Things Fall Apart. What Effect does the conversation between Akunna and Mr.Brown about religion on pg. 128-129 have on your understanding of the Novel? Why?

International Baccalaureate World Literature

Inez Schroder Monday, April 19, 2010

IB1A Commentary “Things Fall Apart”

What Effect does the conversation between Akunna and Mr.Brown about religion on pg. 128-129 have on your understanding of the Novel? Why?

In this passage, Mr. Brown, the English missionary, and Akunna, one of the great men of the village, discuss their views on religion. From this small passage, we find out a lot about Mr. Brown and his views on the Ibo religion. Although he doesn’t really understand Igbo beliefs, he is capable of respecting them. In a rare occurrence of understanding, he seems to share the clan’s value of peaceful, harmonious relations, and he debates religion with Akunna without any insults, disrespect or violence. The feeling of respect is mutual: both sides to not patronize the other or disrespect them in any way. Of course, this is based on first impressions, without analysis the language and the structure used.

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The first noticeable object of attention in this passage is that Mr.Brown, at first, seems to behave respectfully, but when one analyses the language, one realizes that this is far from the truth. When taking a closer look at the words Achebe choose for Mr.Brown to use, and the context, it is actually rather disrespectful – for example, Mr.Brown constantly disagrees with Akunna: he does not accept anything he says. One of the examples of this is when Akunna tries to say that there are similarities between Mr.Brown’s God(s) and Igbo gods: “You say that there is one supreme God who made heaven and earth. We also believe in him and call him Chuckwu. He made the world and all the other gods.”, to which Mr.Brown simply responds, “There are no other gods.”. He does not feel the need to explain or support his claim: the way responds, it seems like he believes that this religion does not need an explanation: it’s just correct. Another example appears a little bit later: when Akunna says: “…Or Chuckwu. He appoints the smaller gods to help Him because His work is too much for just one person.”, to which Mr.Brown retorts: “You should not think of him as a person. It is because you do so that you imagine He must need helpers. And the worst thing about it is that you give all the worship to the false gods you have created.” This seems rather disrespectful: Mr.Brown seems to be blaming Akunna. Mr.Brown’s disrespectfulness might not be intentional – it might be because he is desperately trying to convert Akunna to the ‘new faith’. In general, Mr.Brown is trying to find the differences between the ‘new faith’ and Igbo culture, and twist them so that his faith comes out better. t

Akunna, on the other hand, is doing the exact opposite: he is trying to find similarities between the ‘new faith’ and his. He is being very positive, which you can tell from: “You say that there is one supreme God who made heaven and earth. We also believe in him and call him Chuckwu.” In this phrase Akunna tries to find a similarity between the God(s) the two religions have. Mr. Brown turns him down on that comment, and then Akunna responds with, “Yes…” When Mr.Brown turns him down again, he retorts: “I know.” From this language it can be seen that Akunna is trying to find similarities in the religions.

This passage has not changed my perception of the book. Before, I also knew that the ‘new faith’ wasn’t evil, even though he was presented by Achebe as such. It has, however, changed my perception of Mr.Brown. I had not perceived him as being ‘evil’ in a sense, and now that has changed. In these days, the white man (even though this may be a sweeping generalization) believed that they were ‘civilizing’ the African-Americans. Before, I thought that Mr. Brown was being surprisingly respectful to the Ibo people, and now that I have fully analyzed this passage I realize that he is not as respectful as I thought him to be.

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