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21 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/2014/1/ eng 21-37.pdf The English Literature Journal Vol. 1, No. 1 (2014): 21-37 Research Article Open Access Downfall of Traditionalism in Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God S. Syed Fagrutheen * Deparment of English, VSA Group of Institutions, Salem, Tamilnadu *Corresponding author: S. Syed Fagrutheen ABSTRACT Widely known as "the father of the African novel in English," Achebe is one of the most significant writers to emerge from Africa with a literary vision that has profoundly influenced the form and content of modern African literature. In his novels, he has chronicled the colonization of Nigeria by the Great Britain and the political turmoil following its independence. A major theme of Achebe's writings is the social and psychological impact of European imperialism on indigenous African societies, particularly with respect to a distinctly African consciousness in the twentieth century. As a story about the culture on the verge of change, Things Fall Apart (1958) deals with how the reality of change affects various characters. The tension about whether change should be dominant over tradition often involves questions of personal status. InArrow of God(1964),Ezeulu the chief priest of Ulu watches his authority slowly erode both from within and without. While the British through Christianity and road building try to solidify their rule over the Igbo the people themselves through helping them as when Ezeulu's efforts to maintain peace with the Okperi are overridden by the militant and powerful Nwafo and the British come in and settle the dispute in favour of the Okperi. Rather than face another famine the village converts to Christianity. Both these novels talk much about the impact made by colonial government on indigenous culture and it is being discussed in this paper as downfall of traditionalism Thing Fall Apart and Arrow of God. Keywords: Arrow of God, Traditionalism, Things fall apart INTRODUCTION Traditionalism in religious contexts can refer to traditional orthodox principles when these values fall we can call it as downfall of traditionalism. Both the select novels of Achebe talk much about the downfall of traditionalism. Oxford advanced learners’ dictionary gives meaning for “downfall” as a sudden loss of wealth, rank and reputation or happiness and especially a heavy or unexpected one. It will be better to know the life and influence of traditionalism in the life of the author, Chinua Achebe. Albert Chinualumogu Achebe popularly known as Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor and critic. He is best known for his first novel and magnum opus Things Fall Apart which is the most widely read book in modern African literature. Brought up by Christian parents, he became fascinated with the world of religions and traditional African cultures and began writing stories as a university student. After graduation he worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service and moved to the metropolis of Lagos. He gained worldwide attention for his Things Fall Apart in the late 1950s his later novels include No Longer at Ease (1960) Arrow of God (1964) A Man of the People (1966) and Anthills of the Savannah (1987). Achebe wrote his novels in English and had defended the use of English; a language of colonizers in African literature. He enrolled as a student at the Central School where his older brother John was a teacher In Nekede Achebe gained an appreciation for Mbari a traditional art form which seeks to invoke the Gods’ protection through symbolic sacrifices in the form of sculpture and collage. When the time came to change to secondary school in 1944 Achebe sat entrance examinations for and was accepted at both the prestigious Dennis Memorial Grammar School in Onitsha and the even more prestigious Government College in Umuahia .In 1950 Achebe wrote a piece for the University Herald entitled Polar Undergraduate and it was his debut as an author. It used irony and humor to celebrate the intellectual vigor The NBS a radio network started in 1933 by the Colonial government assigned Achebe to the Talks Department preparing scripts for oral delivery. This helped him master the subtle nuances between written and spoken language a Received: 12 November 2013 Accepted: 14 December 2013 Online: 20 January 2014 ISSN: 2348-3288 22 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf skill that helped him later to write realistic dialogue. He as a son of Nigerian soil wrote vastly defending his own culture and won many laurels after showing real image of his own soil to the world he passed away on March 21, 2013 in The United States. THE DOWNFALL OF TRADITIONALISM IN THINGS FALLS APART Things Fall Apart is a 1958 English language novel by Chinua Achebe. It is a staple book in schools throughout Africa and widely read and studied in English speak ing countries around the world. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English and one of the first African novels written in English to receive global critical acclaim. The title of the novel comes from William Butler Yeats’s poem The Second Coming . “Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things Fall Apart; the center cannot hold;Mere anarchy is Loosed upon the world.” - W.B. Yeats, “The second Coming” In 2009 Newsweek ranked Things Fall Apart number fou rteen on its list of Top hundred Books. The novel depicts the life of Okonkwo a leader and local wrestling champion in Umuofia one of a fictional group of nine villages in Nigeria inhabited by the Igbo ethnic group. In addition it focuses on his three wive s, his children and the influences of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on his traditional Igbo community during the late nineteenth century. Okonkwo’s father was a lazy drunk and a deadbeat man who received no titles in his village and died w ith huge debts Okonkwo was a great man in his home of Umuofia a group of nine villages in Nigeria. Okonkwo despises his father and does everything he can to be nothing like him. Unoka, the grownup, was a failure. He was poor and his wife and children had b arely enough to eat. People laughed at him because he was loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back. As a young man Okonkwo began building his social status by defeating a great wrestler propelling him into society’ s eye. He is hard working and shows no weak emotions or otherwise to anyone. Although brusque with his family and neighbors he is wealthy, courageous and powerful among the people of his village. He is a leader of his village and his place in that society is what he has striven for his entire life. Because of his great esteem in the village Okonkwo is selected by the elders to be the guardian of Ikemefuna a boy taken prisoner by the village as a peace settlement between two villages after his father killed an Umuofian woman. Ikemefuna is to stay with Okonkwo until the Oracle instructs the elders on what to do with the boy. For three years the boy lives with Okonkwo’s family and he grows fond of him he even considers Okonkwo his father. Then the elders decide that the boy must be killed and the oldest man in the village warns Okonkwo to have nothing to do with the murder because it would be like killing his own child. Umuofia has decided to kill him. The Oracle of the Hills and the Caves has pronounced it. They will take him outside Umuofia as is the custom, and kill him there. Rather than seem weak and feminine to the other men of the village Okonkwo helps to kill the boy despite the warning from the old man. In fact Okonkwo himself strikes t he killing blow as Ikemefuna begs him for protection. Shortly after Ikemefuna’s death things begin to go wrong for Okonkwo. When he accidentally kills someone at a ritual funeral ceremony when his gun explodes he and his family are sent into exile for seve n years to appease the gods he has offended with the murder. While Okonkwo is away in exile white men begin coming to Umuofia and they peacefully introduce their religion. As the number of converts’ increase the foothold of the white people grows beyond t heir religion and a new government is introduced. Okonkwo returns to his village after his exile to find it a changed place because of the presence of the white man. He and other tribal leaders try to reclaim their hold on their native land by destroying a local Christian church that has insulted their gods and religion. In return the leader of the white government takes them prisoner and holds them for ransom for a short while further humiliating and insulting the native leaders. As a result the people of Umuofia finally gather for what could be a great uprising. Okonkwo adamant over following Umuofian custom and tradition despises any form of cowardice and advocates for war against the white men. When messengers of the white government try to stop the meet ing, Okonkwo kills one of them. He realizes with despair that the people of Umuofia are not going to fight to protect themselves because they let the other messengers escape and so all is lost for the village. When the local leader of the white government comes to Okonkwo’s house to take him to court, he finds that Okonkwo has hanged himself ruining his great reputation as it is strictly against the custom of the Igbo to kill oneself. “It is an abomination for a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it. That is why we ask your people to bring him down” Achebe depicts the Ibo as a people with great social institutions in accordance with their particular society. Their culture is heavy in traditions an d laws that focus on justice and fairness. The people are ruled not by a king or chief but by a kind of democracy where the males meet and make decisions by consensus and in accordance to an Oracle that should be written down. It is the Europeans who often talk of bringing democratic institutions to the rest of the world who upset this system. Achebe emphasizes that high rank is attainable for all freeborn Igbo men he attained his through fighting as opposed to reading or to plough the land and growing herb al remedies, vegetation, rearing cattle, fowl. He also depicts the injustices of Ibo society. No more or less than Victorian England of the same era the Ibo are a patriarchal society. They also fear twins Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 23 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf who are to be abandoned immediately after birth and left to die of exposure. The novel attempts to repair some of the damage done by earlier European depictions of Africans. Since early childhood konkwo’s embarrassment about his lazy, squandering and effeminate father Unoka has driven him to succeed. konkw o’s hard work and prowess in war have earned him a position of high status in his clan and he attains wealth sufficient to support three wives and their eight children. Okonkwo’s tragic flaw is that he is terrified of being weak or womanly like his father. As a result he behaves rashly bringing a great deal of trouble and sorrow upon himself and his family. He is a tragic character who not only brings suffering to himself but also to those around him. Towards the end of the novel one can view Okonkwo as a t ragic hero because like other tragic heroes he has one major flaw. His main flaw stems from the fear of being like his father who is a lazy, social, drunkard debtor. Achebe depicts this character as, “When Unoka died he had taken no title at all and he was heavily in debt. Any wonder then that his son Okonkwo was ashamed of him?” He as well cannot display his emotions because he doesn’t want to look weak or effeminate and when he does show any emotion it is an uncontrollable rage. As a result of his flaws he has suffered countless tragedies which ultimately lead to his tragic death. Nwoye Okonkwo’s oldest son who Okonkwo believ es is weak and lazy. Okonkwo continually beats Nwoye hoping to correct what he sees as flaws in his personality. Influenced by Ikemefuna Nwoye begins to exhibit more masculine behavior which pleases Okonkwo. owever he maintains doubts about some of the law s and rules of his village and eventually converts to Christianity an act that Okonkwo criticizes as effeminate and beats him for after which he leaves. “When did you become a shivering old woman, Okonkwo asked himself, 'you, who are known in all the nine villages for your valor in war? How can a man who has killed five men in battle fall to pieces because he has added a boy to their number? Okonkwo, you have become a woman indeed.” Okonkwo believes that Nwoye is afflicted with the same weaknesses that his father Unoka possessed in abundance. As the only one of Ekwefi’s ten children to survive past infancy Ezinma is the center of her mother’s world. Their relationship is atypical Ezinma calls Ekwefi by her name and