53 pages • 1 hour read
Chinua AchebeArrow of God
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1964A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Dynamic of Father-Son Relationships
Edogo’s jealousy toward his little brothers, who gain more of their father’s attention, is only part of a long line of brothers competing for talent, reward, and authority in Umuaro. When Okeke Onenyi, Ezeulu’s half-brother, offers to travel with him to Okperi, Arrow of God reveals that Ezeulu had retained some “resentment at the splitting of powers between” (147) himself and his brother. Because powerful fathers transfer their connections to deities to their sons, men like Ezeulu and Edogo fear the favor of their fathers.
When Obika dies, his father’s favor is clear. Nwaka seems to be the most natural successor as the high priest of Ulu, yet Obika’s strength and attractiveness compels his father. When Obika’s marriage seems to make him a “changed person” (121), his father is full of pride. Obika’s temper gets him into trouble, and he acts rashly, in this way a reflection of his father’s pride. That pride is common to each of the grown sons in the novel; one of the greatest challenges of masculinity, in Arrow of God, is to control one’s pride.
Akuebue is concerned for Edogo because he knows “how a man’s first son must feel to be pushed back so that the younger ones might come forward to receive favour” (127). Although Edogo has his own unique skills, he can be tempted to join in the ranks of his father’s enemies, an act of disobedience not unlike that of his brothers. Just as he does with Oduche, who gravely offends Idemili, Ezeulu keeps Edogo within his compound even after grave offenses.
The Conflict Between Christianity and Tradition
When Ezeulu enters Ulu’s shrine to consult on the issue of the New Yam festival, he can hear “the bell of Oduche’s people” (210) ring from inside. It sounds “so near—much nearer than it did in his compound” (210) and seems to threaten his work as upholder, and High Priest, of traditional religion in Umuaro. This knell is a sign of the arrival of powerful Christianity in Umuaro, a religion that takes over his people more tangibly than British occupation managed to.
Initially, Ezeulu sends Oduche to the white man’s church and school to learn his ways and tradition. After he travels to Okperi, he reiterates to Oduche “the importance of knowing what the white man [knows]” (188). Literacy, he knows, is “power,” and he wants his son to be able to “write with his left hand” (189) in order to have a share of that power. Oduche’s ill-advised actions against the python may introduce conflict within the tribe, but Ezeulu sees this sacrifice of religious harmony as an important precaution to protect his tribe.
That action is one that Ezeulu comes to recognize may have come more from his human decision-making faculties than the part of him dominated by the deity, Ulu. Men who speak with Ezeulu must remember that “one half of [him] is man and the other half spirit” (133), but Ezeulu must remember that too. Ezeulu is a religious leader, but his mysterious half-occupancy of the deity confuses not only him but others. They struggle with religious authority because, when another authority enters, it offers another alternative that makes more sense from human eyes. Christianity—which contrast with the drumbeats of Umuaro with its own sounding bells—presents a different way to think about the relationship between man and the divine.
Harvest Cycles and Man's Relationship with Nature
Arrow of God begins with Ezeulu searching for the moon so that he can mark the arrival of a new season. Indeed, searching for the new moon and the weather of a new season is one of Ezeulu’s main jobs as Ulu’s High Priest.
The British are baffled by this reliance on natural cycles to tell time and determine ceremonies. Although Winterbottom feels the harmattan and the heat, weather elements that determine his illnesses and discomforts, he marvels that the people of Okperi and Umuaro “understand seasons” but have “no idea of years” (35). Ulu’s divinity is measured in the yams harvested by his people; the planting seasons do not only measure time, but they also measure out the traditions and devotion demonstrated toward the deities.
Proper planning in wet and dry seasons means that man works within the deity’s cycles, and vice versa. When Ezeulu must travel to Okperi, he does not eat the sacred yams at home, which causes a delay in that symbiotic relationship. For this reason, the presence of the white man (and his demands for Ezeulu’s attendance) disrupts the natural and cyclical relationship between man and god not only inside Ezeulu himself, but also within society more broadly.
Authority in the Ibo Society
While the British bureaucrats stationed in Okperi scoff at the fact that “the Ibos never developed any kind of central authority” (37), they do not necessarily see that the Ibo communities around them rely on strong structures of authority. Winterbottom and Clarke both balk at some of the debates, in British colonial circles, over whether “native administration means government by white men” (56). Arrow of God shows that installing local people into a British-determined authority structure does not work.
Arrow of God also displays the numerous kinds of authority that structure Ibo society, through the specific communities in Umuaro and Okperi. An assembly of elders discusses each issue and conflict; no one man, even the High Priest, is intended to have control over all of the men of a certain age in the village. Each of these men is expected to retain authority and control over his wife (or wives) and children.
Authority over one’s children grows problematic the older that those children grow. Edogo joins forces with other men against his father; Obika’s temper causes him to fight with a white man; Oduche’s mind engages with Christianity and draws him away from his father’s intended path. From the British point of view (after the leader of Okperi grows corrupt) it “seems to be a trait in the character of the negro” (108) to be tyrannical, Ibo culture is set up to assure the reverse. In order for authority to be distributed, hierarchical, and measured out, it cannot be disrupted by too much pride (in Ezeulu’s case) or wealth (in the Okperi chief’s case). Too much authority spoils a society with a strong, preexisting structure for authority and power.
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By Chinua Achebe
