Cultural Conflict in Achebe's Things Fall Apart

From a cultural analysis perspective, the two main cultures represented in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart stem from opposing religious and social positions, and both react to and against one another in different ways. This dynamic is illustrated by the actions of the main character Okonkwo — a native Igbo and leader of his community who is violently committed to defending his tribe's ways and culture against both rival tribes and the incoming foreign invasion of Christian missionaries and British soldiers — and by Nwoye, Okonkwo's son, who rejects the culture and beliefs of the Igbo tribe and converts to Christianity. The split between father and son represents the split at the heart of the novel between two cultures and two worldviews; neither is without its flaws, and both speak to different matters of the heart and mind.

However, the irreconcilable differences that arise from the meeting of the two cultures, and the imminent clash that leaves Okonkwo dead by suicide, are rooted in both the personalities of those involved and the social customs each party is accustomed to upholding (Achebe, 1996, p. 149). Okonkwo is extremely passionate and hard-line; the British District Commissioner is cold-hearted and indifferent to the plight of the tribal community, viewing its members as "primitives" in need of pacification. This paper provides a cultural analysis of the novel and shows how the manifestation of the two opposing cultures is tied to passion, ignorance, and inhumanity — qualities that ironically contrast with the aims and ideals of each culture at its most basic core.

As Achebe shows early in the novel, the Igbo tribe's culture is based on respect: the tribe pays homage to its leaders and prays for blessings and commitment to one another. They pray, "We shall all live. We pray for life, children, a good harvest and happiness. You will have what is good for you and I will have what is good for me" (Achebe, 1996, p. 14). There is a hint of resolution, acceptance, and even submission to fate that echoes through this prayer as the community gives thanks. What Achebe also shows, however, is that Okonkwo is a man filled with pride — not that the pride is necessarily misplaced, for he is a great man who has succeeded and done well for himself and his tribe, but it is evident that he scorns weak things and weak people and does not wish to associate with them.

This flaw in Okonkwo is not cultural but personal, yet it builds upon the cultural inheritance he embraces and drives a wedge between him and his son. Nwoye comes to embrace the culture of the British Protestant Christians, who send missionaries into Okonkwo's land. Described as weak throughout the novel, Nwoye finds the Christian message appealing because it is based on the idea of grace coming through suffering and a God who loves the weak — for they shall inherit the earth. That such weakness should find favor with a God is not something Okonkwo can tolerate; his pride will not permit it, even though nothing in his own culture suggests that he and his people are not also dependent upon higher powers for sustenance, as demonstrated by the sacrifices they make throughout the story. The problem is that Okonkwo is unwilling to allow this foreign culture to enter his sphere or communicate its message; he is protective of what is his and views the missionaries as invaders who must ultimately be driven out.

As Osei-Nyame (1999) notes, there is a dichotomy within both cultures — a split that manifests in similar terms: strength and weakness in Okonkwo's framework, good and evil in the Christian framework, with elements of both present in each character. Okonkwo is not as strong as he would like to believe; there is an episode in the novel in which he becomes very drunk for a number of days, displaying his own inability to carry on with his normal tasks and crumbling under the weight of his internal demons. Similarly, the demons of the colonialists are evident in their approach to the natives, whom they view as individuals to be conquered — "pacified" — or even broken so as to fit more conveniently into the mold the British prefer, rendering them more pliable for colonial aims.

The role that religion plays in the cultural takeover is ambiguous. On one hand, it facilitates submission by preaching a philosophy that is accepting of suffering and whatever burdens come one's way. On the other hand, religion exists for its own reasons — religious, moral, and spiritual — which happen also to be useful to the aims of the colonizers.

At issue in the clash is the impact of two worlds that do not communicate well and are not entirely transparent with one another, which is "fundamentally problematic" for Caldwell (2005), who views transparency as a major factor in the establishment of rapport between cultures and of stability within organizational environments (p. 83). The religious missionaries bring their Christian culture, which, while it offends Okonkwo, does not push him to extreme violence; it is only once the colonial regime that arrives behind the religious group begins to manifest its actual intentions that Okonkwo's fury is fully inflamed. He feels that the new culture has duped them all, and that the only recourse is violence — the last resort his tribe has always utilized when coming into contact with other groups that have attempted to assert authority over them.

Okonkwo is not discouraged by the fact that the new culture is more powerfully supported by a much larger entity than any he has previously fought; he is acting on a matter of principle, though that principle is still intertwined with personal motives, such as his distaste for weakness, his son's conversion, and the impingement upon his pride. He would rather die than yield to the newcomers — a stance born partly of cultural difference and partly of personality.

It is the "relationship between individual and social change" that is depicted in the novel's final conflict, as Gilbert (1989, p. 91) notes. The intentions of the individual — Okonkwo versus the Christian missionary or the District Commissioner — are positioned to respond to social change in distinct ways. For Okonkwo, the social change is the arrival and forced imposition of the new culture upon the old; for the District Commissioner, it is the brief uprising of the natives against the stability and order the colonizers have imposed. The relationship between the individual and the social order mirrors that of the two cultures, which can be understood as a macro-level manifestation of the same dynamic. The smaller culture — the Igbo — is analogous to the individual, while the British colonizers represent the social whole; when conflict becomes apparent, one or the other will prevail.

Langford (1999) describes this situation as the "politics of intervention," by which he means that when one power descends upon a less dominant power, a political discourse results — one represented in cultural ways that are not entirely understood or welcomed by the more dominant power. It is, moreover, the aim of the dominant power to dominate and subdue, which is what makes the British position so ironic in the novel: it arrives at the rear of the Christian message, which is not a message of dominance but of acceptance. Ironically, what the natives are ultimately asked to accept is their own subjugation. For Okonkwo, who rejects the Christian cultural message entirely, there will be no subjugation — a refusal represented by his tragic death at the end of the novel, when he takes his own life rather than place it in the hands of outsiders who do not share his values or his religious beliefs.