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Student Research submissions 2015 (2015 research options) Research Essay |
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Ashlea Massie
11/14/15
The Impact of Christianity Upon Colonial Literature
Colonial literature is normally viewed from the advantage of the writer’s
viewpoint, but what happens when it is viewed from a different viewpoint, a
viewpoint extremely important to colonial literature? This essay will explore
how Christianity impacted the way the colonists and colonized perceived the
self-other mentality and the world around them and how it affects their
traditional or modern worldview. Using
Robinson Crusoe and Things Fall Apart
as the basis for my essay, I will elaborate on the influence Christianity
had upon the characters within the story and how it influenced the authors of
each work.
Although Robinson Crusoe and
Things Fall Apart are two very
different texts, in two different places, Africa and the Caribbean, they share a
few similarities. Both novels are during the colonial era. Both novels assess
traditional colonial culture, Friday’s tribal religion and Okonkwo’s
polytheistic culture. Both of the colonized religions are very similar in their
misunderstanding of universal human rights, something that Christianity
addresses to both distinct religions. Christianity is considered modern to these
societies, because it is a new religion that has never been passed down from
generation to generation within the ancestral religions. All of these factors
make Robinson Crusoe and
Things Fall Apart great comparable
works to view in light of colonial literature and terminology.
Although these texts are similar to each other, we must first address
what Christianity is and how we know that it’s implied within the text, as it is
not explicit. Christianity is broadly defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary
as “the religion that is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ”
(“Christianity”). Christianity includes many denominations within the religion:
Methodists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Lutherans, Baptists, and so on. Although
specific denominations are not mentioned in either text, it’s important to note
the references to the teachings of Jesus Christ within each novel. In
Things Fall Apart Achebe mentions
that the missionaries “went into the village in the morning to preach the
gospel” (148); the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ, his sacrifice of
dying on the cross for the sins of the world to save those who believe in him.
This is a fundamental teaching of Jesus Christ. This same concept of the gospel
of Jesus is displayed within Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe but without the same wording, “that he might know Christ
Jesus, to know whom is Life eternal” (220). In that story, Robinson speaks and
equates knowing Jesus means you know that He is life, a different rephrasing of
understanding and accepting the Gospel. With this in mind, I will proceed to
elaborate on the impact of Christianity.
First, we will take a look at
Robinson Crusoe and how Christianity impacted Crusoe’s traditional outlook
on life. Even though Robinson Crusoe
was published in 1719, Defoe set the story in 1632, in England around the time
of the height of religious emigration to the United States of America. Despite
the scattering of Christians to avoid England’s religious persecution, England
held to Protestant beliefs within the established Church of England, a tradition
that had been passed down for several generations, now adhering to Anglicanism,
and was very committed to Christianity (Pettegree). Crusoe epitomized this
tradition in his instruction of Friday, as seen here:
I had
not only been moved myself to look up to Heaven, and to seek to the Hand that
had brought me there; but was now to be made an Instrument under Providence to
save the Life, and for ought I knew,
the Soul of a poor Savage, and bring him to the true Knowledge of Religion, and
of the Christian Doctrine, that he might know Christ Jesus,
to know whom is Life eternal. (Defoe
220)
Crusoe took it upon himself to teach Friday about his religious tradition. This
idea that his religious beliefs should be passed down to a young man under his
charge, perhaps seen as a son to him, typified the traditional outlook on life,
in which each generation was handed down the same beliefs as the last. Because
Crusoe was older in this part of the story and Friday was nearly half his age,
Crusoe can be seen as a father-figure imparting his religious beliefs to an
adopted son. The impact of Christianity upon Friday was not a bad one either.
Friday wasn’t forced into Christianity; He was taught about it and eventually
came to accept it for himself. Friday even learned from Christianity that
cannibalism was wrong, “ ‘He lookt full of Concern, and shaking his Head said, ‘No
no, Friday tell them to live Good,
tell them to pray God, tell them
to eat Cornbread, Cattle-flesh, Milk, no
eat Man again” (Defoe 224-225). Friday even believes that the Christianity
he has been taught by Crusoe is good (Defoe 226).
All of this testifies to Crusoe’s
traditional viewpoint, which was influenced by Christianity.
