Jairus Rammir A.

Octubre
Ms. Sarah Lumba-Tajonera
English 12: World Literature
11 Dec. 2014
Religion in Literature: A Representation of a Culture
Achebes Things Fall Apart, Dostoevskys The Brothers Karamazov and Homers
Odyssey Each of these classic pieces of literature is different in their own way but tied by
one common theme, religion.
Religion is one of the most universal topics in the world. Wherever there exists some
form of a society, there is a certainty that this society has some form of religious beliefs. It
helps in the development of the society itself and the people in it. As in the case of the three
novels, it helps advance the plot in order to make a meaningful story.
Although the three novels talk about the concept of God and religion, it presented
different beliefs through the novels characters, society and even religion itself.
In Things Fall Apart, the Igbo people are presented as polytheistic with Chukwu as
their supreme god who had assigned several smaller gods who would help him carry out his
duties. Some of their gods include: Agbala who has the ability to tell the future and Ani, the
goddess of earth and harvest whom people give sacrifices to in order to give prosperity to
their land.
The Igbo people likewise keep wooden images of their divine beings which they
worship and frequently offer tributes to. Unlike the "one true God" whom the missionaries
have acquainted with the tribe as adoring, the gods of Umuofia demand respect and
admiration through fear. As seen when Mr. Brown tried to persuade Akunna to convert to
Chrtistianity by saying that their God is a loving God and need not be feared by those who
do His will. Akunna replied by saying, but we must fear Him (Chukwu) when we are not
doing His will and who is to tell His will? It is too great to be known. (Achebe, 133)

Contrary to the gods presented in Things Fall Apart, God was presented in
Dostoevskys novel as the all-powerful and omnipresent God of love and forgiveness. He is
regarded as the absolute truth and whoever accepts Him will join Him in His kingdom where
there is no more suffering.
Father Zossima once spoke about Gods love saying that, If only your penitence
fail not, God will forgive all. There is no sin, and there can be no sin on all the earth, which
the Lord will not forgive to the truly repentant! Man cannot commit a sin so great as to
exhaust the infinite love of God. Can there be a sin which could exceed the love of God?
Think only of repentance, continual repentance, but dismiss fear altogether. Believe that God
loves you as you cannot conceive; that He loves you with your sin, in your sin. It has been
said of old that over one repentant sinner there is more joy in heaven than over ten righteous
men. . . If I, a sinner, even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much
more will God. . . (Dostoevsky 97-98)
Like the Igbo tribe, the Greeks are also polytheistic with Zeus as the head of the gods
and goddesses. He also assigned gods and goddesses to carry certain duties and to rule
over certain parts of the world like how Poseidon is the god of the seas and Hades is the god
of the underworld.
Unlike the gods portrayed in the first two novels, the Greek gods and goddesses
have personal interactions and relations with humans. They have complete control of a
humans life. They can choose whether to assist or hinder a human a task they are doing.
These interactions are what drove the story of the Odyssey for without the gods meddling
with humans and their fates, the story would take a different turn of events.
For example, it was Poseidon who had asked Zeus to punish Odysseus for blinding
his son, Polyphemus, by destroying his ships. A goddess, Athena, was also the reason why
he was able to go back home after a long journey on the sea. This just shows how the gods
and their actions greatly affect human life.

