Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe

I felt the ending of this story was very insufficient compared to the rest of the book. The story was very good about asking questions and answering them through later text. The ending really leaves you hanging about the entire story. Did the clan ever accept Christianity? Was the church ever re-built? What happened to the other elders after Okonkwo's death? Was justice ever taken to the guards who tormented them when the people who claimed themselves to be godly held them captive? How can the author leave so many questions unanswered and so many conflicts open? "The Pacification of the Lower Tribes of Niger," is the title of the book the commissioner plans to write (pg. 209). How can you want to pacify anyone? Shutting someone up helps them in no way. You should aid them in seeing your God who can help them and their families, but do not demean them so that they are forced to follow you. I found that particular passage to be quite offensive. "That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be buried like a dog," stated Obierika, Okonkwo's trusted friend (pg. 208). I was very surprised that Okonkwo died. It was an easy way to end the story, and it doesn't seem to have any closure. This clearly shows that I was right in contemplating how much good the missionaries were really doing in my journal. If they have caused someone as strong and as great a leader as Okonkwo to kill himself, what will become of the rest of the clan? All in all, the author left too many things incomplete and ended the plot very quickly, so I thought it was a bad one. Besides being offended by the way white people and Christians were perceived, I constantly wonder what happened to the rest of his family and to Obierika.