Crusoe’s religious beliefs are considered traditional today in America
and England, as are the beliefs of the Ibo people in
Things Fall Apart, but although both
are traditional, they are quite distinct from one another. Although Okonkwo’s
belief in the supernatural gods, polytheism, were drastically different from the
belief in monotheism and Christianity held by Crusoe, Okonkwo’s beliefs are
still considered traditional as opposed to modern, because their beliefs are
pre-colonial, untainted by the rest of the religions of the world, oblivious to
the other religions of the world, and because they have been passed down from
generation to generation.
This concept of traditionalism was seen through the Ibo’s everyday life
as well. As Waghmare said, “The Igbo have their own judicial systems that are
based on the knowledge that their forefathers have passed onto them about their
culture” (5). Asamoah-Gyadu also agrees with this idea of the Ibo village in
Things Fall Apart as seen from the
perception of a traditional society as well (2). As Asamoah-Gyadu mentioned in
his article, “The Evil You Have Done Can Ruin the Whole Clan,” Christianity
impacted the community as a whole (1).
This traditional perception was seen through the village, when they were
in awe of the missionaries’ abilities to defy the gods: “It was well known among
the people of Mbanta that their gods and ancestors were sometimes long-suffering
and would deliberately allow a man to go on defying them. But in such cases they
set their limit at seven market weeks or twenty-eight days. Beyond that limit no
man was suffered to go” (Achebe 150). Achebe’s
description of Okonkwo and his village gave the reader a picture of a primitive
and superstitious culture unfamiliar with the changes going on around them,
specifically when the white men took over control of the Ibo village in Nigeria:
“But stories were already gaining ground that the white man had not only
brought a religion but also a government. It was said that they had built a
place of judgment in Umuofia to protect the followers of their religion. It was
even said that “they had hanged one man who killed a missionary” (Achebe 141).
When the colonial missionaries came to share their belief in Christianity, which
was so because the missionaries explain belief in one God and in his son, Jesus
Christ, the people of the village laughed at the colonialists’ strange beliefs.
This showed their traditional culture, a culture that had been passed down from
generation to generation.
But this traditional culture did not last long as Christianity began to
replace tradition, a process which in this story is seen as modernity. It was a new way of
thinking that had not been passed down to the Ibo villagers. The missionaries
brought Christianity to the people, and little by little, the Ibo people began
to accept it. Waghmare agrees about the good perception the Ibo village had upon
the missionaries, “the Igbo not only welcome the white missionaries to their
land but they also easily allocate them a piece of it” (4).
Although it took awhile to actually have
an effect, as many of the Ibo people continued on with their religious ways,
things began to fall apart for the Ibo culture. The first effect Christianity
had on modernizing the Ibo culture was to get rid of outcasts being outcasts.
Christianity accepted outcasts within the Ibo community. The Ibo culture did
not. Christianity allowed twins to live; the Ibo community did not. Christianity
stopped fighting and killing within the Ibo village: “ ‘Come along,’ they said
to the women. ‘We will go with you to meet those cowards.’ Some of them had big
sticks and some even machetes. But Mr. Kiaga restrained them” (Achebe 160). In
our modern culture, we would perceive this all as good things that the white men
brought: acceptance, reducing infanticide, and peace. Yet at the same time, the
white missionary men brought their modernized law into the traditional laws of
the Ibo people, which wreaked havoc, as the Ibo villagers were not accustomed to
new laws. The Ibo prisoners within the white man’s jail were “prisoners [who]
had thrown away their twins and some had molested the Christians” (Achebe
174-175). These foreign laws broke down the spirit of the Ibo people, as seen
through Okonkwo’s eventual suicide. The missionaries brought good things to the
Ibo people, and inadvertently broke down the spirit of some of the villagers who
could not understand basic laws which we would have today—laws against
infanticide and persecution. Although those were good laws to have, the
missionaries had a two-fold impact, a good impact on morality within the Ibo
village, but a poor impact in neglecting to recognize the importance of
understanding another culture’s laws in order to best suit their needs, which
caused depression among the Ibo peoples, “They were grived by the indignity and
mourned for their neglected farms,” (Achebe 175) and suicide to Okonkwo.
