Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe: Europeans' View of Africa and Slave Trade

Chinua Achebe in Things Fall Apart argues that Europeans and Westerners have not stopped thinking of Africa as an afterthought. They view Africa as a country that is lower than them on the totem pole. The Europeans tells stories about Africa and depicts Africa in the same way as they did during the slave trade. The Europeans brought over their own culture during that time period. Things Fall Apart demonstrates imperialism in that Europeans drove through Africa instilling their own ideas, politics, economics, society, and even religion into African culture. This hurt Africa but since then Africa has persevered and grown stronger without the help of the European world.

Achebe is affected by Europe’s imperialism on a personal level because his own father converted to Christianity. He feels as if he missed out on the religion aspect of his African culture. He grew up as a Christian and sees that there is a missing part in African culture. Religion was a means for Europeans to justify the conquest of Africa. Achebe shows how Europeans brought their own ideology and shows how it was implemented/instilled into African culture. This affected the everyday lives of Africans as well shows how Europeans tainted the image of Africa as a continent.

Throughout the novel Achebe depicts encounters with missionaries who are trying to impose their faith on the people of his tribe; a key sign of imperialism. “[The new British priest] told them that the true God lived on high and that all men when they died went before Him for judgement. Evil men and all the heathen who in their blindness bowed to wood and stone were thrown into a fire that burned like palm oil” (Achebe 145). The word choice of “evil” and “heathen” shows the valued stance of the missionaries because the people do not up rise against him or get angry over his diction. The missionaries put down the African religions by saying these things and proclaim that Christianity is superior to whatever they practice themselves.

Chimamanda Adichie in “The Danger of a Single Story” states how she grew up in an area in Africa that was not as bad as people made it out to be. She tells her story to show people around the world that Africa’s image should no longer be tainted by the Europeans who depicted Africa as a place of despair centuries ago.

Many Africans like Achebe tell the story that Europeans clearly affected their everyday lives. By implementing their ideology, they unknowingly were imperializing Africa. This wounded the economy of Africa therefore suggesting to Europeans that Africa was impoverished. As Adichie states in modern times, Africa is not as impoverished as we think. They have bounced back tremendously and in the end, the imperialism and forcing of ideology on the Africans by the Europeans only dwindled the potential success of Africa as a whole.

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