Okonkwo's concern about his status when he returns to Umuofia suggests that status and mobility within Umuofian society is largely self-determined: All males except outcasts have opportunities to move upward in the clan through hard work, wise use of resources, and gaining titles. Prominent status is essential to Okonkwo in his drive for manliness. Out of the community for seven years, Okonkwo lost his status among the village elders and the other egwugwu, and he has fallen behind in obtaining titles in the clan. He can compensate by making a show of his larger compound, more barns, and more wives and by starting to initiate his sons (besides Nwoye) into gaining titles — something few men can afford to do. He seems to be suppressing his sorrow over the loss of Nwoye and his disappointment about the loss of community position by reaffirming his beliefs in traditional Igbo ways and taking traditional steps toward recognition.
In light of his near obsession with status and titles, Okonkwo must find it particularly hard to understand how some of the leaders of the community can give up their titles when they became Christians.
In Part Two of the book, the major change introduced by the white man was the Christian church, which not only divided the community, but divided families. In the first chapter of Part Three, the white man's government assumes a central role, not only with its court and its "court messengers" but also with its prison and its executions. These changes are reported by Achebe in an ironic tone, as if the establishment of a government by the white colonialists was the Igbos' first experience with government, as if the Igbo did not have a justice system prior to the arrival of the whites. This tone is especially ironic because, earlier, Achebe takes great pains to illustrate not only the varieties of justice meted out by the Oracle (Okonkwo's banishment) and by the general citizenry (reprimands about violating the Week of Peace and about women not helping in the recovery of a stray cow), but he also illustrates the processes followed and the types of justice meted out by the formal court (Chapter 10). Remember that one of Achebe's goals in writing this novel was to demonstrate that the Igbo had developed a sophisticated society, religion, and justice system long before the Europeans arrived.
