They have a set way of life and a set of beliefs that everyone must follow, lest they be ostracized. Their dogmatism leads to a slow cracking of the beliefs, in people across age brackets and wealth. Nwoye, the privileged son of Okonkwo, knows that “something had given way inside him” (Achebe 62). He is an early convert to Catholicism, the comparative gentleness of the religion appealing to him. The cracking occurs throughout his whole life and is steadily ignored and beaten at by Okonkwo, who wants a son more like him. Obierika, a wealthy land owner, can also “sound as if [he] question[s] the authority and the decisions of the Oracle” (Achebe 66). This is also allowed to fester, the disbelief making him susceptible to the message of the missionaries as well. The Oracle is a key religious figure that is to be obeyed without question, and in his doubt, Obierika is one of the people that creates dissonance within the Ibo society. In the article ‘The Mental Virtues’ by David Brooks, dogmatism and excessive rigidity are condemned as being against the virtue of firmness in their excess. It is this exact thing that leads to the downfall of the Ibo, leaving them open to religious conversion due to a lack of
They have a set way of life and a set of beliefs that everyone must follow, lest they be ostracized. Their dogmatism leads to a slow cracking of the beliefs, in people across age brackets and wealth. Nwoye, the privileged son of Okonkwo, knows that “something had given way inside him” (Achebe 62). He is an early convert to Catholicism, the comparative gentleness of the religion appealing to him. The cracking occurs throughout his whole life and is steadily ignored and beaten at by Okonkwo, who wants a son more like him. Obierika, a wealthy land owner, can also “sound as if [he] question[s] the authority and the decisions of the Oracle” (Achebe 66). This is also allowed to fester, the disbelief making him susceptible to the message of the missionaries as well. The Oracle is a key religious figure that is to be obeyed without question, and in his doubt, Obierika is one of the people that creates dissonance within the Ibo society. In the article ‘The Mental Virtues’ by David Brooks, dogmatism and excessive rigidity are condemned as being against the virtue of firmness in their excess. It is this exact thing that leads to the downfall of the Ibo, leaving them open to religious conversion due to a lack of