Summary: Chapter 17
The missionaries request a piece of land on which to build
a church. The village leaders and elders offer them a plot in the
Evil Forest, believing that the missionaries will not accept it.
To the elders’ amazement, the missionaries rejoice in the offer.
But the elders are certain that the forest’s sinister spirits and
forces will kill the missionaries within days. To their surprise,
however, nothing happens, and the church soon wins its first three
converts. The villagers point out that sometimes their ancestral
spirits will allow an offending man a grace period of twenty-eight
days before they punish his sins, but they are completely astounded
when nothing happens after twenty-eight days. The church thus wins
more converts, including a pregnant woman, Nneka. Her four previous
pregnancies produced twins, and her husband and his family are not
sorry to see her go.
One of Okonkwo’s cousins notices Nwoye among the Christians and
informs Okonkwo. When Nwoye returns, Okonkwo chokes him by the neck,
demanding to know where he has been. Uchendu orders him to let go
of the boy. Nwoye leaves his father’s compound and travels to a
school in Umuofia to learn reading and writing. Okonkwo wonders
how he could ever have fathered such an effeminate, weak son.
Summary: Chapter 18
The church wins many converts from the efulefu (titleless,
worthless men). One day, several osu, or outcasts,
come to church. Many of the converts move away from them, though
they do not leave the service. Afterward, there is an uproar, but
Mr. Kiaga firmly refuses to deny the outcasts membership to the
church. He argues that they will not die if they cut their hair
or break any of the other taboos that have been imposed upon them.
Mr. Kiaga’s steadfast conviction persuades most of the other converts
not to reject their new faith simply because the outcasts have joined
them. The osu soon become the most zealous members
of the church. To the clan’s disbelief, one boasts that he killed
the sacred royal python. Okonkwo urges Mbanta to drive the Christians
out with violence, but the rulers and elders decide to ostracize
them instead. Okonkwo bitterly remarks that this is a “womanly”
clan. After announcing the new policy of ostracism, the elders learn
that the man who boasted of killing the snake has died of an illness.
The villagers’ trust in their gods is thereby reaffirmed, and they
cease to ostracize the converts.
Summary: Chapter 19
Okonkwo’s seven years of exile in Mbanta are drawing to
an end. Before he returns to Umuofia, he provides a large feast
for his mother’s kinsmen. He is grateful to them but secretly regrets
the missed opportunity to have further increased his status and
influence among his own clan. He also regrets having spent time
with such un-masculine people. At the feast, one man expresses surprise that
Okonkwo has been so generous with his food and another praises Okonkwo’s
devotion to the kinship bond. He also expresses concern for the
younger generation, as Christianity is winning people away from
their families and traditions.
Analysis: Chapters 17–19
Nwoye is drawn to Christianity because it seems to answer
his long-held doubts about his native religion, specifically the
abandonment of twin newborns and Ikemefuna’s death. Furthermore,
Nwoye feels himself exiled from his society because of his disbelief
in its laws, and the church offers refuge to those whom society
has cast out. The church’s value system will allow twins to live,
for example, which offers comfort to the pregnant woman who has
had to endure the casting away to die of her four sets of newborn
twins. Similarly, men without titles turn to Christianity to find
affirmation of their individual worth. The osu are
able to discard others’ perception of them as members of an ostracized
caste and enter the church as the equals of other converts.
Okonkwo, on the other hand, has good reason to reject
Christianity. Should Mbanta not drive the missionaries away, his
killing of Ikemefuna would lose part of its religious justification.
The damage to his relationship with Nwoye also seems more pointless
than before. Both matters become his mistake rather than the result
of divine will. Moreover, men of high status like Okonkwo view the church
as a threat because it undermines the cultural value of their accomplishments.
Their titles and their positions as religious authorities and clan
leaders lose force and prestige if men of lower status are not there—the
great cannot be measured against the worthless if the worthless
have disappeared.
