Igbo Culture In Things Fall Apart, By Chinua Achebe

The Ibo people of Nigeria have gone untouched from the outside world for hundreds of years. In the novel Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, it is depicted how it would be the arrival of Europeans that would forever alter the Ibo culture and Nigeria as a whole. Europeans were able to influence many aspects of Igbo society. It is through religion, government, and education that the Europeans were able to have a lasting impact on Nigerian culture. Religion of the Ibo people was very much traditional. Living in isolation for most of their being, the religion of the Ibo people had never come into contact with the religion of another. Furthermore, their own religion is all they knew, with the coming of the Europeans, would lead to Ibo people questioning their own religion. The Igbo people’s religion believe that there were Gods for all of the different things on Earth. The Evil Forest is something that the Ibo fear, and when the European missionaries arrive they give them a piece of land in the Evil Forest hoping the Forest will kill them. The Achebe writes, “At last the day came by which all the missionaries should have died. But they were still alive, building a new red-earth and thatch house for their teacher, Mr. Kiaga. That week they won a handful more converts. And for the first time they had a woman. Her name was Nneka, the wife of …show more content…
It is through religion, government and education that to this day the lasting impact by British colonization is still seen to this day. In the novel Things Fall Apart, Achebe is able to illustrate how Europeans were able to influence the ways of Igbo society. Although many aspects of Nigeran life ahve been influenced by the ways of the European, many Nigerans still connect with their traditional roots. All in all, even after gaining their indepence of Britain, many facets of daily life still carry the influnce Europeans on Nigerian