Reading these novels, one would find himself questioning his own religious beliefs for
these novels raise questions that will shake you in one way or another. The conflicts are
presented in different ways in order to raise questions and to achieve different effects.
Religious conflicts came to the Igbo tribe in the form of the missionaries who asked
them to leave their wicked ways behind and to convert to Christianity for the gods that they
are worshipping are false gods who tell them to kill each other but there is only true God and
he governs all in the world. The missionaries tried to convince that their gods are made only
of wood and stones and cannot harm them but the Igbo people were devoted to their beliefs.
The missionaries proved that their gods cannot harm them when they cleared a part
of the Evil Forest but nothing bad happened to them, contrary to the Igbo peoples beliefs.
Seeing that their gods have not caused any harm to the white men, the people began to
doubt their own gods. Some even converted to Christianity.
The tribe thought that the gods may have let the missionaries to go on defying them
before they unleash their wrath but weeks passed and certain as they were that impending
doom awaits the missionaries, nothing happened which caused the church to gain a more
converts into their religion. People began to doubt their traditional culture and began to turn
their backs against their own beliefs and culture which have been passed on from generation
to generations.
I think one question that arose in this novel is the question about whether ones
religious beliefs are right or wrong. The two cultures may have different beliefs but that
doesnt mean that one of them are wrong and the other is right. In their own sense, both of
them are right.
The villages beliefs are a reflection of who they are and then the missionaries came
to turn it around. They wanted to make the tribe civilized, even though the tribe is already
successful in their own sense. The missionaries, in trying to impose their beliefs to the tribe,
not only killed a community and its tradition but also eradicated the identity of these people.

Think of it this way, what if someone came into your house and told you that
everything you believe in is wrong? Of course itll be hard for you to accept it. Thats how its
like for the Igbo tribe. They have been living in a specific way and now some stranger walked
in and started to tell them how to live all of a sudden, itll be difficult for the older ones to
adjust to the missionaries men even more so when they see that their family members have
joined the missionaries.
Obierika stated that the missionaries came in quietly and peaceably with their
religion. They allowed them to stay and now their people have turned their backs to join the
white men. They have put a knife on the things that held their tribe together and they have
fallen apart. According to an article titled Conflict and Tradition in Things Fall Apart, Achebe
symbolized religion as the things because when they were introduced to a new belief, the
people began to doubt and turned their backs on their tradition. Because of the lack of
solidarity in the tribe, they started to fall apart.
While Things Fall Apart, can be seen as a clash of beliefs, that of the missionaries
and the Igbo tribe, the conflict in The Brothers Karamazov can be seen as the believer vs.
the non-believer, Alyosha and Ivan, respectively. Ivan questions God through the parable of
the Grand Inquisitor.
In the parable, the Grand inquisitor argues that Christ had the power to end human
suffering by taking away their freedom therefore not giving them the chance to choose to do
bad. He argues that humanity can never be free for they are weak, disobedient and brutal
and giving them freedom would ultimately lead to their demise and suffering. Several
centuries later, the Church took upon itself the responsibility of taking the peoples freedom
so they will be able to distinguish the morally good from the bad.
In Kenan Maliks articled, titled The Greatest Novel of Belief and Unbelief, he states
that in giving humans freedom to choose, Christ has excluded the majority of humanity from
redemption and doomed it to suffer. Far better, the Grand Inquisitor insists, for Christ to have

given people security rather than freedom. Those too weak to follow Christ might still be
damned, but at least they would have found happiness and security on Earth, rather than
being forced to carry the impossible burden of moral freedom. The Church has corrected
Thy work, the Grand Inquisitor tells Christ, by taking away freedom of choice and replacing it
with security, by rooting human life not in freedom but upon miracle, mystery, and authority.
It occurred to me that religion was created to serve as a tool to save humans from
themselves for they cannot carry the burden of freedom that Christ has put upon them. In
order to avoid the onset of chaos, humanity must have a higher power or authority to tell
them what is morally acceptable and what is not. As the Grand inquisitor insists, They are
sinful and rebellious, but in the end they too will become obedient. They will marvel at us and
look on us as gods, because we are ready to endure the freedom which they have found so
dreadful and to rule over them - so awful it will seem to them to be free. (Dostoevsky 520)
Another question raised in the novel is that of the existence of God. Ivan raises the
point if there is no God, then people would have invented Him anyway. On page 481, he also
raised the question on whether God created man or man created God as the marvel is that
such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could enter the head of such a savage,
vicious beast as man. This relates to the idea of a higher power that would rule over them
and carry the burden of their freedom as stated in the parable of the Grand Inquisitor. Even
Kolya agreed, God is only a hypothesis, but... I admit that He is needed... for the order of
the universe and all that... and that if there were no God He would have to be invented.
(Dostoevsky 1158)
What baffles Ivans mind more is not the existence of God but the concept of the
world in Gods mind. If there really is a God and He really is the God of love, then why is
suffering so pervasive in this world?
Perhaps, in my opinion, suffering was the reason why people deemed it a necessity
to believe in God or to have a God, at the very least. Perhaps they need a figure to hold on