is treated by her as an equal. Ezinma is al so Okonkwo’s favorite child for she understands him better than any of his other children. She reminds him of Ekwefi who was the village beauty. Okonkwo rarely demonstrates his affection however because he fears that doing so would make him look weak. Furt hermore he wishes that Ezinma were a boy because she would have been the perfect son. Ikemefuna lives in the hut of Okonkwo’s first wife and quickly becomes popular with Okonkwo’s children. The missionaries’ arrival begins the downfall of traditional Igbo society. This downfall destroys the Igbo way of life leading to the death of Okonkwo who was once a hero of the village. Things Fall Apart has been called a Modern Greek tragedy. It has the same plot elements as a Greek tragedy including the use of a tragi c hero the following of the string model etc. He is a classic tragic hero even though the story is set in more modern times. He shows multiple traits and these character traits do lead to his end or reversal of fortune and his downfall at the end of the no vel. He is distressed by social changes brought by white men because he has worked so hard to move up in the traditional society. This position is at risk due to the arrival of a new values system. Those who commit suicide lose their place in the ancestor worshipping traditional society to the extent that they may not even be touched to give a proper burial. The irony is that Okonkwo completely loses his standing in both value systems. He truly has good intentions but his need to feel in control and his fe ar that other men will sense weakness in him drive him to make decisions whether consciously or subconsciously that he regrets as he progresses through his life. Achebe writes his novels in English because written Standard Ibo was created by mixing the var ious languages creating a stilted written form. In an interview for The Paris Review by James Brooks in 1994 Achebe says the novel form seems to go with the English language. There is a problem with the Igbo language. It suffers from a very serious inheri tance which it received at the beginning of this century from the Anglican mission. They sent out a missionary by the name of Den. He had this notion that the Igbo language which had very many different dialects should somehow manufacture a uniform dialect that would be used in writing to avoid all these different dialects. Because the missionaries were powerful what they wanted to do, they did this became the law. But the standard version cannot sing. There is nothing you can do with it to make it sing. It ’s heavy. It’s wooden. It doesn’t go anywhere. Gender differentiation is seen in Igbo classification of crimes. The narrator of Things Fall Apart states that the crime was of two kinds male and female. Okonkwo had committed the female because it was an acc ident. He would be allowed to return to the clan after seven years. He fled to the land of his mother Mbanta because a man finds refuge with his mother. Uchendu explains this to Okonkwo “It is true that a child belongs to his father. But when the father be ats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother’s hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when. Things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness, he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried th ere. And that is why we say that mother is supreme.” Women are understated throughout Things Fall Apart . A crucial element of the story is that the elements within represent the cultural aspects of the igbo society, its culture and traditions. As such it c an be argued that the infrequent mentions of wives in the story of Things Fall Apart can be taken as a statement of the limited value of women. The mentioning of wives Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 24 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf purely as the bearers of children can then be taken as a statement that women are actual ly nothing more than tools of reproduction. The fact that the number of wives you have affects social status further depicts women as possessions of the men. The fact that the men are free to beat their wives also adds to this idea. Okonkwo wishing that hi s favorite child Enzima was a boy further reveals in the inequality between the genders in Nigeria at the time. The events of the novel unfold around the 1890s. The majority of the story takes place in the village of Umuofia located west of the actual Onit sha on the east bank of the Niger River in Nigeria. The culture depicted is similar to that of Achebe’s birthplace of Ogidi where Igbo speaking people lived together in groups of independent villages ruled by titled elders. The customs described in the nov el mirror those of the actual Onitsha people who lived near Ogidi and with whom Achebe was familiar. Within forty years of the British arrival by the time Achebe was born in 1930 the missionaries were well established. Achebe’s father was among the first t o be converted in Ogidi around the turn of the century. Achebe himself was an orphan so it can safely be said the character of Nwoye who joins the church because of a conflict with his father is not meant to represent the author. Achebe was raised by his g randfather. His grandfather far from opposing Achebe’s conversion to Christianity allowed Achebe’s Christian marriage to be celebrated in his compound. Prior to British colonization the Igbo people as featured in Things Fall Apart lived in a patriarchal co llective political system. Decisions were not made by a chief or by any individual but were rather decided by a council of male elders. Religious leaders were also called upon to settle debates reflecting the cultural focus of the Igbo people. The Portugue se were the first Europeans to explore Nigeria. Though the Portuguese are not mentioned by Achebe the remaining influence of the Portuguese can be seen in many Nigerian surnames. The British entered Nigeria first through trade and then established The Roya l Niger Colony in 1886. The success of the colony led to Nigeria becoming a British protectorate in 1901. The arrival of the British slowly began to deteriorate the traditional society. The British government would intervene in tribal disputes rather than allowing the Igbo to settle issues in a traditional manner. The frustration caused by these shifts in power is illustrated by the struggle of the protagonist in the second half of the novel Things Fall Apart. Things Fall Apart is set in the 1890s and port rays the clash between Nigeria’s white colonial government and the traditional culture of the indigenous Igbo people. Achebe’s novel shatters the stereotypical European portraits of native Africans. He is careful to portray the complex, advanced social ins titutions and artistic traditions of Igbo culture prior to its contact with Europeans. Yet he is just as careful not to stereotype the Europeans, he offers varying depictions of the white men such as the mostly benevolent Mr. Brown, the zealous Reverend Sm ith and the ruthlessly calculating District Commissioner. Achebe’s education in English and exposure to European customs has allowed him to capture both the European and the African perspectives on colonial expansion, religion, race, and culture. His decision to write Things Fall Apart in English is an important one. Achebe wanted this novel to respond to earlier colonial accounts of Africa; his choice of language was thus political. Unlike some later African authors who chose to revitalize native languages as a form of resistance to colonial culture Achebe wanted to achieve cultural revitalization within and through English. Nevertheless he manages to capture the rhythm of the Igbo language and he integrates Igbo vocabulary into the narrative. Achebe has become renowned throughout the world as a father of modern A frican literature, essayist, and professor of English literature at Bard College in New York. But Achebe’s achievements are most concretely reflected by his prominence in Nigeria’s academic culture and in its literary and political institutions. He worked for the Nigerian Broadcasting Company for over a decade and later became an English professor at the University of Nigeria. He has also been quite influential in the publication of new Nigerian writers. In 1967 he co - founded a publishing company with a Nig erian poet named Christopher Okigbo and in 1971 he began editing Okike a respected journal of Nigerian writing. In 1984 he founded Uwa ndi Igbo a bilingual magazine containing a great deal of information about Igbo culture. He has been active in Nigerian p olitics since the 1960s and many of his novels address the post - colonial social and political problems that Nigeria still faces. Okonkwo is a wealthy and respected warrior of the Umuofia clan a lower Nigerian tribe that is part of a consortium of nine conn ected villages. He is haunted by the actions of Unoka his cowardly and spendthrift father who died in disrepute leaving many village debts unsettled. In response Okonkwo became a clansman, warrior, farmer, family provider and extraordinaire. He has a twelv e - year old son named Nwoye whom he finds lazy; Okonkwo worries that Nwoye will end up a failure like Unoka. In a settlement with a neighboring tribe Umuofia wins a virgin and a fifteen year old boy. Okonkwo takes charge of the boy Ikemefuna and finds an id eal son in him. Nwoye likewise forms a strong attachment to the newcomer. Despite his fondness for Ikemefuna and despite the fact that the boy begins to call him father Okonkwo does not let himself show any affection for him. During the Week of Peace Okonk wo accuses his youngest wife Ojiugo of negligence. He severely beats her breaking the peace of the sacred week. He makes some sacrifices to show his repentance but he has shocked his community irreparably. Ikemefuna stays with Okonkwo’s family for three y ears. Nwoye looks up to him as an older brother and much to Okonkwo’s pleasure develops a more masculine attitude. One day the locusts come to Umuofia they will come every year for seven years before disappearing Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 25 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf for another generation. The village excited ly collects them because they are good to eat when cooked .Ogbuefi Ezeudu a respected village elder informs Okonkwo in private that the Oracle has said that Ikemefuna must be killed. He tells Okonkwo that because Ikemefuna calls him father he should not ta ke part in the boy’s death. He lies to Ikemefuna telling him that they must return him to his home village. As he walks with the men of Umuofia thinks about seeing his mother. After several hours of walking some of Okonkwo’s clansmen attack the boy with ma chetes. The boy runs to Okonkwo for help. But Okonkwo who doesn’t wish to look weak in front of his fellow tribesmen cuts the boy down despite the Oracle’s admonishment. When Okonkwo returns home Nwoye deduces that his friend is dead. Okonkwo sinks into a depression neither able to sleep nor eat. He visits his friend Obierika and begins to feel revived a bit. Okonkwo’s daughter Ezinma falls ill but she recovers after Okonkwo gathers leaves for her medicine. The death of Ogbuefi Ezeudu is announced to the su rrounding villages by means of the ekwe a musical instrument. Okonkwo feels guilty because the last time Ezeudu visited him was to warn him against taking part in Ikemefuna’s death. At Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s large and elaborate funeral the men beat drums and fir e their guns. Tragedy compounds upon itself when Okonkwo’s gun explodes and kills Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s sixteen - year - old son. Because killing a clansman is a crime against the earth goddess Okonkwo must take his family into exile for seven years in order to ato ne. He gathers his most valuable belongings and takes his family to his mother’s natal village Mbanta. The men from Ogbuefi Ezeudu’s quarter burn Okonkwo’s buildings and kill his animals to cleanse the village of his sin. Okonkwo’s kinsmen especially his u ncle Uchendu receive him warmly. Things Fall Apart is about the tragic fall of the protagonist, Okonkwo, and the Igbo culture. Okonkwo is a respected and influential leader within the Igbo community of Umuofia in eastern Nigeria. He first earns personal fame and distinction and brings honor to his village, when he defeats Amalinze the Cat in a wrestling contest. Okonkwo determines to gain titles for himself and become a powerful and wealthy man in spite of his father’s weaknesses. Okonkwo’s father Unoka was a lazy and wasteful man. He often borrowed money and then squandered it on palm - wine and merrymaking with friends. Consequently his wife and children often went hungry. Within the community Unoka was considered a failure and a l aughingstock. He was referred to as agbala one who resembles