[In] Things Fall Apart the society is forced to give way to an inevitable change because of its violent collision with an alien institution. In Arrow of God, however, we have a more explosive situation of a society cleaving apart largely from its own internal strain. The latter novel illustrates the classic situation of a house divided against itself which, with or without any assistance from an external force, must collapse. To be sure the destructive colonial forces that we encounter in the first novel are still very much alive and thriving, but they now stand on the periphery of the doomed society, waiting on the wing to swoop down, like vultures, the moment the society commits harakiri. In this particular sense Arrow of God is more truly the tragedy…. (p. 283)
[The] central irony in [Things Fall Apart is the] paradox between what the society seems to encourage and what it can actually permit. In Arrow of God, Achebe brings out more elements in the Ibo society which help to sustain the internal cohesion of the clan but are at the same time responsible for its ultimate disintegration. This ambiguity is at the center of the tragedy of the hero, Ezeulu, the chief priest of Ulu. As the high priest of Umuaro, Ezeulu is the political and spiritual leader of the community and its most able protector against contamination from internal and external sources, and yet he becomes the unwitting cause of some of the society's woes. The germ of this paradox is built into the very function of the chief priest. As the Ezeulu his role involves the symbolic cleansing of the whole clan of all its abominations…. It is a psychically demanding function, but Ezeulu has gladly accepted this symbolic role of the scapegoat on whose head the sins of the village are periodically heaped…. (pp. 283-84)
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