to, an idea to uphold so that they may endure for another day in hopes that in the end, they
would be able experience the eternal harmony in the afterlife because they believe that the
soul is immortal and they would rise once again at Christs second coming.
In discussing the story of the Odyssey, it is also important to look at Homers
previous poem, the Iliad. In the Iliad, The Greeks put a heavy emphasis the importance of
immortality and fame in their society. The Greek soldiers would leave their families to go to
war in the name of honor and glory. This glory is achieved through ones death in battle, as
seen when Achilles died and achieved honor thus achieving a sense of immortality and
fame.
However, Homer shifted the focus of the readers from the value of honor and glory to
that of family and life in the story of the Odyssey. In the Odyssey, Odysseus had a brief
encounter with Achilles during his trip to the Underworld. Achilles told Odysseus that he
would rather be a slave and alive than being glorified as a hero and dead. This transposes
the attitude of the Greeks from valuing honor and glory to life and family. As an article titled
Issue of Immortality stated:
During this brief encounter, we see Achilles stating that the never ending fame he
achieved by dying heroically in the Trojan War has not made him happy. He says that
he would prefer to be alive and a slave rather than being the most famous Greek hero and
dead. Therefore, once again Homer emphasizes the fact that the Greeks no

longer

view immortality as being the ultimate goal, but rather they now believe the gift

of life as

being the most important thing they possess. They no longer fear their
they embrace it and feel very comfortable with it. In fact, this is

mortality; instead

such a strong feeling that

Odysseus actually rejects the offer of becoming immortal

twice in the Odyssey; something

that was unheard of and totally unexpected until that

time.

Homer also expressed the value of family and life more than honor when Odysseus
left Calypsos island to return to his home than to die in battle. The Odyssey serves as a

contrast to the story of the Iliad and changes the attitude of the Greek towards immortality
through honor. An article title The Transition in Greek Society reiterates that through the
Odyssey, Homer directly contrasts the end of the Iliad, when heroes achieve honor through
death and victory. Through the two books of the Iliad and the Odyssey, Homer presents the
transition in Greek society, from emphasizing personal honor and glory, towards
concentrating more on family.
Reading these novels has caused me to take a second look at my own beliefs. The
questions that each novel raised started to seep into my mind. What if the God that I believe
in doesnt really exist and that the God that I am worshipping turned out to be the wrong God
and every minute I worship the wrong God, the one true God is getting angrier at me? What
if someone would come along and tell me that my beliefs are wrong? What then? I have
been a member of the Catholic Church for as long as I remember.
Having been raised as a Catholic, I grew up to believe that there is a man in the sky
who looks at all of us down here on Earth. Somehow, He knows all of our names and what
all of us are doing. Ridiculous as it may sound, I did not question the things that my parents
are telling about this all-powerful and omnipresent God.
When my siblings and I were about six years of age, my mother let us join a Bible
study for kids where we would sing and learn about God, Jesus and the Bible. We would
memorize Bible verses and recite them in front of a small group of kids my age. This is
mostly how I learned about my religion when I was a kid.
As a kid, the idea of God was perfect. I had the answer to some of the most
perplexing questions - it was because God made it that way. If I asked why the sky is blue,
the answer could easily be because God made it that way. Same goes to all the other
questions. But as I grew older and discovered the fascinating world of science, I began to
question the answers that my parents gave to me when I was younger.