the weakness of a woman and has no property. Unoka died a shameful death and left numerous debts. Okonkwo despises and resents his father’s gentle and idle ways. He resolves to overcome the shame that he feels as a result of his father’s weaknesses by being what he considers being manly therefore, he dominates his wives and children by being insensitive and controlling. Because Okonkwo is a leader of his community he is asked to care for a young b oy named Ikemefuna who is given to the village as a peace offering by neighboring Mbaino to avoid war with Umuofia. Ikemefuna befriends Okonkwo’s son Nwoye and Okonkwo becomes inwardly fond of the boy.Over the years Okonkwo becomes an extremely volatile ma n he is apt to explode at the slightest provocation. He violates the Week of Peace when he beats his youngest wife Ojiugo because she went to braid her hair at a friend’s house and forgot to prepare the afternoon meal and feed her children. Later he severe ly beats and shoots a gun at his second wife Ekwefi because she took leaves from his banana plant to wrap food for the Feast of the New Yam. After the coming of the locusts Ogbuefi Ezeuder the oldest man in the village relays to Okonkwo a message from the Oracle. The Oracle says that Ikemefuna must be killed as part of the retribution for the Umuofian woman killed three years earlier in Mbaino. He tells Okonkwo not to partake in the murder but Okonkwo doesn’t listen. He feels that not participating would be a sign of weakness. Consequently Okonkwo kills Ikemefuna with his machete. Nwoye realizes that his father has murdered Ikemefuna and begins to distance himself from his father and the clansmen. Okonkwo becomes depressed after killing Ikemefuna so he visit s his best friend Obierika who disapproves of his role in Ikemefuna’s killing. Obierika says that Okonkwo’s act will upset the Earth and the earth goddess will seek revenge. After discussing Ikemefuna’s death with Obierika Okonkwo is finally able to sleep restfully but he is awakened by his wife Ekwefi. Their daughter Ezinma whom Okonkwo is fond of is dying. Okonkwo gathers grasses, barks, and leaves to prepare medicine for Ezinma. A public trial is held on the village commons. Nine clan leaders including O konkwo represent the spirits of their ancestors. The nine clan leaders or egwugwu also represent the nine villages of Umuofia. Okonkwo does not sit among the other eight leaders or elders while they listen to a dispute between an estranged husband and wife . The wife Mgbafo had been severely beaten by her husband. Her brother took her back to their family’s village but her husband wanted her back home. The egwugwu tell the husband to take wine to his in - laws and beg his wife to come home. One elder wonders w hy such a trivial dispute would come before the egwugwu. In her role as priestess Chielo tells Ekwefi that Agbala needs to see Ezinma. Although Okonkwo and Ekwefi protest Chielo takes a terrified Ezinma on her back and forbids anyone to follow. Chielo carr ies Ezinma to all nine villages and then enters the Oracle’s cave. Ekwefi follows secretly in spite of Chielo’s admonitions and waits at the entrance of the Oracle. Okonkwo surprises Ekwefi by arriving at the cave and he also waits with her. The next morni ng Chielo takes Ezinma to Ekwefi’s hut and puts her to bed. When Ogbuefi Ezeudu dies Okonkwo worries because the last time that Ezeudu visited him was when he warned Okonkwo against participating in the killing of Ikemefuna. Ezeudu was an important leader in the village and achieved three titles of the clan’s four a rare accomplishment. During the large funeral Okonkwo’s gun goes off and Ezeudu’s sixteen - year - old son is killed accidentally.Because the accidental killing of a Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 26 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf clansman is a crime against the earth goddess Okonkwo and his family must be exiled from Umuofia for seven years. The family moves to Okonkwo’s mother’s native village Mbanta. After they depart Umuofia a group of village men destroy Okonkwo’s compound and kill his animals to cleanse the village of Okonkwo’s sin. Obierika stores Okonkwo’s yams in his barn and wonders about the old traditions of the Igbo culture. Okonkwo is welcomed to Mbanta by his maternal uncle Uchendu a village elder. He gives Okonkwo a plot of land on which to farm and build a compound for his family. But Okonkwo is depressed and he blames his chi for his failure to achieve lasting greatness. During Okonkwo’s second year in exile he receives a visit from his best friend Obierika who recounts sad news about the village o f Abame after a white man rode into the village on a bicycle the elders of Abame consulted their Oracle which told them that the white man would destroy their clan and other clans. Consequently the villagers killed the white man. But weeks later a large gr oup of men slaughtered the villagers in retribution. The village of Abame is now deserted. Okonkwo and Uchendu agree that the villagers were foolish to kill a man whom they knew nothing about. Later Obierika gives Okonkwo money that he received from sellin g Okonkwo’s yams and seed - yams and he promises to do so until Okonkwo returns to Umuofia.Six missionaries including one white man arrive in Mbanta. The white man speaks to the people about Christianity. Okonkwo believes that the man speaks nonsense but his son Nwoye is captivated and becomes a convert of Christianity. The Christian missionaries build a church on land given to them by the village leaders. However the land is a part of the Evil Forest and according to tradition the villagers believe that the missionaries will die because they built their church on cursed land. But when nothing happens to the missionaries the people of Mbanta conclude that the missionaries possess extraordinary power and magic. The first recruits of the missionaries are efulefu the weak and worthless men of the village. Other villagers including a woman soon convert to Christianity. The missionaries then go to Umuofia and start a school. Nwoye leaves his father’s hut and moves to Umuofia so he can attend the school. Okonkwo’s ex ile is over so his family arranges to return to Umuofia. Before leaving Mbanta they prepare a huge feast for Okonkwo’s mother’s kinsmen in appreciation of their gratitude during Okonkwo’s seven years of exile. When Okonkwo returns to Umuofia he discovers t hat the village has changed during his absence. Many men have renounced their titles and have converted to Christianity. The white men have built a prison they have established a government court of law where people are tried for breaking the white man’s l aws and they also employ natives of Umuofia. Okonkwo wonders why the Umuofians have not incited violence to rid the village of the white man’s church and oppressive government. Some members of the Igbo clan like the changes in Umuofia. Mr. Brown the white missionary respects the Igbo traditions. He makes an effort to learn about the Igbo culture and becomes friendly with some of the clan leaders. He also encourages Igbo people of all ages to get an education. Mr. Brown tells Okonkwo that Nwoye who has taken the name Isaac is attending a teaching college. Nevertheless Okonkwo is unhappy about the changes in Umuofia. After Mr. Brown becomes ill and is forced to return to his homeland Reverend James Smith becomes the new head of the Christian church. But Revere nd Smith is nothing like Mr. Brown he is intolerant of clan customs and is very strict. Violence arises after Enoch an overzealous convert to Christianity unmasks an egwugwu. In retaliation the egwugwu burn Enoch’s compound and then destroy the Christian c hurch because the missionaries have caused the Igbo people many problems. When the District Commissioner returns to Umuofia he learns about the destruction of the church and asks six leaders of the village including Okonkwo to meet with him. The men are ja iled until they pay a fine of two hundred and fifty bags of cowries. The people of Umuofia collect the money and pay the fine and the men are set free.The next day at a meeting for clansmen five court messengers who intend to stop the gathering approach th e group. Suddenly Okonkwo jumps forward and beheads the man in charge of the messengers with his machete. When none of the other clansmen attempt to stop the messengers who escape Okonkwo realizes that they will never go to war and that Umuofia will surren der. Everything has fallen apart for Okonkwo he commits suicide by hanging himself. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is probably the most authentic narrative ever written about life in Nigeria at the turn of the twen tieth century. Although the novel was first published in 1958 two years before Nigeria achieved its independence thousands of copies are still sold every year in the United States alone. Millions of copies have been sold around the world in its many transl ations. The novel has been adapted for productions on the stage, on the radio and on television. Teachers in high schools, colleges and graduate schools use the novel as a textbook in many types of classes from history and social studies to comparative lit erature and anthropology. The novel takes its title from a verse in the poem The Second Coming by W. B. Yeats an Irish poet, essayist and dramatist. Turning and turning in the widening gyre the falcon cannot hear the falconer Things fall apart the center cannot hold Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. In this poem ironically a product of European thought Yeats describes an apocalyptic vision in which the world collapses into anarchy because of an internal flaw in humanity. In Things Fall Apart , Achebe i llustrates this vision by showing us what happened in the Igbo society of Nigeria at the time of its colonization by the British. Because of internal weaknesses within the native structure and the divided nature of Igbo Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 27 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf society the community of Umuofia in this novel is unable to withstand the tidal wave of foreign religion, commerce, technology and government. In The Second Coming Yeats evokes the anti - Christ leading an anarchic world to destruction. This ominous tone gradually emerges in Things Fall Apart as an intrusive religious presence and an insensitive government together causes the traditional Umuofian world to fall apart. When Things Fall Apart was first published Achebe announced that one of his purposes was to present a complex dynamic society to a Western audience who perceived African society as primitive, simple and backward. Unless Africans could tell their side of their story Achebe believed that the African experience would forever be untold even by such well - meaning authors as Joyce Cary in Mister Johnson . Cary worked in Nigeria as a colonial administrator and was sympathetic to the Nigerian people. Yet Achebe feels that Cary, along with other Western writers such as Joseph Conrad, misunderstood Africa. Many European writers have presented th e continent as a dark place inhabited by people with impenetrable, primitive minds; Achebe considers this reductionist portrayal of Africa racist. He points to Conrad, who wrote against imperialism but reduced Africans to mysterious, animalistic, and exoti c others. In an interview published in 1994, Achebe explains that his anger about the inaccurate portrayal of African culture by white colonial writers does not imply that students should not read works by Conrad or Cary. On the contrary, Achebe urges stud ents to read such works in order to better understand the racism of the colonial era.Achebe also kept in mind his own Nigerian people as an audience. In 1964, he stated his goal to help my society regain belief in itself and put away the complexes of the y ears of denigration and self - abasement. I would be quite satisfied if my novels did no more than teach my readers that their past with all its imperfections was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them. In Things Fall Apart , the Europeans’ understanding of Africa is particularly exemplified in two characters, the Reverend James Smith and the unnamed District Commissioner. Mr. Smith sees no need to compromise on unquestionable religious doctrine or practices even during their introduction to a society very different from his own. He simply does not recognize any benefit for allowing the Nigerians to retain lements of their heritage. The District Commissioner on the other hand prides himself on being a student of primitive cust oms and sees himself as a benevolent leader who has only the best intentions for pacifying the primitive tribes and bringing them into the modern era. Both men would express surprise if anyone suggested to them that their European values may not be entirel y appropriate for these