Treatment of the Tribe
Okonkwo’s gun exploded and killed a boy during a funeral, he was banished to his motherland for seven years as punishment, after the accidental death of a 16-year-old boy. It was at this time that the missionaries’ movement set in amongst the villagers of Umuofia. Since Okonkwo was not in his village of Umuofia, he was not able to do anything to stop or persuade the villager from participating. Okonkwo’s own son Nwoye became a missionary, after hearing a song that “seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul” (Achebe, 1959, p. 147). He was disillusioned from constant negative treatment from his father, the murder of Ikemefuna and questions of twins crying in the forest, Nwoye had “heard that twins were put in earthenware pots and thrown away in the forest” (Achebe, 1959, pp. 61-62). The violence in Okonkwo’s life caused him much distress and much loss, Okonkwo lost seven years of his life, his titles, and now his son. The violence in the Igbo region of Africa did not end with Okonkwo’s death, there has been continuous violence and political unrest in Nigeria and with the Igbo people; the political scene and treatment of the Igbo people has not been good even into modern days. For example, in October of 1967, shortly after the Nigerian civil war had broken out, federal troops entered Asaba, a small town along the west bank of the Niger River, in pursuit of the retreating Biafran army; over the next few days at least a thousand civilians were killed and the town destroyed (Bird & Ottanelli, …show more content…
Ironically, it is this quality in him that ultimately alienates him from the clan and allows another, more subtle, form of violence to flourish. (p.
Okonkwo’s gun exploded and killed a boy during a funeral, he was banished to his motherland for seven years as punishment, after the accidental death of a 16-year-old boy. It was at this time that the missionaries’ movement set in amongst the villagers of Umuofia. Since Okonkwo was not in his village of Umuofia, he was not able to do anything to stop or persuade the villager from participating. Okonkwo’s own son Nwoye became a missionary, after hearing a song that “seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul” (Achebe, 1959, p. 147). He was disillusioned from constant negative treatment from his father, the murder of Ikemefuna and questions of twins crying in the forest, Nwoye had “heard that twins were put in earthenware pots and thrown away in the forest” (Achebe, 1959, pp. 61-62). The violence in Okonkwo’s life caused him much distress and much loss, Okonkwo lost seven years of his life, his titles, and now his son. The violence in the Igbo region of Africa did not end with Okonkwo’s death, there has been continuous violence and political unrest in Nigeria and with the Igbo people; the political scene and treatment of the Igbo people has not been good even into modern days. For example, in October of 1967, shortly after the Nigerian civil war had broken out, federal troops entered Asaba, a small town along the west bank of the Niger River, in pursuit of the retreating Biafran army; over the next few days at least a thousand civilians were killed and the town destroyed (Bird & Ottanelli, …show more content…
Ironically, it is this quality in him that ultimately alienates him from the clan and allows another, more subtle, form of violence to flourish. (p.