Novel: Arrow of God

Overview
Chinua Achebe's Arrow of God (1964) follows Ezeulu, the revered chief priest of the god Ulu in an Igbo community, as colonial rule and internal divisions erode traditional authority. Set in a rural Nigerian setting during the early phase of British indirect rule, the novel examines how external political pressures and local rivalries reshape power, belief, and communal life.
Achebe presents a nuanced drama in which cultural encounter is not simply imposed from the outside but negotiated, resisted, and sometimes betrayed by figures within the community. The story moves between personal pride and public consequence, tracking how a single man's decisions reverberate through families, institutions, and the land itself.

Plot summary
Ezeulu, proud and conscientious, presides over rituals and maintains his role as mediator for Ulu. When colonial officials introduce the office of "warrant chief" to administer local affairs, tensions arise: collaboration offers political advantage, while refusal risks marginalization. Ezeulu resists mixing spiritual authority with the colonial secular appointment, a stance that isolates him as younger and more pragmatic leaders accept the new order.
A series of confrontations escalates after Ezeulu is summoned by colonial authorities and detained, an act that undermines his prestige. Returning home, he insists on following traditional religious procedures even as hunger and impatience grow among the people. His refusal to call the communal yam festival at the times expected by others sets off a crisis: crops lie unharvested, social trust dissolves, and emerging Christian converts and ambitious chiefs exploit the disorder to advance their own positions.
The novel culminates in irreversible losses for Ezeulu and his community. His rigidity and miscalculation, coupled with colonial interference and the ambitions of rivals, lead to the erosion of ancestral authority and the fragmentation of communal life. The narrative closes on a sober note, highlighting the moral complexity and human costs of cultural collision and political change.

Main characters and conflict
Ezeulu embodies dignity, religious duty, and an iron will that verges on obstinacy. Achebe explores his inner conflicts with empathy: he genuinely serves a spiritual office but misreads the shifting balance of power around him. Other central figures include progressive local leaders who negotiate with colonial agents, Christian missionaries and converts who offer alternative identities, and ordinary villagers torn between subsistence needs and ritual observance.
The core conflict is not merely between tradition and colonial modernity but between competing interpretations of leadership and responsibility. Ezeulu's adherence to ritual authority clashes with the colonial state's demand for administrative compliance; at the same time, social change driven by economic pressure and new faiths splits families and weakens the glue of communal obligations.

Themes and significance
Arrow of God interrogates power, authority, and moral accountability in a time of upheaval. Achebe foregrounds how colonialism reshapes indigenous institutions by creating incentives for collaboration and rivalry, yet he also shows how internal failings, pride, jealousy, impatience, render communities vulnerable. The novel refuses simple binaries: tradition is neither wholly righteous nor static, and colonial rule is not merely external oppression but a force that alters motives and relationships.
The work probes themes of language, prophecy, and the limits of mediation. Ritual and speech are tools of communal cohesion; when they fracture, misunderstanding becomes catastrophic. Achebe also meditates on leadership ethics: authority divorced from humility can cause as much harm as foreign domination.

Style and legacy
Achebe's prose blends plain narration with rich dialogue, proverbs, and culturally embedded idioms, giving readers access to the moral texture of Igbo life without exoticizing it. The storytelling is restrained yet morally sharp, balancing empathy for characters with critical distance. Symbolism, especially the figure of the "arrow" and the dynamics of the oracle, amplifies the tragic irony of a priest who becomes an instrument of misfortune.
Arrow of God is widely regarded as a masterpiece of postcolonial literature, completing Achebe's early trilogy and deepening his exploration of cultural collision begun in earlier novels. Its subtle portrayal of agency, compromise, and consequence continues to inform debates about history, identity, and the complex human fallout of colonial encounters.