societies. The Commissioner’s plan for briefly treating the story of Okonkwo illustrates the inclination toward Western simplification of African culture.To counter this inclination Achebe brings to life an African culture with a re ligion, a government, a system of money and an artistic tradition as well as a judicial system. While technologically unsophisticated the Igbo culture is revealed to the reader as remarkably complex. Furthermore Things Fall Apart ironically reverses the st yle of novels by such writers as Conrad and Cary who created flat and stereotypical African characters. Instead Achebe stereotypes the white colonialists as rigid most with imperialistic intentions whereas the Igbo are highly individual many of them open t o new ideas. But readers should note that Achebe is not presenting Igbo culture as faultless and idyllic. Indeed Achebe would contest such a romantic portrayal of his native people. In fact many Western writers who wrote about colonialism were opposed to i mperialism but were romantic in their portrayal of noble savages primitive and animalistic yet uncorrupted and innocent. Achebe regards this notion as an unacceptable argument as well as a myth. The Igbo were not noble savages and although the Igbo world w as eventually destroyed the indigenous culture was never an idyllic haven even before the arrival of the white colonialists. In Things Fall Apart Achebe depicts negative as well as positive elements of Igbo culture and he is sometimes as critical of his ow n people as he is of the colonizers. Achebe has been a major force in the worldwide literary movement to define and describe this African experience. Other postcolonial writers in this movement include Leopold Senghor, Wole Soyinka, Aime Cesaire, Derek Wal cott, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and Birago Diop. These writers not only confront a multiethnic perspective of history and truth but they also challenge readers to reexamine themselves in this complex and evolving world.As African novel written in English and depa rting significantly from more familiar colonial writing, Things Fall Apart was a ground breaking work. Achebe’s role in making modern African literature a part of world literature cannot be understated. The history of Nigeria is bound up with its geography . About one - third larger than the state of Texas Nigeria is located above the inner curve of the elbow on the west coast of Africa just north of the equator and south of the Sahara Desert. More than two hundred ethnic groups each with its own language, bel iefs and culture live in present - day Nigeria. The largest ethnic groups are the mostly Protestant Yoruba in the west the Catholic Igbo in the east and the predominantly Muslim Hausa - Fulani in the north. This diversity of peoples is the result of thousands of years of history as traders, nomads and refugees from invaders and climatic changes came to settle with the indigenous population and as foreign nations became aware of the area’s resources. The events in Things Fall Apart take place at the end of the n ineteenth century and in the early part of the twentieth century. Although the British did not occupy most of Nigeria until 1904 they had a strong presence in West Africa since the early nineteenth century. The British were a major buyer of African slaves in the Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 28 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In 1807 however the British outlawed slave trade within their empire. At the time they did not yet control Nigeria and internal wars continually increased the available supply of captured slaves. In 1861 frustrat ed with the expanding slave trade the British decided to occupy Lagos a major slave trading post and the capital of present day Nigeria. Slowly and hesitantly the British occupied the rest of Nigeria. Ultimately the British were prompted to occupy Nigeria for more than the slave trade. The British were in competition with other Europeans for control of the natural wealth of West Africa. At the Berlin Conference of 1884 - 85 a meeting arranged to settle rivalries among European powers the British proclaimed Ni geria to be their territory. They bought palm oil, peanuts, rubber, cotton and other agricultural products from the Nigerians. Indeed trade in these products made some Nigerian traders very wealthy. In the early twentieth century the British defined the co llection of diverse ethnic groups as one country Nigeria and declared it a colony of the British Empire.The British moved into Nigeria with a combination of government control religious mission and economic incentive. In the north the British ruled indirec tly with the support of the local Muslim leaders who collected taxes and administered a government on behalf of the British. For example a real life tragedy at the community of Ahiara serves as the historical model for the massacre of the village of Abame in Chapter 15 of Things Fall Apart . On November 16, 1905 a white man rode his bicycle into Ahiara and was killed by the natives. A month later an expedition of British forces searched the villages in the area and killed many natives in reprisal.The Ahiara incident led to the Bende - Onitsha Hinterland Expedition a force created to eliminate Igbo opposition. The British destroyed the powerful Awka Oracle and killed all opposing Igbo groups. In 1912 the British instituted the Collective Punishment Ordinance wh ich stipulated punishment against an entire village or community for crimes committed by one or more persons against the white colonialists. The British operated an efficient administrative system and introduced a form of British culture to Nigeria. They also sent many capable young Nigerians to England for education. The experience of Nigerians who lived overseas in the years during World War II gave rise to a class of young educated nationalists who agitated for independence from Great Britain. The British agreed to the Nigerians’ demands and in 1947 instituted a ten - year economic plan toward independence. Nigeria became an independent country on October 1, 1960 and became a republic in 1963.With the British long gone from Nigeria corruption and a lack of leadership continued to hamper Nigeria’s quest for true democracy. A series of military coups and dictatorships in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s replaced the fragile democracy that Nigeria enjoyed in the early 1960s. In 1993 Nigeria held a democratic presidential election which was followed by yet another bloodless coup. And so continues the political pattern for the troubled violent most po pulous country in Africa. The novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe was an eye opening account of the life and eventual extinction of an African tribe called the Ibo. It focuses on one character Okonkwo who at a very early age set out on a q uest of self - perfection. Coming from a family ruled by a man who was lazy and inconsistent with everything he did Okonkwo vowed to never accept the fate of his father. Okonkwo and his family suffered through many hard times in their lives but usually manag ed to come out on top. Through terrible crop seasons and bad judgement calls Okonkwo usually prevailed until the day came when he was faced with a situation that could not be resolved by his strength and character alone. This novel also provided a very de tailed and seemingly accurate account of the lives of the Ibo. The Ibo were an extremely spiritual people who answered to their gods daily. Their yam crops were the backbone of the community and he who possessed the largest crops were usually respected by all in the community. The Ibo were a much gendered people. The men normally made all the rules and the woman were taught to respect their husbands’ decisions. In particular Okonkwo ruled his household with an iron fist. He often beat his wives for small re asons and felt little to no remorse for doing so. While it was not uncommon for the men of the Ibo tribe to beat their wives if they disobeyed orders Okonkwo was a character that oftentimes took it too far. In one point in the novel he badly beat one of hi s wives Ojiugo during the sacred week. During this time no one in the tribe is to commit such acts as it is a time for peace. By beating his wife he defied the gods and was forced to offer up animal sacrifices and payment to them. This one of Okonkwo’s maj or character flaws he is stubborn and self - righteous and wishes to answer to nobody but himself. This even leads to eventual fate when he refuses to join the Christians when most everyone else of the tribe gave in to their ideas. Okonkwo in the end decided to hang him rather than give up his freedom to the white man. Even in his death he defied the gods of his tribe knowing that he would receive no burial and his body be cast into the evil forest. Rather than accepting defeat and working together with his t ribe to bring about change he chose death and eternity roaming the earth as a lost evil soul. He had lost his chance to regain back his authority and respect in the community after he was cast out of the clan for accidentally killing a member of the commun ity. Upon his return to Umuofia he expected to pick up where he left off his crops to blossom his daughters to marry and his past deeds be forgotten. But it turned out to be a harder struggle then he imagined. The novel itself was a great story full of co lorful characters and a supernatural outlook. The style was very simple and oftentimes I found it read like a children’s book. This being said it wasn’t a challenging read. Aside from the complex names of the Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 29 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf communities and its people the language was ver y clear and simple. Critics have viewed the work as Achebe’s answer to the limited and often inaccurate presentation of Nigerian life and customs found in literature written by powers of the colonial era. Achebe does not paint an idyllic pi cture of pre - colonial Africa but instead shows Igbo society with all its flaws as well as virtues. The novel’s title is taken from W. B. Yeats’s poem The Second Coming. Things Fall Apart traces life in the Igbo village of Umuofia just before and after its initial contact with European colonists and their Christian religion. The novel focuses on Okonkwo an ambitious and inflexible clan member trying to overcome the legacy of his weak father. The clan does not judge men on their father’s faults and Okonkwo’s status is based on his own achievements. He is a great wrestler a brave warrior and a respected member of the clan who endeavors to uphold its traditions and customs. He lives for the veneration of his ancestors and their ways. Okonkwo’s impetuousness and rigidness however often pit him against the laws of the clan as when he beats his wife during the Week of Peace. The first part of the novel traces Okonkwo’s successes and failures within the clan. In the second part he is finally exiled when he shoots at his wife and accidentally hits a clansman. According to clan law his property is destroyed and he must leave his father’s land for seven years. He flees to his mother’s homeland which is just beginning to experience contact with Christian missionaries. Oko nkwo is anxious to return to Umuofia but finds upon his return the third part of the novel that life has also begun to change there as well. The Christian missionaries have made inroads into the culture of the clan through its disenfranchised members. Shor tly after his return Okonkwo’s own son leaves for the mission school disgusted by his father’s participation in the death of a boy that his family had taken in and treated as their own. Okonkwo eventually stands up to the missionaries in an attempt to prot ect his culture but when he kills a British messenger Okonkwo realizes that he stands alone and kills himself. Ironically suicide is considered the ultimate disgrace by the clan and his people are unable to bury. The main theme of Things Fall Apart focuses on the clash between traditional Igbo society and the culture and religion of the colonists. Achebe wrote the novel in English but incorporated into the prose a rhythm that conveyed a sense of African oral storytelling. He also used traditional African im ages including palm oil as well as Igbo proverbs. In an effort to show the clash between the two cultures Achebe presented traditional Christian symbols and then described the clan’s contrasting reactions to them. For instance, in Christianity, locusts are a symbol of destruction and ruin but the Umuofians rejoice at their coming because they are a source of food. The arrival of the locusts comes directly before the arrival of the missionaries in the novel. Transition is another major theme of the novel and is expressed through the changing nature of Igbo society. Several references are made