While reading Chinua Achebe’s short story, I noticed the frequent digressions in “Chike’s School Days.” The most important tangent to understanding how Chike was raised was the backstory of Amos and Sarah’s marriage. This union, which was socially forbidden, portrayed Chike’s complex dual identity as a Christian and an Osu, an untouchable in the Igbo class system. Within this digression, Achebe illustrated the differences between the kinds of education and knowledge Chike will eventually learn. The two main differences pertinent to the digression is the character development of Mr. Brown and Elizabeth.

The white missionary, Mr. Brown, was the only person to support Amos in his seemingly “mad marriage venture.” Interesting to note that the only reason Mr. Brown was a respected figure in the town was due to the medication he provided and NOT because of his religious sermons. This further displayed the cultural divide in Nigeria, as the townspeople did not accept Mr. Brown or “the white man’s religion” but instead needed the dispensary and medical treatment.

Elizabeth, Amos’s mother, resorts to divination, which is considered an African sacred science, after pleading with Amos to call off the marriage. Using snail shells as a device for fortune telling, the diviner is described as “a man of great power and wisdom.” Achebe immediately illustrates a culturally traditional Igbo scene, where the diviner procures a ritual for Elizabeth to perform to prevent the marriage of Amos and Sarah. Elizabeth, a recent Christian convert, renounced Christianity and returned to the faith of the Igbo people.

Although the ritual the diviner set forth for Elizabeth was unsuccessful, this digression was important to the story overall because readers were able to gauge the cultural differences occurring in Nigeria at the time (1960) and better understand why Chike has three different names. I also thought it was interesting that all the characters had English names except for Chike…