Chapters+15-19

1, Paragraph of Text-to-Text/Self/World Connection Chapters 15-19 focused heavily on the arrival of "albinos" or white missionaries. Some villagers outwardly express their disgust and contempt at them and their religion, while some actually join them and take away as Nwoye did. This event reminded me very much of the //Pocahontas//. The movie also deals with the arrival of white settlers, with some of them trying to convert the Natives to Christianity as they search for gold, just like the white missionaries and Mr. Kiaga tries to do in __Things Fall Apart__. Another commonality is that the settlers in the movie and the missionaries in the book both got along fairly well with the natives until somethings went awry. __**The white men in**__ //__**Pocahontas**__// __**and the white men in the book both come to the villages with predetermined goals - goals that eventually distort their relationships with the natives.**__ In the movie, a native warrior is killed during a skirmish, and in the book, an //osu// kills a python, the sacred animal of the clan. Then, in both, there is a time of coldness and distance between the whites and the albinos, but they both eventually manage to get along in the end.

Not only did the chapters remind me of //Pocahontas//, it also reminded me of what I had learned in World History class during the imperialism unit. I learned that the white settlers used Christianity and the idea of superiority as justifications for their barging into the native's land, and it seems like the white missionaries in the book are doing the same. They come in trying to convert the villagers to Christianity and call their gods "gods of wood and stone," (pages 145) considering themselves and their religion to be superior.

2. Paragraph looking at the character of Okonkwo in Part II - is he changing? same person we saw in Part I? Although his surrounding as his situations have changed, Okonkwo himself has not changed at all. Though he is living in a different clan with different beliefs, Okonkwo still holds on to his initial belief in manliness and violent and impulsive nature. I thought that this was shown in the book where Okonkwo beats Nwoye for being with the Christians. He acts on impulse and is unwilling to listen to the other side, just as he used to be in Umuofia with his wives. Also, in the village meeting concerning the killing of the python, he calls Mbanta a "womanly clan" and claims that the Christians must be punished severely in order for peace to be restored. When his demands are not met, he grinds his teeth "in disgust" (page 159). Therefore, readers can conclude that Okonkwo has not changed since the beginning of the book and remains a stubborn, impulsive, and violent man.

3. Interpretive/Evaluative Question related to one of your two paragraphs for this journal entry How would Okonkwo really feel about his son Nwoye?