Chris Zimmerman
“Plenty of Blame to Spread”
Alan Jacobs wrote that “[t]he now-famous first novel of the Nigerian writer Chinua
Achebe, Things Fall Apart (1958), is regularly cited as a great protest against colonialism and
cultural imperialism.” It is indeed that, and yet it is at the same time a profound critique of the
features of Achebe's own Ibo culture which made that culture both ripe for conquest and
susceptible to the arguments of Christian missionaries.” Through the lens of ethical criticism, we
can see how Achebe infuses and critiques political and community values of the Ibo culture in
Things Fall Apart. Instead of only blaming white Europeans, Achebe puts just as much blame, if
not more so, on the native people for the colonization of Africa.
Achebe asserts that part of the fault for the colonization of the African villages lies with
the Ibo people themselves. From the point of view of an ethical critic, one way of looking at the
reasons for the subjugation and altering of the African people is that the villagers had failed their
gods and goddesses and they were being punished for their wrongdoings and failings. One
character in particular that acted unethically was Okonkwo, according to the Ibo culture’s moral
code and beliefs, which is what I will use to discuss ethics in this paper from the knowledge of
the culture I gained in Things Fall Apart. Throughout the book, Okonkwo frequently steps
across the line between right and wrong.
One such time where Okonkwo acted unethically was when he beat his wife, Ojiugo,
during the Week of Peace. “It was unheard of to beat someone during the sacred week.” (31).
Ezeani, the priest of Ani the earth goddess, confronted Okonkwo on this grievance. He told
Okonkwo that he had “…committed a great evil to beat her.” (32). In an act of foreshadowing,
he went on to say, “The evil you have done can ruin the whole clan. The earth goddess whom
you have insulted may refuse to give us increase, and we shall all perish.” (32). Not only was it
unethical for Okonkwo to go against the community values, but it was immoral of him to
disrespect the gods and goddesses and this lack of respect came back to haunt Okonkwo later on
in the book with his exile and ultimately his death. In fact, Okonkwo’s last unethical action (and
last action forever, actually) went against his people’s thoughts about the ethics of suicide,
showing just far he would stray from his people’s beliefs and act immorally.
Another way in that Okonkwo didn’t act properly was towards his father, Unoka. His
father may have not been someone to be completely proud of, but Okonkwo borders on hatred
towards his father, not to mention feeling utter shame at being the son of Unoka. In a
community that values male ancestry as much as the Ibo, Okonkwo was in the wrong for the way
he felt about his father.
Okonkwo does not respect his first-born son, Nwoye, either. Okonkwo addresses his
other sons and warns them not to be like Nwoye: “You have all seen the great abomination of
your brother. Now he is no longer my son or your brother. I will only have a son who is a man,
who will hold his head up among my people.” (178). Okonkwo’s treatment of his son serves a
dual purpose for Achebe. It further shows Okonkwo’s negative actions and also gives
justification for Nwoye being accepting of the new Christian beliefs, thus showing one reason for
the colonization of the Ibo people lying within the Ibo themselves. Because of Okonkwo’s
intolerance, Nwoye had nothing to lose by giving up the Ibo ways and embracing Christianity
and a more European style of life; after all, his own father disowned him from the family.
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Nwoye was not the only person that stood to gain by giving up the old ways and trying
the new ways of the Christian missionaries. People with low status and no titles, the poor in
general, found refuge in the new religion. The first followers of the missionaries were outcasts
from the Ibo villages and had nothing to lose by joining the church. “None of them was a man of
title. They were mostly the kind of people that were called efuleju, worthless, empty men.”
(147). These people formed the base of the church. They felt the hope of a new beginning.
When the missionaries first came to Mbanta, they sang an evangelical song. “It was one of those
gay and rollicking tunes of evangelism which had the power of plucking at silent and dusty
chords in the heart of an Ibo man. The interpreter explained each verse to the audience, some of
whom now stood enthralled.” (151). Many of the people were already ripe for a change. The
Ibo’s harsh treatment of their own poor and downtrodden people was another reason for the
church gaining influence in Africa.
