symbolic power traded for another, but this incident has lowered the power of the Igbo and increased the authority and …show more content…
When the missionaries begin to come in and establish themselves, they have a profound positive effect on the trade in the area and make a considerable amount of money in the process. It is stated in the book as such: “The white man had indeed brought a lunatic religion, but he had also built a trading store and for the first time palm-oil and kernel became things of great price, and much money flowed into Umuofia.” (Achebe 241) It can be easily implied that Umuofia became more powerful during this time, as the historical trend shows that rich places are often powerful and influential places as well. With a source of income established, it can be seen how the white men become more powerful as well. They have a source of income, and that means a source of power. Every time palm-oil and kernel are sold, the people of the area that purchase it are essentially handing power to the white men. This is what allows the District Commissioner to do such powerful and authoritative things later on. Even evaluated in a market situation, the constant flow of money is a flow of power and

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    1. It’s All Political Summary: Literature tends to be written by people interested in the problems of the world, so most works have a political element in them.…

    • 1803 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Okonkwo's Downfall

    • 936 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Yesterday, November 2nd, 1893, Okonkwo, an influential leader of the Village of Umuofia in Southern Niger, was found dead hanging from a tree in his own compound. His death was ruled as suicide by hanging. On the 2nd, Okonkwo murdered one of the District Commissioner’s messengers at a village gathering. Several messengers were sent to disperse the assembly of villagers. Onlookers recalled the messenger saying, “The white man whose power you know too well has ordered this meeting to stop,” before he was attacked by Okonkwo.…

    • 936 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Fall Of Okonkwo Quotes

    • 1582 Words
    • 7 Pages

    To add on to the Commissioner’s arrogant character, he plans on naming this book, The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger. This man is disparaging the people of Umuofia by calling them primitive based on how they…

    • 1582 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The definition of the word civilized is opinion based. But being civilized is not simply just being objective it is subjective as well. There are two sides because the only way to to define the word civilized and to say whether a culture is civilized or not is to be apart of that culture. So i believe that the only way for me to know if the ibo culture is civilized is if i was apart of that culture.…

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Native American Culture

    • 522 Words
    • 3 Pages

    If we should try to drive out the white men in Umuofia we should find it easy. There are only two of them.¨(online 62). Another way that the church tears the society apart is by taking its leaders into custody. Okonkwo and…

    • 522 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Power has the ability to overcome and make anyone in its way obsessed with having it. Power can turn even the best, most moral people into people full of greed and hate. In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the Ibo tribe is becoming oppressed and disrespected by the arrival of Christian Missionaries. Achebe shows us through the imprisonment of the tribe leaders and the forcing of the Missionary 's government onto the tribe that a thirst for power can destroy and break things apart. When the Christians first came to Umuofia, they only brought a religion.…

    • 1250 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A portion of Umuofia’s people change their ways to join the British, including the son of the novel’s main character, but most of them will not let their traditions falter…

    • 1007 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The backbone of any piece of writing is the type of literary conflict that revolves within it. To truly understand the inner workings of any piece, one must be familiar with the four main types of conflict: Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, Man vs. Society, and Man vs. Self. Many literary works include more than one of these forms of conflict, including Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. However, it can be said that Man vs. Man is the most prevalent of these forms within this work. The Man vs. Man conflict form in Things Fall Apart covers the relationship between the main character, Okonkwo, and his first son, Nwoye.…

    • 1089 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The first case is about a woman who has run away from her husband’s house, because he beat her, and was very abusive. The verdict is that the man shall bring his wife back by giving gifts to her family and promise to never beat her again. (Society) This chapter serves as another reminder that African society is more civilized than western authors say it was. The African people’s are not barbaric and are capable of civil justice, as shown by the fact that the Umuofia clan has a justice…

    • 2395 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    It is apparent that the Ibo people greatly respect, as well as fear, the Egwegwu. These ancestral embodiments are the Ibo’s form of a court- they administer fairness and justice to the lot of the clan. This system of the Igbo community showed that the culture that is considered barbaric by the missionaries has its own complex system of enforcing law and prosecuting violators of the law. As this quote provides, the egwegwu provided the clan with a sort of trial system- [Odukwe]: “The law of Umuofia is that if a woman runs away from her husband her bride-price is…

    • 1463 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Fear caused many things in this book, one of which being the outcome of this book. Fear drove Okonkwo, the leading character in this book who is known for his strength and grit, to take his own life at the end of the novel. Okonkwo knew “that Umuofia would not go to war” against the colonizing Christians (205). Because of this, Okonkwo feared that his clan would allow the Christians to take over the governmental, social, economic and religious systems in Umuofia. With that, if the Christians were to take over, his chances of gaining many titles of high status…

    • 1544 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The novel Things Fall Apart, written by the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. Things fall apart takes place in the fictional village of Umuofia, supposedly located in Southern Nigeria, before and during the relative time of European colonization. As a result of white European missionaries suddenly arriving to Umuofia, the people of the village are not certain how to deal with a sudden religious, cultural and lifestyle change that the missionaries bring with them. Colonialism by white missionaries left evident negative effects and change on Igbo society. European colonialism efforts destroy families, friendships and peace between the tribes.…

    • 1261 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Customs play a major part in all our lives. We as a society all are brought up on certain customs in our households and even within our generations. In the novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe customs are yet again essential in their everyday lives. The novel takes place in the Umuofia and Mbanta villages of the Igbo tribe in Nigeria, around the 1900's. Okonkwo, a well-respected warrior of the Umuofia clan, has a rising conflict within the novel between the traditional society of Umuofia and the new customs that have been brought by the whites.…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Culture is what keeps people in a certain areas connected and is used to make a sustainable society to live in. Although the main goal of a culture is to unite the people some fall sort and still have separation between the people. In the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, A Nigerian village named the Ibo village is described very well but Achebe does not shy away from showing the reader how the villages culture and traditions divide the people more than unite them. Some of the villages ideas only separates the people rather than unite them which cause the culture to ultimately fall in the end.…

    • 1497 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is about the unfortunate downfall of the protagonist, Okonkwo, and the Igbo culture. Okonkwo is an honored and effective leader within the Igbo community of Umuofia in eastern Nigeria. Things Fall Apart set about instituting the legitimacy of life in tribal Nigeria in the late 19th century, before the arrival of the "civilising" colonialism of Christian missionaries. There are many themes in Things Fall Apart but one theme that is very prominent is anti-colonialism and the clashing of cultures.…

    • 1977 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays