- Key quotes with analysis
Quote 1: “We cannot offer physical resistance to them. Our strength lies in the
Lord. They knelt down together and prayed to God for delivery. O Lord, save Thy
people," cried Mr. Smith.” (Chapter 22)
Analysis: This quote represents how Mr. Smith is being portrayed in the novel as a
religious fanatic and explains his behavior in the Igbo society. He is
portrayed as a strict and intolerant man that doesn’t belief in the Igbo
culture and just wants people of that society to believe in Christianity and
nothing else. With the inclusion of a prayer, it is evident Mr. Smith doesn’t
have bad intentions on the Igbo society as he is asking God to save them but
the methods in which he implies Christianity are a bit harsh. As we know he is
the successor of Mr. Brown and both of them had different approaches to get in
contact with the Igbo society. We also see that they don’t look for any abusive
efforts towards the egwuwu and leave everything to God so that he can solve
everything. Achebe tries to show that missionaries in Umuofia didn’t always
show the dark part of them but in fact they are demonstrating a caring side.
This makes the novel more credible as it portrays different perspectives of the
white people.
Quote 2: "All the gods you have named are not gods at all. They are gods of
deceit who tell you to kill your fellows and destroy innocent children. There
is only one true God and He has the earth, the sky, you and me and all of
us." "Your gods are not alive and cannot do you any harm,"
replied the white man. "They are pieces of wood and stone." (Chapter
16)
Analysis: On the other hand, with the quote that is shown above, we get the negative
side of Reverend Smith as he threatens Igbo religion by denying the existence
of their gods. This creates one of the biggest conflicts in the novel, which could
be seen as the starting problem between the white people and the Igbo society. The
intentions that Reverend Smith has are not bad at all, but the measures he is
implying are not the best ones. In fact, these measures show the opposite
intentions that the missionaries have. Achebe doesn’t want to create a bias
towards the white man by just quoting the good intentions they had but he also
wants to add credibility by pointing out the way that they did those things. We
know that it was hard to convince people in those days and it is true that you
don’t expect a society to voluntarily accept your religion. It is more
complicated than that, and that is why Reverend Smith attacks the religion of
the Igbo society. He believes that doing this, he is actually doing good things
in the name of God.
- Relationship of character to others within the
novel:
The relationship that
Reverend Smith has with the clan or the Igbo society, happens to be bad because
of the methods he did to get their attention. Coming right after Mr. Brown,
everyone in the Igbo society was accustomed to Mr. Brown’s methods of telling
stories and making new friends but with the inclusion of Reverend Smith into
the society everything changed. Reverend Smith was not able to get many people
to follow Christianity.
On one occasion, he
suspended a young woman from the church because she had poured new wine into
old bottles. In the book it states: “Mr. Smith was filled with wrath when he
heard of this. He disbelieved the story which even some of the most faithful
confirmed, the story of really evil children who were not deterred by
mutilation, but came back with all the scars. He replied that such stories were
spread in the world by the Devil to lead men astray. Those who believed such
stories were unworthy of the Lord's table” (chapter 22). With this we can see
that the relationship he had with the Igbo society was not that good because he
did everything he could do to get more people into Christianity and he did not
care how he did it.
He can be interpreted as the
stereotypical white colonialist and his “behavior epitomizes the problems of
colonialism” and even his name reflects it. It is also referred in the novel that
he could only see black and white, which meant he only could see two perspectives.
He could see good things and bad things but nothing in between. It was or one
thing or the other but never in between or something else. It stated that white
referred to colonialism and everything that was good but black was everything
from race relations to the whole culture and religion of the Igbo society.
- Reaction/response of character to key events
within the text:
Reverend Smith had a
reaction to a key event within the text and that was when the egwuwu were going
to the church in search for Enoch. Basically, what happened was that he believes
that Enoch had to be protected from the egwuwu as he saw and heard that they
were destroying Enoch’s compound and then went to the church. All of this
happened because of the atrocity that Enoch did by unmasking an egwuwu and
eventually “killing” it. Enoch did that basically from an unconscious action
because of the way Reverend Smith was talking to the Igbo society about their
gods not being alive.
Reverend Smith tries
to protect the church but eventually he cannot do anything to stop it from
burning because the egwuwu were to powerful. He could be considered a foil
character to Mr. Brown as he comes right after him but with a totally different
attitude towards the Igbo society and with different methods to persuade them. He
thought that everything that had to do with the indigenous beliefs came from
the devil and that they weren’t allowed in the table of God.
-
Visual representation of the character
"Reverend Picture." N.p., n.d. Web.
<http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0f/StateLibQld_2_181211_Reverend_N._H._Grimmett_of_the_Maryborough_Wesleyan_Church,_1940-1944.jpg>.
