Character Analysis: Reverend Smith

- 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>.