Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart

Who is the most successful missionary, Mr. Brown or Reverend Smith?

In the novel Things Fall Apart, there is a deliberate attempt by Chinua Achebe to portray the process of conversion of the Umuofia village into a Christian Village and move it from the hitherto traditional and cultural village. In the process, Achebe uses two preachers predominantly to show the conversion process and the hitches it incurred. Mr. Brown and Reverend Smith are the two preachers who have been used to bring out the conversion process, two distinct people both with the same target.

Brown is the first missionary to arrive for missionary work in Mbanta and Umuofia villages. Mr. Brown is depicted as a kind, understanding and patient man who is open to diverse opinions and ways of life. He indeed makes deliberate efforts to understand the beliefs of the Igbo people and their religion without showing despise for their ways of life. A demonstration of his patience and tolerance is seen in the restrain that he practices over the overzealous church members who are soiling for a fight with the village elders. He has a shared sense of peace with the Igbo people and wants peaceful coexistence just like the Igbo people.

Mr. Brown also has an open approach to Christianity evidenced in the open debates that he regularly holds with Akunna who was one of the most respected village elders in Umuofia and an ardent defender of the Igbo traditional ways. They regularly met and openly discussed their religions and beliefs and though none of them abandons their religious beliefs for the other's, they both grow a deep understanding of each other's religion and faiths hence enhancing respect for the beliefs that each holds.

There is also an apparent attempt by Mr. Brown to bring development to the Umuofia village and not just Christianity without material support. He aids in the building of a school and a health facility where Umuofia people could go get help from. He also goes round the village encouraging the parents to allow their children to school to learn how to read and write so that they are not left behind by other villages in the face of the coming changes. Mr. Brown also proves tactical when he decides to give tokens like towels and clothing to children who agreed to attend school. Mr. Brown is also seen to be very frank with the Igbo people and lets them know that their future leaders will definitely need to be literate and that they all need to change with the changes and adapt to the new British ways though they did not have to necessarily lose all their valuable Igbo cultures.

The above attributes and contributions of Mr. Brown made him to be a darling of the Igbo people and people across the two villages, Mbanta and Umuofia really liked him and many heeded his call and converted to Christianity, some like Umoye who was Okonkwo's son, changed just for the love of the lifestyle that Mr. Brown and other Christians led.

When Mr. Brown exited from Umuofia due to unrelenting sickness he was replaced by Reverend James Smith as the head of the Christian church. Smith seems to be directly the opposite of Mr. Brown in every aspect. He is seen as a strict person who has no room for any compromises to be made between the Christians and the pagan Igbo at all. He does not seem to see any connection between the Christian and the Igbo ways of life and faith. To him, the world is presented in black and white whereas the black is evil and should be condemned and not tolerated in any way. He breathes fire and influences the congregation in the same way. It is during his time in Umuofia that the congregation is fired up such that during one of the village celebrations, Enoch who was a convert to Christianity unmasked an Egwugwu, an abomination that leads the villagers to burning of a church the following day and planning of more violence underway.

Smith hates the Igbo faith so much that he equates it to the Baal and the followers of Baal in the Biblical Old Testament. He has strict policy over conversion to Christianity such that any elder to decides to get converted to Christian faith must immediately abandon the traditional ways and follow Christianity only. His cruelty and strictness to the abandoning of all Igbo traditional ways is seen when he suspends a woman from the church for having fulfilled the traditional ways of handling a dead Ogbanje child who had to have some rituals conducted in order to avoid another Ogbanje from being born.

From the contributions and character traits of the two preachers, it is seen that Mr. Brown makes a better preacher and influences more people into Christianity without much violence than Reverend Smith does, hence making Mr. Brown a more successful preacher here.

Who makes a better village Elder, Okonkwo or Obierika

Okonkwo is out to cut a niche for himself despite the background and this he does by self-determination in the society and even beating Amalinze the cat in wrestling duel. He is later trusted with the security of a young boy, Ikemefuna, who was given to their village as a ransom for Ikemefuna's father having killed someone from Okonkwo's village. He is seen to have made a name for himself in the village. However, most of his acts are driven by fear of looking like his father and being considered a failure. This makes him to overdo things and in most instances suffering the consequences alone. He deals with people with too much sternness and firmness for fear of looking emotional and gentle like his father. This is seen in the instance where he is expelled from the village and even more significantly at the close of the novel Okonkwo kills a messenger and realizing that he is all on his own, he commits suicide.

On the other hand, Obierika seemed to be more forewarned and mild in his approach to issues, even those of the spiritual directives. For instance when the spirits decided that the boy Ikemefuna was to be killed so as to atone for the father's killing Umuofia villager, Obierika warns Okonkwo against participating in the ritual killing of the boy since the boy called him father and he had stayed with the boy long enough. Even after Okonkwo defied him and went ahead to kill the boy himself, bierika comes back to comfort him about the death of the boy showing the tolerant and emotional side of Obierika as an elder.