throughout the narrative to faded traditions in the clan emphasizing the changing nature of its laws and customs. Colonization is a time of great transition in Umuofia a nd the novel focuses on Okonkwo’s rigidity in the face of this change. Other themes include duality the nature of religious belief and individualism versus community. Reviewers have praised Achebe’s neutral narration and have described Things Fall Apart as a realistic novel. Much of the critical discussion about Things Fall Apart concentrates on the socio - political aspects of the novel including the friction between the members of Igbo society as they are confronted with the intrusive and overpowering prese nce of Western government and beliefs. Ernest N. Emenyonu commented that Things Fall Apart is indeed a classic study of cross - cultural misunderstanding and the consequences to the rest of humanity when a belligerent culture or civilization out of sheer arr ogance and ethnocentrism takes it upon itself to invade another culture another civilization. One of the issues that critics have continued to discuss is whether Okonkwo serves as an embodiment of the values of Umuofia or stands in conflict with them. This discussion often centers on the question of Okonkwo’s culpability in the killing of the boy Ikemefuna. Many critics have argued that Okonkwo was wrong and went against the clan when he became involved in killing the boy. Other reviewers have asserted that he was merely fulfilling the command of the Oracle of the Hills and Caves. It is hard to imagine being invaded and forced to change virtually all of our ways by a foreign nation. Unfortunately for the Ibo society imperialism was forced upon them. All they could do was sit back and watch as the English changed all aspects of their life. Everything from religion to family life was changed by imperialism. The title Things Fall Apart suits the book very well because that is essentially what happened to the Umu ofia village. The cultural traditions of Umuofia eventually fell apart. The main points of focus in Things Fall Apart are life inside the Ibo tribe the struggle of one man’s desire to succeed and imperialism.During part one of the stories Achebe takes the reader through the daily lives of the Ibo people. The reader is exposed to different aspects of Ibo culture like the role of women in society and the process of growing food. The role of women in the Ibo tribe was very specific and minimal. When a man want ed to marry a woman he had to pay the bride price to her relatives only if they accepted him. Women were given virtually no rights and their only purpose was to give birth, cook and clean. Women had no say in tribe meetings and never allowed to talk back t o their husbands. The agriculture of the Ibo society was also a main focus in Things Fall Apart . Yams were the main nourishment through every meal and they called these yams the king of crops. Furthermore people used the yams for every traditional celebrat ion and used kola nuts to offer their chi or personal god. These foods as Achebe had described were sometimes related to or involved with Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 30 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf the religion or ancestral spirits of the Ibo tribe. Things Fall Apart does a very good job of showing what life was l ike in Africa during imperialism. In a very short time major changes to the Ibo way of life took place. The new religion that was forced upon the natives made the claim that all men are created equal yet the missionaries viewed them as uncivilized and sub - human. The European desire for social and economic dominance is displayed in Things Fall Apart . Traditional family and religious values were lost when the missionaries came. Achebe shows the reader what effects these had through the character Okonkwo. He would rather kill himself than be killed by his self - proclaimed enemy which is exactly what he did. Things Fall Apart is a tale of tragedy and the despair of a fallen hero there was a man who dreamed as a child of being well known and respected throughout his village and neighboring villages. This man Okonkwo worked hard at his goal and he achieved it. Okonkwo a man with great strength and personality had achieved his goal to become rich and famous a privilege that was unseen before in his family. Although Okonkwo reached his goal at an early age his life began to Fall Apart when tragic episodes took place. One can see that Okonkwo’s life first began to fall apart when Ikemefuna a captivewho stayed at Okonkwo’s home was killed. Okonkwo had thought of Ikemefuna as one of his own sons. He was deeply saddened when he was killed. One can see the effects o n Okonkwo from that event. First Okonkwo was unable to sleep for the following three days. He also kept on getting drunk and that was a sign that he was depressed. This incident also had a long term effect on Okonkwo. From then on his family would look at him as if it were his fault that Ikemefuna is dead. This episode can be seen as an event where Okonkwo loses some faith from his family. This corresponds to Okonkwo losing faith in his father. Another important occurrence where one can see that Okonkwo’s life falls apart was when he was thrown out of the clan for a few years. From this episode one can see that Okonkwo’s dreams Okonkwo had no longer had his farm or animals. Also Okonkwo lost faith with most of his friends. Finally he hangs himself to protec t his own image and things fell apart. DOWNFALL OF TRADITIONALISM IN ARROW OF GOD Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe a political and cultural novel is set in Nigeria in the early twentieth century when colonization by Br itish government officials and Christian missionaries was well underway. In this novel two cultures confront their differences. Achebe portrays the disrupting effect an externally imposed power system has on an internally imposed power system. Conflicts wi thin the Igbo society coupled with repercussions from external invasion result in disaster for the Igbo society which disintegrates from within and reorients itself to Christianity. This reorientation will lead not only to the assimilation of Western value s and beliefs but also to the eventual loss of the Igbo cultural identity . Arrow of God Achebe’s third novel is an intricate and complex narrative. Ezeulu the main character is the chief priest of Ulu a God created by the people almost a century before when the six villages of Umuaro united to withstand the Abam slave raiders. Chief priest Ezeulu is responsible for safeguarding the traditions and rituals of the people for example Ezeulu watches each month for the new moon. He eats a sacred yam and beats the ogene to mark the beginning of each new month. Only the chief priest can name the day for the feast of the Pumpkin Leaves or for the New Yam Feast which is the yam harvest. Ezeulu considers himself merely a watchman for Ulu .Achebe is interested in investi gating this power and how a priest determines the Gods’ decrees. Structurally Arrow of God begins in medias res with a flashback to explain a disagreement between Ezeulu and Nwaka five years before. Nwaka is a prosperous man and a supporter of Ezidemili th e chief priest of the God Idemili. The initial conflict between the two men is over a land dispute between Umuaro and the nearby village of Okperi. Nwaka leads a group of villagers who want to go to war against Okperi. Ezeulu opposes them all six villages of Umuaro side with Nwaka and override Ezeulu. Akukalia an emissary from Umuaro is sent to Okperi to announce the war. Feeling as if he was not properly received Akukalia in a fit of anger breaks one of the villager’s personal Gods which prompts the people of Okperi to kill the messenger from Umuaro igniting open conflict. The war ends abruptly when the British get involved. Captain T.K.Winterbottom the District Officer stops the war and breaks all the guns in Okperi and Umuaro. Ezeulu later testifies on Go vernment Hill that the people of Umuaro had no claim to Okperi land thus impressing Captain Winterbottom with his lack of bias. Ezeulu on his part was also impressed with Captain interbottom. All of this told in flashback and foreshadows the future conflic t between Ezeulu and his people which will fracture the community.Ezeulu has four sons Edogo, Obika, Oduche, and Nwafo. Ezeulu sends Oduche to study Christianity with the white missionaries led by Mr. Goodcountry. Ezeulu initial motive is so that Oduche mi ght learn the wisdom of the white men. Later he realizes that if the white men take over the country as it seems obvious they will it would be prudent to have one of his own sons in the inside circle. “I have sent you to be my eyes there, he says. Ezeulu’s old friend Akuebue discourages Ezeulu’s decision to send Oduche to the white men. When you spoke against the war with Okperi you were not alone. But if you send your son to join strangers in desecrating the land you will be alone” Nevertheless he sends hi s son. Oduche is instructed by Mr. Goodcountry to kill the sacred python. Oduche places a python in a footlocker but the snake is discovered and is released unharmed. Even though everyone in Umuaro knows that Oduche is responsible for this desecration of a sacred symbol Ezeulu does not punish his son. The incident further fuels the divide between Ezeulu and his enemies. Shortly after this Ezeulu is summoned to Okperi to Government Hill for a meeting with Winterbottom who wants to make Ezeulu a puppet chief. The British attempted to instigate a Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 31 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf policy advanced by Lord Lugard Governor General of Nigeria from 1912 to1919. The idea of indirect rule allows the colonizers to rule the colonized people through appointed native chiefs. Before Ezeulu leaves for Okperi Ezeulu’s enemy Nwaka draws attention to Ezeulu’s friendship with the white men who are taking the Igbo land. Ezeulu angers Winterbottom by delaying his departure for Okperi. When Ezeulu arrives on Government Hill he is imprisoned. Winter bottom has become ill and is in the hospital. Assistant District Officer Tony Clarke makes the offer to Ezeulu that the British would like to make him a ruler. Ezeulu declines to be a white man’s chief. Ezeulu angers the British administration which detains him for two mor e months. During his imprisonment Ezeulu cannot eat the sacred yams or announce the new moons. Angry with his people for letting the British detain him Ezeulu refuses to eat the yams. When he is released he stubbornly moves the New Yam Festival forward two months. By refusing to announce the feast the yams cannot be harvested and they rot in the fields causing famine. Ezeulu says “You all know our custom; I only call a new festival when there is only one yam left from the last. Today I have three yams and s o I know that the time has not come.” Aware that he is punishing and hurting his people Ezeulu likens himself to the arrow in the bow of Ulu. The people become divided between their loyalty to Ulu and their loyalty to the survival of the community. They be gin to question the chief priest and ask that the custom be altered. While the people argue and starve Ezeulu’s son Obika dies suddenly while performing as Ogbazulobodo the night spirit in a ritual for a funeral. The people take Obika’s death as a sign tha t Ulu had either chastised or abandoned his priest and that no man however great was greater than his people that no one ever won judgment against his clan. Ezeulu is a tragic hero who imperiled his community to make a point. Because Ulu failed them the pe ople of Umuaro turned to Christianity harvesting the yams and taking a sacrificial offering to Mr. Goodcountry who received them with open arms. Of the ending John Updike says that the events of the conclusion proved unexpected and as I think about them be autifully resonant, tragic and theological. That Ezeulu whom we had seen stand up so invincibly to both Nwaka and Clarke should be so suddenly vanquished by his own God Ulu and by something harsh and vengeful within himself and his defeat in a page or two be the fulcrum of a Christian lever upon his people is an ending few Western novelists would have contrived. Achebe’s achievement then in this novel is to portray his obvious love and respect for the Igbo people balanced with an honest representation of t heir lives, conflicts, and culture. The novel explores how Igbo spirituality and religious life dies an ignominious death when confronted by Christianity. Christianity is backed by the white man’s military and political power. As a result Christianity is a lso identified with the source of their power. When the people of Umuaro are faced with famine because the chief priest of Ulu refuses to break tradition, the catechist at the church offers protection so the people can harvest their yams. When Ezeulu’s son Obika dies the people interpret that as a sign that Ulu was punishing his priest. With Ezeulu’s power broken Umuaro turns to the Christian god for help Traditions dictate the lives of the people of Umuaro. Seasons are punctuated by rituals and festivals a re managed by the priests of the various deities associated with each village. The overall deity Ulu provides the important purification rites as well as feast associated with the rhythms of agriculture. In Arrow of God we see that these traditions are undermined by the coming of Christianity the power of the British colonial office and most importantly by Ezeulu’s inflexibility and insistence on adhering to tradition. Ezeulu insists on waiting a full month to eat each s acred yam even though that means he can’t call the Feast of the New Yam for another three months. Meanwhile the people’s crops are rotting in the field and people are starving to death. The elders of Umuaro offer to take the punishment on themselves but Ez eulu refuses. While Ezeulu is stubbornly following tradition and punishing his people the people of Umuaro slowly begin to starve because they are unable to harvest the crops. Lust for power motivates many of the characters in Arrow of God . As the British administration’s power rises the men in Umuaro discover that their power is diminishing. All the men discover that their power is limited when the British administration steps in and stops the war with Okperi. Meanwhile Nwaka and Ezidemili accuse Ezeulu of desiring power in order to mask their own attempts to unseat him and usurp his place. Ezeulu punishes the people of Umuaro because they didn’t respect him and his deity Ulu proper respect. The power struggle between Ezeulu and the people of Umuaro gives t he Christian catechist Mr. Goodcountry the opportunity to win converts. The book concludes with Ezeulu’s power receding as Christianity takes precedence. After Umuaro provokes a war with Okperi the British colonial administration steps in to stop the fight ing they rule in favor of Okperi based in part because of testimony of Ezeulu the Chief Priest of Ulu and a resident of Umuaro. Umuaro is angry with Ezeulu for siding with Okperi. They accuse him of bringing the white man into Umuaro despite the fact that Ezeulu had originally opposed the war with Okperi. Nwaka challenges Ulu suggesting that he’s an impotent God and he might be replaced him with a new god. Nwaka spreads stories about Ezeulu suggesting he has power hungry and is wants to be the king of Umuar o. Nwaka aided by Ezidemili the priest of the lesser deity Idemili who owns the sacred python. Over the course of several years the enmity between Ezeulu and Nwaka grows until it infects both of their villages. A few years after the war, Ezeulu sends his s on to learn the ways of Christianity. Oduche takes to the new religion learning theology and admiring the catechist. He wants to be accepted into this community. So when Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 32 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf the new catechist suggests that he must prove his faith by confronting old religious b eliefs and killing the sacred python Oduche decides to do just that. He chickens out at the last minute and puts the sacred python in his box hoping it will die but he won’t be responsible for killing it. When Ezidemili the priest of Idemili hears of it he sends Ezeulu a message. Ezidemili wants to know what Ezeulu intends to purify his house. Ezeulu ups the ante responding that Ezidemili can take a hike and the animosity between the two villages continues to grow. Winterbottom is forced to comply with Brit ish colonial rule and must appoint a warrant chief for Umuaro. He decides that Ezeulu is just the man the one honest man he knows in Umuaro. But Ezeulu is reluctant to leave Umuaro when Winterbottom’s messengers call and Winterbottom gets ill while Ezeulu thinks about what he should do. Ezeulu asks his village elders for advice and they all say he should go to Winterbottom emphasizing that he’s at fault for the white man’s presence in their midst. When Ezeulu arrives Clarke detains him deciding to teach Ez eulu a lesson. Then Ezeulu refuses the warrant chief position and Clarke detains him until he has learned to be more cooperative. Finally with no real reason to detain him longer and with orders from above to forget the warrant chief business Clarke lets E zeulu go home.Ezeulu is angry that the people of Umuaro have treated him the chief priest of Ulu with so little respect allowing him to be detained by the white man and blaming him for the British presence. Ezeulu decides that he is Ulu’s arrow of punishme nt. Ulu’s revenge begins soon after Ezeulu returns to Umuaro. When Ezeulu’s assistants come to ask him why he hasn’t called the Festival of the New Yam Ezeulu says that the time hasn’t yet arrived. The elders call on him. Nobody can harvest the yams until Ezeulu calls the Feast. Ezeulu explains that because he was imprisoned in Okperi for so long and because nobody visited with Ulu during his absence there are still three sacred yams left. It will take three months before he can call the Feast of the New Ya m. Though the men plead with him that they will take the punishment on their own heads Ezeulu refuses. It is his duty to keep the tradition exactly as it is and he can’t eat more than one sacred yam in any given month. The village of Umuaro grows desperate as they hear that Ezeulu plans to stubbornly wait the three months out knowing that they will begin to starve and their crops will be ruined if they can’t harvest. After a couple of months of famine the people of Umuaro are suffering. The catechist at the Christian church John Goodcountry offers to accept the people’s sacrifice of new yams so that they can harvest their crops. He says that the Christian God will protect them from Ulu’s wrath. When Ezeulu’s son Obika dies suddenly after performing a funeral rite the people decide that it is Ulu’s punishment on his headstrong and stubborn priest. When the people of Umuaro realize that Ulu has punished its priest Ezeulu they turn their sights to another God. They ask the Christian God for protection from Ulu’s wrath. They plant that year’s crops in the name of Christianity. Examining the influence traditional canonical texts had on Achebe leads to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness hen studying the venerated Canonical text Achebe realized that the African charac ters are stereotypes and that Conrad is giving the typical colonial view of the natives. In contrast to Conrad’s half - naked, silent, spear rattling savages Achebe creates complex and complicated human beings existing within an equally complex and complicat ed society. As if pointedly playing with Conrad Achebe presents his European characters Winterbottom, Clark and Wright as one dimensional stereotype. So successful is he that one critic misses the apparent irony and takes Achebe to task saying Once again t he white characters are not much more than parodies though perfectly fair ones. Another traditional text that influenced Achebe is Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson . This novel also set in Nigeria struck Achebe as a most superficial picture of not only of the c ountry but even of the Nigerian characters and so common view is if this was famous then perhaps someone ought to try and look at this from the inside Conducting a dialogue with Achebe’s other novels shows that Achebe’s entire texts look at Nigeria from th e inside. Arrow of God is the third of four novels Achebe wrote between1955 - 1965 which are about Nigeria from the beginning of British colonization in the 1890’s through the military coup in the 1960’s. Achebe’s first novel Things Fall Apart is set in both the Nigerian capital of Lagos and in Umuofia a Nigerian village. The main character is an energetic Nigerian man who attempts to negotiate a past and present Nigerian society in the 1950’s a time of great political change. A Man of the People investigates the impact of politics on native culture the action is set in contemporary Nigeria after achieving independence from British rule. “ Anthills of the Savannah” raises questions about power and military rule in Nigeria after independence from Britain. Compar ing Achebe’s Arrow of God to Rigoberta Menchu’s Rigoberta Menchu one of the best known Latin American post - colonial texts there are similarities and differences. One obvious difference is genre. Arrow of God is a novel while Menchu’s text is a testimonial. While both texts deal with a colonized situation chebe’s novel does not idealize the indigenous African people as Menchu’s text idealizes the Guatemalans. Achebe’s characters have both good and bad traits which are equally exposed and explored in the nove l. Achebe’s point is that the Igbo people were in some way susceptible to assimilation by Western culture because they could not reconcile the internal discord within their own culture. Perhaps the same dissension within led to the subjugation of Menchu’s Mayan culture by the Spanish but it is not a theme she explores as readily as Achebe. Menchu admits that the Indians are separated by ethnic barrier linguistic barriers that there is no dialogue between them and that the government uses these divisions wit hin the culture to exploit the people but she does not draw any conclusions from the implications. Instead she places the blame on the government saying this is what the white man did it’s Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 33 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf the fault of the white man. Achebe on the other hand never blames t he colonizers directly. Contemplating these books and the way they convey their cultures generally remind of a question Achebe raises in an essay entitled The Role of the Writer in a New Nation . The question is how a writer recreates the past. Quite clearl y there is a strong temptation to idealize it to extol its good points and pretend that the bad never existed. This is where the writer’s integrity comes in. Will he be strong enough to overcome the temptation to select only those facts which flatter him? If he succumbs he will have branded himself as an untrustworthy witness. But it is not only his personal integrity as an artist which is involved. The credibility of the world he is attempting to recreate will be called into question and he will defeat his own purpose if he is suspected of glossing over inconvenient facts. We cannot pretend that our past was great one. We have to admit that like other people past ours had its good as well as its bad sides. Menchu of course is not an artist in the sense Ache be means nor was she writing a novel. However by her failure to be more balanced or at least slightly detached Menchu opens the door for detractors who feel her testimony at times borders on propaganda. It is well for the reader of Menchu to keep in mind t hat Menchu is on a crusade and that her anger is a sort of righteous anger that fuels the emotion of her story but may not give a completely balanced view of reality. Achebe unlike Menchu is more intent on unearthing the reasons why the Igbo culture put up so little resistance to Western ways. He speculates that the society itself was already heading toward destruction but Europe has a lot of blame. There were internal problems that made it possible for the European to come in. Somebody showed them the way. A conflict between two brothers enables a stranger to reap their harvest. This conflict between two brothers is one Menchu does not elaborate on. When the villagers capture the government soldier she says that for the pregnant girls raped by the soldiers the baby was like a monster something unbearable implying that the bloodlines could not mix yet she later says the soldier was also an Indian not from a different race at all. Why brother is fighting against brother why Igbo betrays Igbo is a cultural psy chological question one Menchu sidesteps but Achebe tackles head on.Another interesting textual dialogue is to compare Achebe’s text with other counter narratives. Arrow of God like the Latin American text of Miquel Angel Asturias’ Men of Maize is a counte r narrative. Both Achebe and Asturias investigate the colonization of indigenous people by Europeans. Both texts present counter narratives and counter histories to the official European narrative. Neither Achebe nor Asturias demonizes the colonizers inste ad both authors show the faults within the in digenous culture they represent. Arrow of God can be taught in many ways. Some teachers prefer to confront the primary text and allow it to explicate its own background information some prefer to ground students with background reading and supplemental texts before reading the primary text. This section will examine both techniques as well as the strategy of approaching the book as a counter narrative. In teaching any cultural text the teacher is confronted at th e outset with the reality that the student will need background information. Without understanding the culture represented in the text a reader may fail to comprehend or appreciate its significance. Assigning reports on Nigeria the Ibos British colonizatio n in Africa from a pre - colonial, colonial and post - colonial perspective examining the role of the family and women in Ibo society or how the British invasion upset the natural checks and balances within the Ibo culture would be one way to help students beg in learning more about the time period and the conflicting cultures Achebe portrays. However since the text itself is a place of cultural interaction some instructors might opt to forego background information and immerse the students directly in the text. If so it would be helpful to raise questions at the beginning that the student can keep in mind as he reads. Such questions might be who is the arrow of God? Could Ezeulu disobey Ulu? Did you sympathize with Ezeulu or the starving people? Why did Ezeulu n ot eat the sacred yams? What will be the result of Umuaro’s conversion to Christianity? After the students have read the text in depth analysis can be assigned examining narrative techniques, rhetorical techniques, historical cultural contrasts and compari sons, character analysis, theme, point of view, the interrelationship between literature and politics. The students could analyze Ezeulu’s character and compare it with his sons’ characters; compare and contrast the protagonist Ezeulu and the antagonist Nw aka identify other protagonist and antagonist conflicts in the text identify the central conflict. Another focus might be to examine Achebe’s use of language. One could study African folktales, songs, and proverbs. Achebe uses proverbs as a way to communic ate the African oral tradition within the frame of the western novel. In Things Fall Apart Achebe writes among the Ibo the art of conversations is regarded very highly and proverbs are the palm oil with which words are eaten. An examination of how proverbs work in the novel would be a way to discuss theme, clarify the character and explain the culture. Achebe says when he uses these forms in his novels they both serve a utilitarian purpose which is to reenact the life of the people that he is describing and also delight through elegance and aptness of imagery. This is what proverbs are supposed to do. Arrow of God is not so much concerned with the society as with Ezeulu himself. He is established in a closely knit society and it is in his relationship with this community and also with other elements or factors in this setting that we are able to comprehend the problem that he is faced with. Ezeulu and his culture are one there exists a genuine struggle between Ezeulu and his rivals in his own tribe the Briti sh administrators and Christian missionaries. But the struggle does not get down to the root of the matter. Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 34 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf Arrow of God is not so much concerned with inter - tribal conflict but with the chief priest of Ulu who is in conflict with himself. Whatever external forces are brought to bear upon his life are there only as objectifications of what actually goes on inside him.The story is set in an Igbo village in Nigeria during a time when colonial influence British colonial rule and the inroads of missionary activi ty are beginning to be felt. This is the milieu in which we find the main character Ezeulu the chief priest of Ulu the most powerful God of his Umuaro people and therefore he is designated a special status in the society. He is part and parcel of this soci ety and it is difficult to study him apart from it. With such a rich and complex story it is easy for the non - African reader to get lost in the forest of cultural verbiage and miss the focus of the story thus interpreting it as a story whose main focus is village life as suggested by the Times Literary Supplement . True there does seem to be a preponderance of village life but this is the setting in which the central figure expresses his character it is in this role that of interpreting to Umuaro the will of the God and performing the two most significant rituals in the life of the people the festivals of the Pumpkin Leaves and the New Yam. Ezeulu the intermediary is half black and half white thus bridging the spirit and the human world. The novel opens with Ezeulu brooding over his eyesight and that someday he would have to rely on someone else’s eyes as his grandfather had done when his sight failed. Such a feeling is not unnatural many people think about future incapacitations but this scene establishes the tone for the novel and unveils Ezeulu’s internal conflict. The allusion here is that this impending blindness is a threat for it will interfere with his ordering of religious festivals and will even mean that his tribal influence will cease to be felt amo ng his people if he fails to observe the progression of the moon. If his religious responsibility will be challenged his political responsibility will be in danger. He endeavors to console himself by imagining that he is as fit as any young man or better b ecause young men were no longer what they used to be. This gesture is indicative of his desire to maintain a perpetual authority over his tribe he realizes that old age is beginning to tell him but this he repudiates. In spite of all the tremendous power i n his hands he knows he depends on the supernatural forces whose ways nobody can understand this perception renders him somewhat helpless. Even the choice of his successor is in the power of Ulu therefore his dependence on the deity is a threat to his auth ority. Ezeulu’s authority can be asserted only when co - operation with the supernatural power is established. Any thought which seeks to undermine his authority has grave psychological implications. Throughout the novel we see him in anguish over his authority hau nted by fear that his power is in danger of being challenged. It is no wonder since he wields immense power over the year the crops and over the people but he named the day and did not choose it except for the feast of the pumpkin Leaves and for the New Ya m feast. He regards himself merely as a watchman In his dilemma Ezeulu sends his son Oduche to the white man’s region on the assumption that the white man has come with great power and conquest it was necessary that some people should learn the ways of hi s own deity. He also wanted to learn the white man’s wisdom. Ezeulu has an ulterior motive for sending his son to the mission school it is really for personal gain not for the good of the society of which he is a part. What motivates him is the deep seated fear of what he lacks power. He indirectly exercises his shrewdness in this particular instance. He is at this point not aware of or does not even foresee any repercussion in making a decision contrary to the sanction of his people. In this way he puts on e foot in the new culture. His people are of course vehemently opposed to this deliberate step because he is operating outside the collective solidarity of people who share common customs and beliefs and world view. This act brings him into conflict with his friend and confidant Akuebue but Ezeulu puts self - interest before the traditional group and its interests thus Akuebue’s warning “But if you send your son to join strangers in desecrating the land you will be alone. You may go and mark it on the wall to remind you that I said so” Ezeulu’s mouth was shaped with haughty indifference. As for being alone, do you think that it should be as familiar to me now as are dead bodies to the earth? My friend, don’t make me laugh.Cook notes that Ezeulu’s isolation whether we see it ordained or s elf - appointed is particular to him and sets him apart. His stubbornness sets him apart as an individualist in a communal structure. Ezeulu encourages his son to attend the church school even though he himself is apprehensive about it. He is indeed a person who is perceptive about what is going on around him therefore he tells Oduche that the world is changing a phenomenon that intensifies his conflict thus the purpose for sending his son to join the missionaries to be his eye there. If there is nothing in i t Oduche will return if on the other hand there is something Oduche will bring home his share. At the back of Ezeulu’s mind is the thought that not befriending the white man may bring regret in the future instead of paying dividends. Achebe obviously has c reated a character who is struggling to have it both ways he has the perceptions and heart of an intelligent risk taker in ideas. Oduche’s mother’s displeasure at her husband’s sacrificing of her son to the white man’s religion meets with utter defiance on his part however persistently she endeavors to reason with him. He has the last word believing that his decision is right. Achebe is indicating here that Ezeulu has become marginal in propounding ideas completely at variance with his culture’s norms nece ssitated by the predicament in which he finds himself. As people belonging to a traditional society Oduce’s mother and other members of his family no doubt have a clear Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 35 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf understanding of what societal expectations are for different members of the clan. Ezeu lu’s family does not share the secrets of his worship or when he is in consultation with his God but they know what should constitute the behavior expected of people in high places particularly that of a chief priest a religious leader who is the official mediator between the people and the deity. Ezeulu’s family is both concerned and embarrassed but they are powerless to deter the almost demented head of the family from turning a deaf ear to them and to society. His recalcitrance inevitably alienates him f rom the closest to him his family. A complication in the plot develops when Ezeulu’s plan backfires this is when Oduche in the eyes of the community commits sacrilege the imprisoning of the sacred python. Oduche at this point has become a zealous convert t o the new religion. His father is intensely disturbed as this confirms the potency of the white man’s religion since it enters the boy’s head and heart. The vehement struggle of the sacred python in the box prison could be interpreted as symbolizing the in ternal turmoil that Ezeulu is experiencing. Ezeulu’s desire is to maintain his authority and to assert it an attempt to escape reality. What Achebe has accomplished here is the delineation of a character whose apparent craftiness has relegated him to a sit uation where he is living an inauthentic life in alienation with himself and therefore estranged to the community to which he belongs and even to the god whose will he pretends to know. He is living in a constant state of anxiety over his waning control bu t he does not fully realize the extent of his condition. The odds are against him so that he is impotent to direct the conduct of the people of Umuaro. The apex of his conflict is reached when he refuses to eat the holy yams thus bringing his vengeance upo n all his people even the innocent those who are helpless have to suffer. The cultural clash the domestic contention and other problems and forces serve to externalize the conflict which is gnawing at the chief priest’s innermost being. His household is di vided his sons no longer show the traditional respect due to a father and his wives are at loggerheads with one another. Oduche has become the source of division as well as Nwafu the favorite son whom Ezeulu assumes will be Ulu’s choice successor to the pr iesthood. Ezeulu’s impotence at restoring order to his own household suggests an inability at unifying the people of Umuaro and Okperi. He fails at unification but refuses to admit defeat. At the meeting of the elders concerning the Umuaro and Okperi land dispute what he says is futile. He has lost all support the people side with Nwaka whose harangue of Ezeulu’s speech meets with their approval. Nwaka inevitably becomes the voice of the tribe since the chief priest’s words no longer carry any weight. The long uproar that followed was largely of appropriation. Nwaka had totally destroyed Ezeulu’s speech. Speaker after speaker rose and spoke to the assembly until it was clear that all six villages stood behind Nwaka. Nwaka is a rival of Ezeulu’s and of cours e a personal enemy a man of high standing in the community and a friend of Ezidmili the chief priest of Edemili the oldest deity whose conflict with Ulu is chronic. This aspect of the story includes an aspect of the conflict in the story which involves the deities. According to Palmer the religious conflict intensifies the conflict within