Achebe (2) Dragging an oral culture forward (painfully) to literacy

     The oral culture in Achebe's story sees a dramatic change in its culture in a very short amount of time. From what we've discussed in class, it feels safe to say that change to an oral culture usually happens slowly over a generation or two, not within a single generation. When the white missionaries set up camp in Okonkwo's village, they brought with them many elements of their literate society.

• Religion and the Bible
• Government
• Prison systems
• Schools and books
• Technology: guns, bicycles

     The effect on the village is painful. The tribe is pulled apart with the missionaries' new theologies. The outcast and rejected find the white men welcoming, so they give up their allegiance to the tribe. On page 176 of "Things Fall Apart," one character says "[the missionaries] put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart."The change Okonkwo's tribe underwent severely disintegrated relationships between members, especially between Okonkwo and his son.

     The second half of "Things Fall Apart"shows the effect of a significant change in the tribe. Their belief system, their families, and their concept of governance is subjected to the "knife" of the missionaries' literate society, which ultimately rips them apart. It is not proof that one society (oral or literate) is superior, or that one is good or bad. It just shows the extreme differences between them, and how incompatible they can be. The incompatibility may be a testament to the fact that it took a very long time for oral cultures to become literate, because the sudden juxtaposition of the two has a negative and painful outcome.

     In my life, it seems that things are changing so fast I can hardly keep up with what's gong on – at my university, in Washington, in politics, in technology, etc etc etc. I feel like I have no escape from advertisements in every corner of my life, a sorry sacrifice for the allowances of technology. It accustoms me to a bombardment of new ideas, even if they do not have a significant effect on my life (no I do not want to change my hair color or join your church or sign your petition or watch a video about dancing gerbils!).