How does Achebe depict Ibo culture in “Things Fall Apart”? Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, is the story of a traditional village in the interior of Umuofia Nigeria around the late 1800s. This novel depicts late African history and shows how the British administrative structure, under the form of the European Anglican Church, imposed its religion and its attributes on the cultures of Africa, which they believed to be uncivilized. This missionary zeal subjugated large indigenous populations. As a result, indigenous traditions gradually disappeared, and over time the entire local social structure in which indigenous people had successfully lived for centuries was destroyed. Achebe spends the first half of the novel describing Igbo culture, alone, in a light both sophisticated and primitive, describing and discussing its greatness, showing its strengths and weaknesses, its etiquettes and incivilities, and even the beginning of cultural collapse before the introduction of missionaries. The collapse of the old culture is evident soon after the arrival of the missionaries, and here Achebe uses two of the main missionary figures, Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith, to once again depict the two sides of Ibo culture between them, with Mr. Brown. depicting the sophisticated aspects and Mr. Smith depicting the primitive aspects. The main focus of this novel is on one man, Okonkwo, the protagonist who symbolizes the many Nigerians or Africans who fought against the white missionaries, who brought their religion and policies and imposed them on the Okonkwo and other surrounding tribes. Achebe also shows how great the effect is when something so minimally invasive, like a church, is created in a Nigerian or African culture. Among other problems, A...... middle of paper ...... without the novel. Ibo culture is also described as primitive and unjust by Achebe. This is seen in the primitive aspects of the belief system of the Ibo people, which appears uncivilized and unjust. These examples of Ibo culture are then combined and redisplayed by the other main method that Achebe uses to describe the two aspects of Ibo culture, the two figures of the missionaries. Firstly, Mr. Brown is used in a way that recognizes the sophisticated structure and beliefs of the Ibo culture and the improvement brought to the Ibo people through the involvement of the missionaries in the village. Alternatively, Mr. Smith is only used in a way that only remarked on the extremely uncivilized acts committed by the Ibo people and the escalating divide between them and the missionaries. BibliographyAchebe, C. 1986. All Things Fall Apart. Heinemann Educational Publishers. Oxford.