Arrow Of God Analysis

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4. The socio –political life of the people of Umuaro in “Arrow of God” “Arrow of god” (1964), is set partly in Umuofia and partly in Lagos, it traces the fate of Okonkwo’s grandson Obi, who is marked by similar circularity like his grandfather. Achebe goes back to Igbo village life in the 1920’s before it has experienced any sustained contact with Europeans. The social life of the people had been gradually changing. They realized that they must come to terms with this alien rule, which was both powerful and permanent. It was a political and a cultural novel. Colonization by British government officials and Christian missionaries were well underway. Here the two cultures confronted their differences. Achebe presented the disrupting effect, an externally imposed power system (the British) on an internally imposed power system (African tradition and customs). Conflicts within the Igbo society coupled with repercussions from external invasion resulted in disaster for the Igbo society, which disintegrated from within and reoriented itself to Christianity. This reorientation would lead not only to…show more content…
Like Okonkwo, he was convinced that he must obey the letter of the commands of god; unlike Okonkwo, he alone was equipped to translate these commands to the tribe. In this situation, Ezeulu was constantly tempted to mingle his own wishes with those of the gods and then asserted his authority over the six villages by means of Ulu’s oracular power. Umuofia, a society based on a flexible balancing of competing claims was not a comfortable place for a domineering personality. No one, not even god was safe from criticism. In “Arrow of God”, Achebe has focused on the discrepancy between human and divine

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