The people of Umoufia were taught to believe that the Evil Forest contained many evil, disturbing spirits that would kill you, but when the missionaries were still alive, it raised many interests among the villagers. The missionaries provided a reasonable answer for them, and they were convinced into converting into Christianity. At first there were only a few Christians, and many doubted that new religion to last since they accepted osu (outcasts). But soon enough, Christianity brought an interest to some men with title in the clan and their population grew as the clan commenced to break down. Things fell apart when Christianity eventually dominated over the beliefs of the Ibo's traditional religion among the villagers. .
There are many themes in this book. One of the themes of the book is related to the life of Okonkwo. As a young boy growing up, he did not want to be like his father, who was called a failure. Like it said in the book, "Unoka, the grown-up was a failure"(3). Other than his great wall of debt was "that Unoka was never happy when it came to wars"(4) unlike Okonkwo. His father was a failure, "Any wonder then that his son Okonkwo was ashamed of him"(5). Okonkwo did not want to be like his father, so he established his life at a young age to achieve his desires. By the age of his forties, Okonkwo had five wives, a large land of crops and yams, two titles in his clan, and was known wide throughout the nine villages for his reputation. However, Okonkwo's dream of earning more titles in his clan didn't turn out the way he planned. He was banned out of his village for inadvertently killing a clansman and had to harbor at his mother's land for seven years. He knew his dream had been prevented and many things can occur within those seven years that he left. That was when things began to fall apart, and when the white men came, Okonkwo killed a missionary, and hung himself. Things fell apart, and that was where the title adopted its name.