"But there was a young lad who had been captivated. His name was Nwoye . . . The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul" (Achebe 147).
Part 1: According to the text, what effect did imperialism have on people who lived through it?
When the imperialists first arrived, they destroyed the entire village of Abame. After that, they moved on to the other villages in the area and started to teach them their ways. They told the clansmen that their beliefs were wrong and that their gods did not exist. While they caused a great deal of terror and destruction and demolished the belief system of the villagers, some people found solace in the imperialists. Nwoye found comfort in them, and quickly converted, becoming one of them. Their belief system and cultures made sense to Nwoye, and seemed to explain many of the terrors in his life. When people think of imperialists, they think of greedy white men carelessly destroying villages and squashing the cultures of the people native to the land. While this is true for the most part, some people, like Nwoye, appreciated the different belief system and welcomed their ways.
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