Spirituality and predetermination

Quote

Character

Chapter

“And that was how he came to look after the doomed lad who was sacrificed to the village of Umuofia by their neighbours to avoid war and bloodshed. The ill-fated lad was called Ikemefuna.”

Narrator

1

“Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw.”

Narrator

2

“Unoka was an ill-fated man. He had a bad chi or personal god, and evil fortune followed him to the grave, or rather to his death, for he had no grave.”

Narrator

3

“Beware of exchanging words with Agbala. Does a man speak when a god speaks? Beware!”

Priestess

11

“If a man said yes his chi also affirmed”

Narrator

14

“Your gods are not alive and cannot do you any harm,” replied the white man. “They are pieces of wood and stone.”

Missonary

16

“To abandon the gods of one’s own father and go about with a lot of effeminate men clucking like old hens was the very depth of abomination.”

Okonkwo

17

“You can stay with us if you like our ways. You can worship your own god. It is good that a man should worship the gods and the spirits of his fathers.”

Egwugwu

22

“Okonkwo stood looking at the dead man. He knew that Umuofia would not go to war. He knew because they had let the other messengers escape. They had broken into tumult instead of action. He discerned fright in that tumult. He heard voices asking: ‘Why did he do it?”

Narrator

24