Things Fall Apart

The white men in Mbanta initially look for the king of the village, but they are led instead to titled men, priests, and elders, who eventually agree to meet with them. When the missionaries ask to buy a plot of land, the rulers of the village sell them the “Evil Forest,” or the place where they bury fetishes, or objects that hold divine power, and those who die of grave diseases.

Uchendu and the other elders believe that the missionaries will recognize the dishonor paid to them, but in the morning, “the crazy men actually [begin] to clear a part of the forest” for their church and home (149). When none of them die, some villagers convert, seeing that “the white man’s fetish [has] unbelievable power” (149).

Nwoye is drawn to the church and passes by it, still afraid of what his father will say and afraid of the clearing that looks “like the open mouth of the Evil Forest” (150). Meanwhile, the church wins more converts as they survive well past the expected wrath of the gods and ancestors. A pregnant woman, Nneka, also converts, but her husband and family see her conversion as “a good riddance,” for she has failed to bear a child (151).