Okonkwo's Return To Umuofia Essay

Amanda Weitz 10/7/15 ~ Per. 4
Date: 10/4/15 Pages Read: 140
16. Can you paraphrase what’s happening?
Upon Okonkwo’s return to Umuofia, he recognizes noticeable changes. The white men have built a church and founded a new religion among the people and subjected to follow their rules. As a man of violence, Okonkwo wants to fight the Christians until they leave. His people, on the other hand, have accepted the new ways. It’s evident to Okonkwo that these white men were clever to invite themselves into the tribe and take advantage of the Ibo people’s curiosity. They weren’t perceived as a threat, so everything they introduced was accepted without any questions.
The Ibo people are catching onto the white men’s negative influence on their culture. They’ve established trading posts to bring in money, and Mr. Brown declares that the gods they all worship are powerless pieces of wood. In the Ibo people’s defense, Akunna argues that Chukwu, a creator of good things, designed this wood. Neither Mr. Brown nor Akunna change their views, but they learned more about each other’s faith through the conversation. Mr. Brown’s next project is a hospital and school, his reasoning being entirely selfish and sneaky. The hospital gives the impression that he cares

Without knowing anything from his past, the white man claims to have pacified the “primitive tribes” (154). The main purpose behind doing this is to show that despite Okonkwo’s struggles and accomplishments, the Commissioner sees nothing but a dead guy hanging from a tree. He treats Okonkwo’s life with little significance (only exciting enough for a paragraph in his book), and surmises that the Ibo people are uneducated and uncivilized savages. From a reader’s point of view, however, the tribe is well developed. They speak in elevated diction and show civility through their court system among other