Things Fall Apart essay
10/9/13

Religion will be the downfall of all humanity, in my honest opinion the tribe was broken down and weakened by the Christians moving in and forcing their views and gods on the tribesmen, eventually leading to the death of Okonkwo himself. People have been fighting over religion since mankind has come about, such as the Islam’s they have been fighting for over fourteen hundred years between the east and west.
Christianity caused the downfall of the tribe as well as many others. "The philosopher has never killed any priests, whereas the priest has killed a great many philosophers.” Okonkwo felt like he had been defeated and had no one to back him up on his view his tribe had become weak from conforming to the new religion to the point they let it control them, the best example for this would be the end of the book where Okonkwo killed one of the messengers to see if the tribe would follow and kill the rest but they let them escape and it was then Okonkwo had seen how they have been changed.
In my opinion the tribe would have been just fine following their ancestry but the English men had changed them and weakened them to where they could not fight back or realize what they had become. “There is no story that is not true.” This could mean that stories that are told are true to the person who told them even if the people who heard the tale may find it fake or a modified story of a true tale. I believe that this is a very logical quote in the way that if a person tells a true story there will always be one person who doesn’t believe him but that is fine because the story teller knows that it is true. “Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.” This quote means that if an elder man was lazy all his life he gets nothing more as an elder but if a you man works hard up till he is old then he will deserve his riches that he has obtained over the years. This is a very common sense quote if you don’t put your effort into anything than you will not get anything in return especially if you are expecting to get something out of it, were if you work hard and keep your mouth shut and don’t expect to be rewarded than you will be more recognized and be able to prosper and retire wealthier than others.
Okonkwo is psychologically unstable as well as mentally unstable; many of his actions show these issues he is always upset at something or someone and just at himself in general. Most of his issues are show towards the end of the book but you can see the beginnings of it earlier on in the story, such as he