In chapter 15 of Things fall apart, Okonkwo was talking to Obrierika about a white man coming during the planting season. The people asked the Oracle and it replied saying ” the strange man would break their clan and spread destruction among them”(97). They later go on to say that the white men were on their way and described them as locusts. Why do you think they chose a locust to symbolize the white colonizers?
Making the Modern World: Europe in the 19th Century
Liberalism and socialism and imperialism, oh my!
I think that this description has something to do with locusts in the Bible. In the Bible, they are seen as a plague, which is most likely how the oracle viewed white colonizers. In the Bible, the locusts became so abundant that everywhere the people looked they saw them. Locusts crowded in houses and it was impossible to be rid of them. This comparison reveals that the colonizers would take up too much space and be like an infestation to the natives.