The effects of Christianity upon the colonized are very easily seen to be
mostly good effects, but what did the colonized think about these Christian
colonizers and vice versa? The impact of the Christian colonists upon the
colonizers will be examined, first on Friday in Robinson Crusoe. All throughout
Defoe’s novel, Friday had respect and love for Crusoe. There was not one time
where we saw that Friday feels oppressed by Crusoe’s religion. Friday was
eternally grateful to Crusoe for taking him underneath his wing as Friday
mentioned when he told Crusoe how he would ensure his own people appreciated
Crusoe as well: “He meant he would tell them how I had kill’d his Enemies, and
sav’d his Life, and so he would make them love me” (Defoe 225). We can take the
part of that quote “sav’d his Life” as a two-fold meaning: not only did Crusoe
save his physical life, but also his spiritual life in that of converting Friday
to Christianity. Friday is not the only one impacted by Christianity. Crusoe
embraced Christianity and because of this, he treated Friday with compassion and
did not exult in proclaiming Friday as a prodigy of his instruction who was now
somehow better for it: “So that whether this poor wild Wretch was the better for
me, or no, I had great Reason to be thankful that ever he came to me” (Defoe
220). Crusoe saw Friday as someone who needed God, and Crusoe felt that he was
the person to do the job. The impacts of Christianity ideals upon both were
reciprocally favorable.
In Things Fall Apart, the
impact of Christianity upon the colonist and the colonized was not reciprocally
favorable. In this novel the colonized included Okonkwo’s entire Ibo village,
not just Okonkwo. Christianity affects a society. Each individual was impacted
in a unique way. Okonkwo’s son, Nwoye, saw Christianity as a relatable religion
that had something to offer to him that his own religion could not do for him:
It
was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him. He did not understand
it. It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow. The
hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and
persistent question that haunted his young soul . . . He felt a relief within as
the hymn poured into his parched soul. The words of the hymn were like the drops
of frozen rain melting on the dry palate of the panting earth.
(Achebe 147)
The
initial results of Christianity were good for Nwoye. He felt a longing
fulfilled. Nwoye’s conversion to Christianity led to a bright future, as he
eventually went on to college to become a teacher (Achebe 182). For most of the Ibo
society, “there was a growing feeling that there might be something in it
[Christianity] after all, something vaguely akin to method in the overwhelming
madness” (Achebe 179). Waghmare agrees
about the good perception the Ibo village had upon the missionaries: “the Igbo
not only welcome the white missionaries to their land but they also easily
allocate them a piece of it” (4). The Ibo village even respected Mr. Brown, the
white missionary (Achebe 179). Even
though Mr. Brown, the second missionary to serve the village, was upset with the
people for compromising their newfound Christian beliefs, he has only good
intentions for the congregation. He hoped to weed out their superstitious
beliefs and replace them with Christianity. His seemingly harsh intentions were
well-received by the congregation, as they are well-intentioned (Achebe 185).
The first missionaries to the Ibo village, the colonists, only had good
intentions for the tribe: “‘We have been sent by this great God to you to leave
your wicked ways and false gods and turn to Him so that you may be saved when
you die’” (Achebe 145). Salvation is a Christian term used for the concept of
the redemption of a soul from the consequences of sin and eternal damnation.
Only a colonist who truly cared about someone, regardless of whether the
recipient believed the message of salvation or not, would take the time to share
such news with colonizers, normally perceived as servants and too lowly to be
upheld in the same esteem at the colonists. This urgency of the salvation
message can be comparable to the urgency of waking a sleeping person, unaware of
imminent danger, within a burning building and rescuing them from peril,
initially annoying them by waking them up from a deep slumber, but consequently
saving them from certain death. To hide such news from someone would be cruel.
These missionaries had only love within them in regards to how they interacted
with the colonized. The impact of Christianity upon the colonists and colonizers
was mostly good, with the exception of Okonkwo and the misunderstanding of
traditional laws.
