The Role of Christian Missionaries in Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart"

Chinua Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart, highlights the influence of missionaries in pre-colonial Africa to invoke the question of whether it is justified for one culture to impose their beliefs upon another because they have a different set of morals and values. To begin with, the Ibo civilization was already rich in culture, tradition, and religion before the missionaries came to convert them to Christianity. Yet they suffered from the stereotype of being savages. The Christian missionaries overlooked that cultural richness, believing they were morally superior to the Ibo people. Further, it is not clear that the missionaries' motives were benevolent. Their persistence in trying to transform the Ibo people into something more European is the reason "things fall apart."

Achebe's motivation in many of his novels is to convince his readers that there was value in the African civilization long before the missionaries come to "save" them. He is troubled by Africa being depicted as the "heart of darkness." In an essay, Achebe writes that he would be "quite satisfied if [his] novels did no more than teach [his] 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" (Carroll 8). For many centuries Africa and its inhabitants constituted a stereotype; Africa was "the dark continent of the European imagination" (Carroll 17). Hence, it was the common belief that its people needed to be saved.

Before introducing the missionaries in Things Fall Apart, Achebe includes many examples of how the Ibo society is rich in culture, with a complex belief system as well as important traditions. For example, the yam is a significant icon in the Ibo culture, worshiped for its importance to the Ibo people's very survival. The yam is a symbol of masculinity and "he who could feed his family on yams from one harvest to another was a very great man indeed" (Achebe 33). Many cultures throughout the world hold festivals to celebrate their harvests, and the Ibo people are no exception. The Ibo people hold the Feast of the New Yam every year "before the harvest began to honor the earth goddess and the ancestral spirits of the clan" (Achebe 36).

The Christian missionaries, however, "completely overlooked any cultural richness that existed in Nigeria" (Missionaries). The Ibo people have strong religious beliefs, even though they are different from the European religion. For example, they believe that "there is one supreme god who made heaven and earth...[they]...call him Chukwu. He made all the world and the other gods" (Achebe 179). This is very similar to the Christian belief of how the world was made. Who is to say which is wrong? But the missionaries believe "[the Ibo people] worship false gods, gods of wood and stone" (Achebe 120). When Reverend James Smith succeeds Mr. Brown, he takes a very rigid view of the Ibo people. The Reverend Smith "condemned openly Mr. Brown's policy of compromise and accommodation. He saw things as black and white. And black was evil" (Achebe 184).

The missionaries believe they are morally superior to the Ibo people. It is not so much that they want to help improve Ibo civilization, but they actually believe the Ibo are inferior and that their entire culture needs to be erased and then rebuilt in the Christian model. For example, the District Commissioner "had already chosen the title of [his] book...The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger" (Achebe 209). The word "primitive" suggests he believes the Ibo people are like Neanderthals, savage and uncivilized. It seems that the missionaries jumped to this conclusion and had no interest in understanding the Ibo culture at all. In fact, many modern historians reject the notion that the missionaries had good intentions. The Europeans "were injected into Africa with the expressed desire...to convert it into something much more Europhile" (Postcolonial). The missionaries reject every ceremony and belief that holds the tribe together, and that is why "things fall apart."

Although the missionaries claimed their motives were benevolent, in reality they had a separate agenda based on greed and commercialism. Historians have argued that "initially, the commercial aspect was more pressing than the religious, due to the urgent need to find a quick substitute for trading slaves" (Missionaries). The missionaries helped to "soften" the African continent and make it vulnerable so that the colonists could later usurp its natural resources and its cheap labor. It is likely that "the missions were one part of the wheel of business and economics that started to turn in Nigeria, while a substitute for slaves was sought" (Missionaries).

In conclusion, the missionaries had both secular and nonsecular reasons for converting the Ibo people to Christianity. Through Things Fall Apart, Achebe asks the reader to decide whether the missionaries' role benefited Africa and its people, or had a disintegrating effect on African culture. In order to raise this question, he shares with the reader the rich way of life of an indigenous people, as well as the impact of the missionaries on this culture. Achebe believes that European culture shouldn't be a point of reference for morals and values. Perhaps if that perspective were more widely held, it would promote more tolerance among the peoples of the Earth.

Works Cited:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books, 1959.

Carroll, David. Chinua Achebe. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1970.

"Missionaries in Pre-Colonial and Early Colonial Nigeria." Queen's University Belfast. Visited 3/18/06. .

"Postcolonial responses to the missionaries: Things Fall Apart." Queen's University Belfast. Visited 3/18/06. .