Things Fall Apart Cultural Collision

In the minds of the Europeans, sending out missionaries to spread Christianity and the word God was a positive. However, it caused untold havoc on the tribes and people they tried to convert. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, gives us a look at the impact missionaries had on the people they affected. Okonkwo, the main character of Things Fall Apart, we see is impacted by the cultural collision of the Ibo society and the Christian missionaries. Okonkwo strives to appear masculine and uncontrollable anger are what lead to his sense of identity being challenged due to the cultural collision.
Okonkwo’s inability to control his anger has gotten him in trouble many times. In the Ibo culture it is not frowned upon for the husband to beat his wives …show more content…
Okonkwo is a man of action and when Umofia does not decide to go to war with Christianity right away it irritates him. When the tribe call the meeting in chapter 24, a group of messengers from the church has arrived to break up the meeting, Okonkwo, out of his instinct to remain masculine slays the messenger. Afterwards, he realizes that he should have not killed the messenger. Okonkwo thought that if he killed the messenger that Umofia would go to war; however, “Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messenger escape” (189). Okonkwo refused to change his identity, but he realizes that the other people in the village did change. After Okonkwo kills the messenger “He [Okonkwo] hear voices asking “Why did he do that”’ (189). If the rest of the village did not change they would have killed the other messenger not asking why he killed the messenger. This is where his sense of identity is challenged the most because he realizes that it is now useless to try to fight back that. He realizes that you can’t always be masculine and in the end it is what leads him to kill