The effects of Christianity upon specific individual within each story
are different from the effects of the self-other relationship; in other words,
how does the Christian colonist in
Robinson Crusoe see himself in light of the self-other relationship and
Christianity? Interestingly enough, Crusoe would have defined himself as “other”
before coming to a knowledge of Christ, even though he was distinctly different
from Friday. His lack of belief in Christ would have been equated to Friday’s
seemingly barbaric religious beliefs. Crusoe becomes his new self when he comes
to know Christ, his conversion already being established within the novel
(Hinojosa 6). Despite once being an
“other,” Robinson Crusoe definitely sees himself as superior to Friday, solely
due to religious beliefs: “The Savage was now a good Christian” (Defoe 220).
Crusoe disregards the ethics of owning a slave and succumbs to the tradition of
the day, yet we see that even though Friday is a sort of “slave,” he is really
considered to be a servant of Crusoe, as he can come and go as he pleases and is
not lifelong bound to Crusoe. This may be the same way Crusoe regards slaves
(the other as well), and thus sees no wrong in owning them. Crusoe tries to mold
Friday into believing what he believes. Friday is considered the “other” in the
book and someone who has to be conformed to Crusoe’s teachings. Ironically,
Friday is still allowed to call Crusoe “Master,” a religious term normally left
for Jesus, not man. This is another self-other term that is used by the inferior
“other” mentality. The implications of this term serve for religious undertones,
elevating Crusoe’s status to something almost god-like. Friday accepts this
self-other mentality and allows himself to be humbled into subjection. He
thrives in this, all because Crusoe taught him the Christian way: “In a Word, I
so plainly discover’d the utmost Affection in him to me, and a firm Resolution
in him, that I told him then, and often after, that I would never send him away
from me, if he was willing to stay with me” (Defoe 226). This quote also shows
that although Crusoe maintains the higher end of the self-other status, he still
has respect for Friday and does not possess Friday as a slave, rather a step
above that, and that of a willing servant, able to be dismissed at any time,
regardless of the colonist’s decision in this matter.
The effects of Christianity upon specific individuals within each story
were different from the effects of the self-other relationship, so how did the
Christian colonists in Things Fall Apart
see themselves as different from the colonized who had different Christian
beliefs and vice versa? Okonkwo saw Christianity as an institution that is
stripping him of his identity, when in fact, the missionaries were really
leaving Okonkwo to himself. The missionaries never forced Okonkwo to convert.
They never tried destroying Okonkwo’s traditions. The missionaries simply
introduced a new way of living, optional and welcome to anyone willing to
receive it. As Waghmare says, “the missionaries serve as a ray of hope to the
people that the Igbo religion gives no favour to” (4). Okonkwo misinterpreted
these actions and indirectly oppressed himself for feeling as if he could not
personally live beside those who believed in something different from what he
believed in. He maintained a self-other identity, in the sense that he chose to
separate himself from the Christians within his village and continued to disdain
them for their differences. Nwoye would normally be identified as the “other”
from a colonist's perspective, but when he converts to Christianity, he can
identify with the missionary colonist’s “self” identity. The roles had reversed
for Nwoye and he even identified with this new “self” mentality, seeing the
adherents of his old religion in light of the “other mentality.” His desire was
to turn his family to his side, and Nwoye hoped to be reunited with his family
someday, leaving to get away from an abusive father, but still longing to
return: “But he was happy to leave his father. He would return later to his
mother and his brothers and sisters and convert them to the new faith” (Achebe
152). The missionaries continued a
self-other stance throughout the entire novel. Although the missionaries did not
purposely divide themselves from the heathens of the Ibo village, they still
maintain a basic separation from the principles of the traditional Ibo people as
seen here: “He [Mr. Kiaga] ordered the outcasts to shave off their long, tangled
hair. At first they were afraid they might die. ‘Unless you shave off the mark
of your heathen belief I will not admit you into the church’ ” (Achebe 157). The
missionaries considered the villagers to be heathens and associated those who
believe differently as “your heathen beliefs.” There was a sort of separation
between the two, yet that did not cause cruelty within the relationship. This
“self-other” mentality influenced the rest of the Ibo people and those who
convert to Christianity become the “self” and in turn see the non-Christian Ibo
people as an enemy: “ ‘Come along,’ they said to the women. ‘We will go with you
to meet those [non-Christians] cowards.’ Some of them had big sticks and some
even machetes” (Achebe 160). The self-other mentality causes division with the
over-zealous converts.
