Things Fall Apart

          In the book things fall apart by Chinua Achebe, Okonkwo's village is going through huge changes unlike anything they had ever seen before. As white missionaries and settlers move in they try to impose their ideas about religion and law on the local tribes, first by simply suggesting their ideas, and later by forcing it upon them. Most of the conflict in the book originated from the settlers forcing their ideas on Umofia, which influences the village people to react violently.

          In the book, the village of Umofia is ruled largely by religion and that ends up causing many of their problems. This is similar to how tribe cultures are affecting the spread of Ebola in Africa. Many of the cultures in Africa have death rituals that involve interacting with the bodies of their dead which causes the virus to spread to whoever interacts with the corpses. There is an example of this in the book when Ezeudu died. The ceremony involved leaving the body uncovered and having people walk and around it. In modern day Africa, some groups of people are not willing to give up these rituals despite the threat of Ebola. This has caused Ebola to be spread quickly by corpses in some part of Africa.
          Another important topic in the book is tradition and how it changes. One good example of tradition changing between generations in the book is when Nwoye leaves to join the missionaries and Obierika brings Okonkwo the news while he is exiled. "What moved Obierika to Okonkwo was the sudden appearance of his latter's son, Nwoye, among the missionaries in Umofia." page 107. Okonkwo is extremely against the new religion and is furious at Nwoye for joining it, which I think might be one of the reasons Nwoye left in the first place. He had never agreed with his father and joined the missionaries just to spite him.