Thanks to science, I now have the answer most of the questions that I asked when I
was younger. Why are plant leaves green? Its because they contain chlorophyll which
makes the leaves green. What causes the Aurora borealis? I can say that it is because of the
magnetic field of the Earth which causes this amazing display of lights. But if someone would
ask why there is chlorophyll in plants or why the magnetic field exists in the Earth, I still find
myself reverting back to my old answer because God made it so.
My religious beliefs has somehow influenced the way I think and act in my daily life
but reading these novels had caused me to take a second look at my beliefs. I began to ask
myself, what would I do if same thing that happened to the Igbo tribe happened to me? What
if one day, a group of people came into my house and declared that my beliefs are false, that
I have been following a false God? Who knew if I have been making the one true God mad
every minute I follow my religious beliefs, right? What if there are actually more than one
god? Who can tell, right?
I also questioned God the way Ivan questioned Him. My parents have always told me
that God put people in this world to be tested, for Him to know who is worthy of being in His
kingdom. I know that he is an all-knowing God for He and only He knows when the second
coming of Christ will be. If that is the case, then how can he not know whether a person will
turn out to be good or bad? How can He give people burdens that He knows people cannot
carry? If He really is a long God, how can he allow so much suffering in this world to occur?
I realized something. Thats the thing about faith and beliefs. It does not need to be
justified the way science is supposed to be. That is why it is called blind faith. We believe in
an idea with all of our hearts even though we do not have concrete evidence whether our
beliefs are true or not. We follow it, we live it and it becomes a part of us, a part of our
identity.

Perhaps theres no such thing as a one true God. Perhaps no one has the right kind
of belief. We shall all respect someone elses beliefs as we would like the others to respect
ours, too.
There are many existing religions in the world, not one is less or more correct than
the other. Every religion has its own beliefs which dictate how a person should act in his/her
everyday life. Some religions may have only one god whom they worship. Some religions
have more than one god and some may even have goddess/es who rule along their gods.
One religion may tell that their people should never eat cow meat or that the women
should wear veils which cover their hair and faces. Another religion may not allow the
woman to cut her hair in her lifetime while there are religions which are not strict that they
allow their people to do whatever they want as long as they do not disobey the rules and
commandments of their God/s. These people act accordingly to their beliefs as the rest of us
do.
The world is diverse and there is so much to know. Perhaps the role of the writers is
to make all of us aware of all the things that are beyond ourselves; that the way we live isnt
the only way to live. They make us see things in a different point of view. They broaden our
horizon to the different possibilities about the world.
Just like in Achebes novel, Things Fall Apart. The missionaries are declared that the
Igbo tribes religious beliefs as wrong and that their religion is correct. They changed the
traditional culture and beliefs of the people in favor of their own religion not knowing that they
already have their own culture and beliefs.
As an article titled Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart - The Clan's Beliefs and
Christian Beliefs stated, On arrival, the missionaries barely understand the tribe. They have
very little knowledge of the cultural beliefs or rituals that the tribe revere. It seems
inappropriate that they are willing to declare that the villagers' beliefs are false. "He told them
that they worshipped false gods, gods of wood and stone." They don't even acknowledge

that this too is a successful community, which works well under its method of religious law.
They take it upon themselves to change the religion or `make it civilised', not respecting the
fact that maybe the villagers were already content with what they had.
This is the important role that writers play in curing the world of its ignorance. This is
the reason why it is important to learn more about other religions as well as ours. In some
way, it also states the importance of world literature so we may learn about the culture
different from ours and gain an understanding of the world we live in, not just in our own
perspective but from the point of view of others as well.

Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 25 May 2013. Web. 05 May 2014.
"Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart - The Clan's Beliefs and Christian Beliefs."
123HelpMe.com. N.d. Web. 09 Dec 2014.
"Conflict and Tradition in Things Fall Apart." 123HelpMe.com. N.d. Web. 07 Dec. 2014.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. The Brothers Karamaroz. Planet PDF. N.d. Web. 05 Dec. 2014.
Issue of Immortality. Union.edu. N.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.
Malik, Kenan. The Greatest Novel of Belief and Unbelief. Pandaemonium. Kenan Malik. 29
Feb. 2012. Web. 05 Dec. 2014.
"Religion in the Odyssey." StudyMode.com. 30 Oct. 2005. Web. 09 Dec. 2014.
The Transition in Greek Society. Union.edu. N.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.