Okonkwo did not answer. But he left hold of Nwoye, who walked away and
never returned.
He went back to the church and told Mr. Kiaga that he had decided to go to
Umuofia where the white missionary had set up a school to teach young Christians to
read and write.
Mr. Kiaga's joy was very great. "Blessed is he who forsakes his father and his
mother for my sake," he intoned. "Those that hear my words are my father and my
mother."
Nwoye did not fully understand. But he was happy to leave his father. He would
return later to his mother and his brothers and sisters and convert them to the new faith.
As Okonkwo sat in his hut that night, gazing into a log fire, he thought over the
matter. A sudden fury rose within him and he felt a strong desire to take up his machete,
go to the church and wipe out the entire vile and miscreant gang. But on further thought
he told himself that Nwoye was not worth fighting for. Why, he cried in his heart,
should he, Okonkwo, of all people, be cursed with such a son? He saw clearly in it the
finger of his personal god or chi. For how else could he explain his great misfortune and
exile and now his despicable son's behaviour? Now that he had time to think of it, his
son's crime stood out in its stark enormity. To abandon the gods of one's father and go
about with a lot of effeminate men clucking like old hens was the very depth of
abomination. Suppose when he died all his male children decided to follow Nwoye's
steps and abandon their ancestors? Okonkwo felt a cold shudder run through him at the
terrible prospect, like the prospect of annihilation. He saw himself and his fathers
crowding round their ancestral shrine waiting in vain for worship and sacrifice and
finding nothing but ashes of bygone days, and his children the while praying to the
white man's god. If such a thing were ever to happen, he, Okonkwo, would wipe them
off the face of the earth.
Okonkwo was popularly called the "Roaring Flame." As he looked into the log
fire he recalled the name. He was a flaming fire. How then could he have begotten a son
like Nwoye, degenerate and effeminate? Perhaps he was not his son. No! he could not