the traditional society itself .The conflict is really a struggle for authority within the clan starting as a struggle for supremacy between the chief priests of two dei ties Ezidmili the chief priest of Edemili and Ezeulu the chief priest of Ulu the main clan deity. Since Ezidemili dares not openly he hides behind Nwaka the most powerful and wealthiest layman one of the three surviving members who have taken all the title s of the clan. Nwaka comes from the largest village Umunneora and therefore naturally thinks that the leadership of the clan ought to be his. Hence a struggle occurred for political battle with Nwaka and Ezeulu as protagonists. Ulu cannot stand a chance in the face of such circumstances. But it is Ezeulu himself who defies Ulu by his unscrupulous actions. His suspected dealings with the white man add to Ezidemili’s fury when Oduche the son of the sellout imprisons the sacred python. It is in connection with the clash between Okperi and Umuaro that Nwaka makes his voice heard. The chief priest of Ulu was himself embroiled in this acute affair and sided with the white man in favor of Okperi. All these cultural collisions are brought to light in the conflict be tween Ezeulu and Nwaka they accumulate with such momentum that Ezeulu resorts to self - isolation refusing any advice or assistance. We have seen how he has refused to heed his friend Akuebue’s advice. Later on village elders make representations to Ezeulu i n a bid to persuade him to put the interests of the clan first. Some elders endeavor to remind him of his responsibility to Ezeulu said Anichebe Udeozo.We know that such a thing has never been done before but never before has the white man taken the Chief Priest away. These are not the times we used to know and we must meet them as they come or he rolled in the dust. “I want you to look round this room and tell me what you see. Do you think there is another Umuaro outside this hut now?” Ezeulu is requested by the elders to go back to Ulu to ask him how they might appease him. The chief priest consults the deity but actually does not hear what the God is saying. Instead he is so consumed by introspection that he is distracted by the ringing of the bell of Odu che’s mission school. This is serious indeed whatever Ezeulu feels or does affect the clan. The confusion he is in is not only personal but social as well. His refusal to eat the yams because he believes he is the only one enlightened by the deity and the only one who is in power to make decisions on behalf of the people is partly a pretext to wreak vengeance on the people. The reader is aware of the fact that on account of the white man’s interference in traditional African affairs disorder has set in the imprisonment of Ezeulu means that he is not able to execute his traditional responsibilities according to schedule. The tragedy of Umuaro is hence reflected in the tragedy of Ezeulu. What he experiences is also Umuaro’s experience his Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 36 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf personal sufferings a nd so on as the representative of the wider community for which he is responsible. When we see him as a demented high priest at the end of the novel it is clear that the society itself is in confusion the former traditional solidarity has been broken. Obie china makes some salient comments relevant to the functioning of the traditional set up.Social and political institutions of the traditional society have perfected the art of exacting conformity from the individual and discouraging deviations and subversio n of the common will. In all their workings these institutions emphasize the primacy of the group over the individuals who compose it. The careers of important characters like Okwonkwo. Ezeulu illustrate his primacy of the society over the individual. All of them are shown to be powerful in their communities the primacy of the latter is soon established. In the case of Ezeulu it is shown that the individual cannot find fulfillment outside the protective wing of his community. Ostracism is the dreaded becau se it is the most effective of all penal sanctions of the traditional society. It is at the most critical period that the missionaries the chief priest’s religious rivals step in to exploit the situation. To them the disastrous condition of Umuaro is the w ork of Yahweh and consequently they take every advantage of a situation which has already deteriorated. Ezeulu’s pride has precipitated destruction not only to himself and the people but also to their religion and culture. The song of extermination which h e referred to earlier in the novel has been fulfilled. According to Palmer the theme of madness pervades the novel thus reinforcing the idea that the insanity which becomes more intense as a result of Obika’s death is the climax of a progression. Without t his realization on the part of the reader Ezeulu’s inflexibility in his decision to free his people from the bondage of starvation would seem strange.Perhaps Akuebue was the only man in Umuaro who knew that Ezeulu was not deliberately punishing the six vil lages as some people thought. He knew that the Chief Priest was helpless that a thing greater than anything had been caught in trap. During Akuebue’s earlier encounter with Ezeulu we are informed that what Ezeulu said made him afraid and uneasy like one wh o encounters a madman laughing on a solitary path. Akuebue suspects Ezeulu’s madness. Interestingly enough his mother was mad Obika, Ezeulu’s pampered son is alluded to as mad and Moses Unachukwa refers to madness in the family. Moreover Nwaka maintains th at Ezeulu’s madness is inherited from his mother. Palmer notes that Achebe must have strewn so many references to madness in the text because he wanted us to believe that this is at least partly the cause of Ezeulu’s otherwise inexplicable course of conduc t. Clearly during his imprisonment which occurred sometime prior to his divining the thought of Ulu Ezeulu made up his mind never to look for the new moon when he does hear Ulu’s voice his plan of revenge a purely personal one caused largely by private piq ue is already formed. Ezeulu is so bound up by his own thoughts that he does not hear what Ulu is saying. What he says he hears is from his own cloudy mind. No wonder he assumes that he is merely an arrow in the bow of his God. The proverb above is used to emphasize the need for people to adjust to change and make the best of its chance. The proverb is also used to indicate the dramatic breakdown of the traditional system and the new reality that is new religion and government in the traditional setting of the people of Umuaro. The narrator states this directly in the concluding chapter of the novel. After indicating that the people saw Obika’s death as a judgment against Ulu’s priest the narrator tells us Ulu had chosen a dangerous time to uphold that truth for in destroying his priest he had also brought disaster on himself .For a deity who chose a moment such as this to chastise his priest or abandon him before his enemies was inciting people to take liberties. Arrow of god depicts the life of indigenous p eople, their customs and the down fall it due to the coming of white men. CONCLUSION Chinua Achebe’s first three novels are sometimes called the African Trilogy. They are Things Fall Apart , No Longer at Ease and Arrow of God . Most of Achebe’s writing deals with the im pact of the British colonization of the Igbo lands of northern Nigeria on traditional culture there and particularly with the loss of authority of African priests under pressure both political and religious. Both Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God present tragic protagonists who embody this authority and in both books the human weaknesses and character failings of these men are presented as important elements contributing to societal collapse. This discussion of African weaknesses in confronting colonizatio n always in microcosm is important one to Achebe’s success in illuminating the catastrophic 20 th century history of the region it is intellectually fruitful provocative and gives Achebe moral authority both in Nigeria and in the outside world. Arrow of God is denser with detail than Things Fall Apart with a good deal more technical discussion of the rituals and concepts underlying Igbo religious customs and with a larger and more fleshed out cast of characters. Ezeulu priest of Ulu the titular deity of a sm all and remote group of villages nobly resists cooperation by the heavy handed and not particularly competent British authorities. He is secure in his own identity and standing a believer in his own authority and function. This gives him the instincts need ed to resist usurpation but also clouds his ability to recognize that his tradition is under genuine threat. He commits two errors first by sending one of his sons Oduche to become a Christian and second by refusing to perform the ceremony needed to author ize the yam harvest while he is detained by the British two overreaches that have disastrous consequences. Achebe, who never patronizes his own culture shows how rival priests function as political agents and have shallower roots than their rhetoric implie s. A cultural system like an ecosystem is deceptively fragile. Thus Achebe wields a double edged sword Britain is called to account for its immensely destructive imperial policies but Africans are confronted with their own guilt for Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37 37 http:// english .aizeonpublishers.net/content/201 4 / 1 / eng 2 1 - 37 . pdf © 201 4 ; AIZEON Publishers; All Rights Reserved This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. failing to criticize th emselves and adapt to modern challenges. One way of understanding Okonkwo’s suicide is as the result of a self - fulfilling prophecy regarding his fear of failure. The District Commissioner is a pompous little man who thinks that he understands indigenous A frican cultures. Achebe uses the commissioner who seems a character straight out of Heart of Darkness to demonstrate the inaccuracy of accounts of Africa such as Joseph Conrad’s. The commissioner’s misinterpretations and the degree to which they are based upon his own shortcomings are evident. He comments for example on the villagers’ love of superfluous words attempting to ridicule their beautiful and expressive language. His rumination that Okonkwo’s story could make for a good paragraph illustrates his s hallowness. Whereas Achebe has written an entire book about Okonkwo he suggests that a European account of Okonkwo would likely portray him as a grunting cultureless savage who inexplicably and senselessly kills a messenger. Achebe also highlights one of t he reasons that early ethnographic reports were often offensively inaccurate when Obierika asks the commissioner to help him with Okonkwo’s body the narrator tells us that the resolute administrator in gave way to the student of primitive customs. Achebe ’s novel seeks at least in part to provide an answer to such inaccurate stereotypes. Okonkwo is by no means perfect. One can argue that his tragedy is of his own making. One can also argue that his chi is to blame. But as a societal tragedy Things Fall Apa rt obviously places no blame on the Igbo people for the colonialism to which they were subjected. We can also see that the narrator intends the reader to understand that Ulu’s humiliation of Ezeulu will result in his own death by the placement of this nove l in the Things Fall Apart trilogy. Though its chronological time period is earlier than that of the second novel in the trilogy this novel is the third and final one. If you read the trilogy in order you will already have observed in No Longer at Ease tha t by the 1950s Christianity has triumphed over the traditional system of gods. Though some traditions run deep Nigeria has become Christianized REFERENCES 1. Achebe, Ch. 1964 (ed. 1980). Arrow of God. London: Heineman Nwoga, D.I. 1981. The Igbo World of Achebe’s “Arrow of God”. Research in African Literatures 12(l):14 - 42. 2. Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: First Anchor Books, 1994. 3. Achebe, Ch inua., Arrow of god. New York: Anchor Books, 1969. 4. Carrol, David., Chinua Achebe. London: Macmillan, 1980. 5. Cook, David., African Literature. A Critical View. Bristol: Longman, 1977. 6. Gakwandi, Shatto Arthur., The novel and Contemporary Experience i n Africa. New York: Africana Publishing Company, 1980. 7. Irele, Abiola., “Chinua Achebe: the tragic conflict in his novels.” Introduction to African Literature. Ed. Ulli Beier. London: Longman, 1979. 8. Killam, G.D., The novels of Chinua Achebe. New York: Africana Publishing Corporation, 1969. 9. Lindfors, Bemth., “The palm oil with which Achebe’s words are eaten.” African Literature Today. New York: Heinemann, 1972 ***** Syed Fagrutheen / The Eng Lit J. 2014 , 1( 1 ): 21 - 37