An ideal collective society is one that has a primary entity while also maintaining room for an individual to act on his or her own accord. There are many communities which fail to achieve such a society. In the book, Things Fall Apart, author Chinua Achebe creates the main protagonist, Okonkwo, and the story tracks his consistent struggle with maintaining individualism in the Umuofia tribe. The rigid structure of the Umuofia community hinders the individual from being able to fully thrive because of the constant worry to fit into a collective society. Okonkwo is no exception to the peer pressure of a collective society and in the end his individualism is taken away along with the rest of the Umuofia people.
The story of Okonkwo is sectioned …show more content…
Having the Europeans in the book held up a mirror to the entire structure of the Igbo community as a collective whole. When the Missionaries arrived they started challenging the Igbo way of life. The missionaries argued the Igbo religion by calling out the villager’s dependence on the power of the gods and thinking like a herd of sheep. During the Missionary’s speech, they reveal the cruelty of the religious aspect embedded in the Igbo culture. “All the gods you have named are not gods at all. They are gods of deceit who tell you to kill your fellows and destroy innocent children. There is only one true God and He has the earth, the sky, you and me and all of us.” (16.147) The Missionaries ultimately caused the rejected to start questioning the very society that put them in their positions and entice them to come to their side where they will be forgiven. The very practice of turning away the rule breakers costed the Igbo people able members that could have helped them in their cause to fight against the Missionaries. Achebe did not intend for one side to look better than another. His mission was to inform the public that there was more depth and richness to the Igbo culture than what The Heart of Darkness depicted them as. The Missionaries had taken on a similar mindset as Rudyard Kipling had. In Kipling’s The White Man’s Burden he
The story of Okonkwo is sectioned …show more content…
Having the Europeans in the book held up a mirror to the entire structure of the Igbo community as a collective whole. When the Missionaries arrived they started challenging the Igbo way of life. The missionaries argued the Igbo religion by calling out the villager’s dependence on the power of the gods and thinking like a herd of sheep. During the Missionary’s speech, they reveal the cruelty of the religious aspect embedded in the Igbo culture. “All the gods you have named are not gods at all. They are gods of deceit who tell you to kill your fellows and destroy innocent children. There is only one true God and He has the earth, the sky, you and me and all of us.” (16.147) The Missionaries ultimately caused the rejected to start questioning the very society that put them in their positions and entice them to come to their side where they will be forgiven. The very practice of turning away the rule breakers costed the Igbo people able members that could have helped them in their cause to fight against the Missionaries. Achebe did not intend for one side to look better than another. His mission was to inform the public that there was more depth and richness to the Igbo culture than what The Heart of Darkness depicted them as. The Missionaries had taken on a similar mindset as Rudyard Kipling had. In Kipling’s The White Man’s Burden he