With talk of the self-other mentality,
it is interesting to note the beliefs of each of the authors of the
novels. How did they perceive colonialism, the self-other mentality, and
religion? Defoe actually had no experience with the slave trade (McInelly 3).
McInelly asserts, “Any influence he had on the colonial mentality is much more
precisely that—a mentality—than a practice conducted by actual agents in
history” (4). Defoe’s representation could not be traced back to his own
personal beliefs in regards to colonialism and perception. Many scholars
believed that the elements of Christianity within
Crusoe were being imposed upon by the
author and his beliefs (Orr 2). This was an assumption though. Defoe created
this series into a trilogy, which included conflicting beliefs within the other
novels. Defoe’s other works did not exemplify the same religious beliefs in
Crusoe and therefore, we cannot
assume that Defoe adhered to the same beliefs (Orr, 21). Although we cannot be
sure what Defoe believed in, Orr believes that Defoe “may simply have been
interested in spiritual struggle” (21).
Defoe may have created his work up entirely from imagination and not
personal beliefs or experience, but Achebe had experience with Christianity, as
he grew up in a Christian home, and was exposed to typical Ibo beliefs, as
Achebe grew up among the Ibo people (Brucker). Achebe’s knowledge helped him to
achieve a balance within the book, but as any reader can tell, the narrator did
not impose his beliefs upon the story which helped to maintain
a very unbiased outlook; it is extremely difficult to know whether Achebe
mixed his own ideals within the text. Achebe’s distance from the novel as an
author, lending himself to just the facts, led others to believe “that we were
still far from regaining what was lost, and were in danger of losing still more”
(Allfrey). It appeared that Achebe’s
desire for the religious and colonial implications of his text was to inform the
reader.
Although we may not be able to fully see how the author’s personal and
religious beliefs affected their texts, all of the evidence of the impact of
Christianity upon the colonists, the colonized, and their relationships with one
another point towards many positive effects, as opposed to negative effects as
one might assume, especially within Achebe’s
Things Fall Apart. Waghmare agrees
about the positive outcomes as seen in his article here: “There were some
benefits to Igbo at the arrival of White missionaries . . .” (3). Friday had a
more positive outlook on life with Christianity. Crusoe and Friday reciprocated
mutual filial feelings within their friendship. Most of the entire Ibo village
within Things Fall Apart accepted
Christianity, and the missionaries played a very respectful role towards the
villagers, in that they did not force anyone to convert, and they asked the Ibo
people if they could stay within the village. Waghmare assumes this stance as
well, “He [Mr. Brown] was an accommodating individual to all of the villagers
(even to the non-coverts) and did not force them to become Christians” (5).
There was a mutual acceptance between
the villagers and the missionaries. Christianity had a positive effect on Nwoye,
enabling him to be free from his violent father. The only person in both stories
who was negatively impacted was Okonkwo, who adamantly refused change within
others. He could not accept Christianity
within others and live beside that, so he committed suicide, though none of the
missionaries had directly or indirectly driven him to it. How terrible was
Christianity if all but two of the effects of it were bad? The good far
outweighs the bad in both of the novels. Some, as Waghare, perceive change
within a traditional culture to be bad and harmful. Perhaps Achebe felt the same
way, but change is a relative and cyclic term that will always bring about
resistance, good, and a little bit of bad. What was so wrong about getting rid
of a tradition that did not value universal human rights, though? It is
interesting to view the effect of Christianity upon individuals and societies as
a whole and note all of the positives that came out of this religion.
Individuals affected by Christianity learned about the importance human rights
as whole: cannibalism is not acceptable, infanticide is not acceptable, and
lower castes are not acceptable. These ideas were the result of embracing
Christianity. The indigenous tribes of Africa and the Caribbean did not know any
better. They assumed that these concepts were acceptable. They had to be taught
the right way, and Christianity did that for them.
Works Cited
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New York: Anchor Books. 1994. Print.
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Asamoah-Gyadu, J. Kwabena. “ ‘The Evil You Have Done Can Ruin the Whole Clan’:
African Cosmology, Community, and Christianity in Achebe’s
Things Fall Apart.”
Studies in World Christianity 16.1
(2010): 46-62. Ebscohost. Web. 14
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Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1972. Print.
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Christianity and Literature
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