Chapter 18
What does the narrator suggest has arrived along with the new religion?
There are stories that the missionaries’ new religion includes a system of justice to protect converts.
What do we learn about Okonkwo in the opening paragraphs of this chapter?
Okonkwo has prospered in his motherland. He has been active in community affairs. He has maintained his wealth, and he has had more children. Yet he considers the seven years of his exile to be “wasted and weary years.”
The narrator says that Okonkwo “regretted every day of his exile.” In short, Okonkwo has not learned a thing or grown at all as a character from anything he has experienced.
Why do the missionaries insist that the outcasts shave their heads?
There are two main reasons.
First, the dirty and tangled hair represents the osu’s previous status as outcast under the old (heathen) religious system. As converted Christians, they are no longer outcasts.
Second, the osu’s shaving their heads will prove that the old gods do not have power. The osu will not die when the mark of their outcast status is removed.
What do the names of the children that are born to Okonkwo during his exile symbolize about how he really feels about living in his motherland? How do the names of his children illustrate Okonkwo’s personality?
Okonkwo’s first child is named Nneka, meaning “Mother is Supreme.” However, he only uses this name because he feels a polite obligation to do so. The second child is named Nwofia meaning “Begotten in the Wilderness.”
The second name represents how Okonkwo really feels about living in his motherland. The naming of these children is representative of Okonkwo’s actions throughout the novel. Okonkwo’s initial motivation is consistently appearance—he does not want to appear weak; he does not want to appear lazy. He does not want to appear ungrateful or despondent. He hides his emotions.
The second explanation for Okonkwo’s actions usually reflects his true feelings.
Part two of the novel relates much of what happens to the clan as a unit rather than just to Okonkwo. How is it evident that Okonkwo is still the same man who came to the village after being banned from his fatherland?
It is evident that Okonkwo is still the same man because of the way he reacts in various situations that plague him.
For example, when he first learns about the white men coming into the village, he wants to fight. When he discovers that Nwoye is going to the church, he physically attacks them. When someone in the new church kills a python, he wants to fight the church. His immediate reaction is always violence.
Explain the significance of the final speech in the chapter. What does it foreshadow for Part Three of the novel?
The speech is significant because one of the oldest men in Mbanta is warning Okonkwo about the future. He tells Okonkwo that he fears for the younger generation because they do not understand what it means to function as a whole. The old man condemns the new religion because it is tearing the clan apart. This speech is interesting because it comes in the middle of a celebration.
Achebe includes this foreboding speech in this unexpected context, so the reader should take the words of the man very seriously. This speech could foreshadow the ultimate demise of the clan.
In what two, almost contradictory, ways is Okoli’s death significant?
Okoli’s death seems, on the one hand, to give some credibility back to the old religion. Okoli, an osu convert, committed the blasphemy of killing a royal python, and the clan believes that gods have punished him.
On the other hand, it is with Okoli’s death that the clan decides it does not need to harass the members of the new church, and this leniency is probably what allows the church to survive.