An even more direct cause of the Europeans arriving in force and thus, the eventual
colonization of the Africans was the way that the Ibo treated strangers. When the white stranger
first arrived, the Abame killed him. Shortly afterwards, more whites showed up and they killed
everyone but a handful of people in the Abame village. Achebe foreshadows events to come,
and the Ibo people’s view of the Christian god overcoming the African gods, with the line, “Even
the sacred fish in their mysterious lake have fled and the lake has turned the color of blood.”
(144). Uchendo immediately realized the evil that would befall his people because of the death
of the white man at the hands of the Abame. He said, “Never kill a man who says nothing.
Those men of Abame were fools. What did they know about the man?” (144). Achebe seems to
be critiquing the respect (and lack thereof from the Abame) towards strangers as an ethical value.
He also provides this as another reason why the Ibo were responsible for their own downfall.
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Part of the reason for the missionaries gaining respect and followers from among the Ibo
was due to the placement of the church in Mbanta. The rulers of Mbanta gave the missionaries
land in the evil forest in which they were allowed to build, clearly expecting the worst to befall
the Christians. Uchendu proclaims, “Let us give them a portion of the Evil Forest. They boast
about victory over death. Let us give them a real battlefield in which to show their victory.”
(154). Everyone laughed and expected the missionaries to be dead in four days. Four days past
and the missionaries were still alive. “Everyone was puzzled. And then it became known that
the white man’s fetish had unbelievable power. It was said that he wore glasses on his eyes so
that he could see and talk to evil spirits. Not long after, he won his first three converts.” (155).
Achebe shows how a superstitious beliefs and beliefs in magic that were rooted in the culture
ended up paving the way for their colonization. The Mbanta rulers’ decision to let the
missionaries have the supposedly tainted land ended up backfiring on them and had the opposite
results they were expecting. In the eyes of many, the triumphant survival of the church proved
that the Christian god was more powerful than their old gods. It showed how the Christians
defied the African gods and faced no retribution. This was the final proof for swaying many to
join the Christians, including a pregnant woman named Nneka.
Nneka’s husband and his family frowned on her because she had borne four sets of twins
previously. Achebe may be commenting on the ethics of the treatment of twins in Things Fall
Apart. More than a few times, he mentioned twins throughout the book and also people being
imprisoned for killing twins. In that time, in the culture, twins were seen as evil and were killed.
I believe that Achebe is making ethical commentary about the old culture that threw away twins
in his homeland. That is also another reason that Christianity caught on.
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I would venture a thought that another reason that Christianity caught on with the Ibo
people was that their culture valued women about as poorly as what Christianity does. In that
regard, the two are very similar. Women have a truly bad reputation from the Bible, from Eve’s
being blamed for humanity being forced out of the Garden of Eden to Delilah, to Lot’s wife and
many others. In the Ibo culture, men are valued much more than women and have all the power
and status, whereas women appear to have little or no real power. To the Ibo, the greatest insult
to a man is to be considered effeminate, which is precisely what Okonkwo says about Nwoye,
who became one of the first followers of the missionaries. Okonkwo, speaking of Nwoye, said,
“To abandon the gods of one’s father and go about with a lot of effeminate men clucking like old
hens was the very depth of abomination.” (158). But even resisting Christianity until the end,
Okonkwo eventually realized that his cause was lost and his people would not resist the white
missionaries.
Okonkwo’s fate, as well as the fate of the other villagers, can be viewed as the African
gods and goddesses punishing the people for being immoral. Another view is looking at the
colonization of the Ibo people as their own fault. Chinua Achebe considers both and critiques
the Ibo culture through ethical criticism in Things Fall Apart. Ultimately, Achebe blames the
Ibo people themselves just as much as the whites for the colonization of Africa.
Work Cited
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Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Astor-Honor Inc, 1959.
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