Martha Nimmo

September 19, 2016

Formal Essay
Transitions I
Things Fall Apart
What is the meaning of evil? Are there different meanings of evil? Has the meaning of
evil changed? Chinua Achebe wrote a book depicting his view of evil, Things Fall Apart.
There are many different ways of interpreting evil and everyone has a different definition of evil.
In Chinua Achebes book Things Fall Apart evil is many things, it can be the way a person acts
to supernatural doings. The ultimate nature of evil presented in Things Fall Apart is being
different from what others believe.
Throughout the book Achebe brings many different elements of evil; all them having a
similar theme as the person the evil is focused around as being different. Example one is the
Umuofias view on twins. Umuofia viewed twins as being evil spirits and did not trust them.
These babies were sent to the evil forest to die when they were born. The main character in
Achebes book, Okonkwo, has a son named Nwoye who is one of the first people to mention
how Umuofia views twins in Achebes book. Nwoye heard that twins were put in earthenware
pots and thrown away in the forest, but he had never yet come across them (62). Nwoye
encounters twins for the first time when after returning from harvesting yams he heard the voice
of an infant crying in the thick forest (62). The Umuofia village sees of these type children as
evil and something that must be disposed of right away so that the Gods are not angered. They
see the twins and triplets and so on as being different so they are seen as evil.

Example two of one of the ways evil is viewed in Things Fall Apart is how children
who die soon after birth from the same women repeatedly. Umuofia calls these children ogbanje,
meaning one of those wicked children who, when they died, entered their mothers wombs to be
born again according to their medicine men (77). There is an example of this type of child, from
Ekwefis, Okonkwos wife, past bad luck in bearing children. Ekwefi had ten children before she
finally had her daughter Ezinma, who later is still thought to be a ogbanje. The Umuofia do not
think this is normal and think that it must be evil because they think that it has to be the work of
an evil spirit.
Another example of how evil is viewed in Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart is how
the Christians are viewed in the end of the book. To begin with the Umuofia do not pay much
attention the white men, because they think they will die soon; because the only land they would
give them to build their church was in the evil forest and no one was supposed to be able to live
there. When these men did not die within several days the village began to think they would die
soon because sometimes their gods and ancestors were sometimes long-suffering and would
deliberately allow a man to go on defying them. But even in such cases they set their limit as
seven market weeks or twenty-eight days (150). After these white men were still living after
that point the village started to view them as evil as they began to convert more and more of their
people.
These are only a few examples of how Umuofia views different as evil. Throughout
Chinua Achebes Things Fall Apart he mentions multiple examples of what the villagers of
Umuofia view evil things and doings. For these villagers being different means that you have
disobeyed the gods, been corrupted, or even been possessed by an evil spirit. These people do not
view change as something good or something they can learn to accept. Which, is why people like

Achebes main character, Okonkwo, who are very traditional can not learn to accept this change
and find other ways of dealing with the issue.