There is danger within a single story. A single story as in the story told from one perspective, without the complexity necessary to characterize a group of people. Unfortunately, it is all too common for a story to become the embodiment of a culture. This can be witnessed throughout the globe. Walter Benjamin, a well-known literary critic and philosopher, summed up this concept in six words: “History is written by the victors.” Those with power will record the world as they see it, or as they see fit. The depiction of African culture is a paragon of this theory. For hundreds of years, African people and cultures have been misrepresented by Western media. Chinua Achebe sought to correct the single story of Africa in his novel Things …show more content…
Within his novel, there is a unique civilization vastly different from our own. Joseph Conrad witnessed a similar difference first hand and assumed that Africans were savages. He never bothered to learn more about the culture or the people, he was content with his single story. Conrad’s assumptions boldly bled through in his book Heart of Darkness, “and between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved specimen.” (Conrad, 106) This novel reinforces the idea that Africans are uncivilized. Achebe endows the Umuofians with all the signs of a civilization. Perhaps the best example of this is their government. It is essentially a democracy, all of the citizens gather to make decisions; there is even a justice system. The egwugwu are a bit more theatrical than the system in the United States, but it shows a complexity that only a civilized culture would care …show more content…
Rarely are Africans the main characters in Western literature. Even in the Media, when Africans make an appearance, it is often just pictures or short clips. There is no interview, no way to learn that the person is anything other than what is seen in that picture. In Things Fall Apart the characters have qualities that cannot be seen in the carefully chosen information that the media gives us. Okonkwo, Obierika, and Nwoye exhibit the complexity needed to cast away the single story. All of these characters have the ability to question their situation. Obierika is not afraid to push the boundaries of his culture. He and Okonkwo argue about the Oracle’s decision, Okonkwo says “you sound as if you question the authority of the Oracle.” (Achebe, 66) Questioning the Oracle is akin to blasphemy against the gods in this culture. Nwoye questions everything he has been taught and ultimately becomes a Christian in order to fill that void. Emotions exhibited by Okonkwo are deep and extremely complex, in the end he dies because of his fears and emotions. The Africans depicted in the news or in books do not exhibit the capacity to question or the deep complicated emotion. They are just stagnant characters that flash by and leave nothing in their
Okonkwo becomes furious, kills a messenger, and then commits suicide in order to avoid being captured by the white men. Okonkwo cannot accept the evangelists, as they have made him lose his power and control over the community and his son. The change in Okonkwo’s life is negative as it makes Okonkwo desperately look for solutions, although there are none. His internal struggle with change leads him to kill another human and himself out of inability to do
The destruction of Okonkwo was revealed slowly throughout the books. He started to make some poor decisions, which became the beginning of his downfall. He killed Ikemefuna just because he didn’t want to be thought weak. He made unwise decisions to only appear to be strong and manly to others in the village. He did not realize how he lost so much from living that way. When, Okonkwo kills Ogbuefi Ezedu’s son, the real tragedy begins. Other tragic heroes usually have a steadier downfall, but Okonkwo had a direct fall in society due to this event. This puts his family into exile for seven years. After a short period of time, white missionaries arrive to Umuofia. When “The
Chinua Achebe was educated in the West, though he hails from an African tribe. His exposure to both African and Western thinking gives him a unique perspective on the colonization of Africa, which is argued to be barbaric by some, but beneficial and necessary by others. In “Things Fall Apart,” Achebe perspective comes through as he masterfully describes a pre-colonization African tribe, and how colonization percolated through it. His authentic accounts of the positives and negatives of both tribal society and colonization leave the reader to answer the question of whether imperialism was morally justifiable or not.
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has allowed me to view the world through a multitude of new lenses. In seeing Kurtz and Marlow’s disintegration when removed from society’s watchful eye, I began to understand that all people have a streak of darkness in them under the right circumstances. While the narrator, and many readers at the time of this novella’s publication, believed that the African natives being colonized were “savages”, this book sheds light on the true brutes in this scenario: the thoughtless Europeans. The other complexity that I never truly understood until reading this book, is the idea that there is a single story told about Africans in Western literature. Africa is portrayed as weak, primitive, and impoverished in most books
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad has been depicted as “among the half-dozen greatest short novels in the English language.” [pg.1] Chinua Achebe believes otherwise. In Chinua Achebe’s An Image of Africa: Racism is Conrad’s Heart of Darkness he simply states that, “Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist” [pg.5]
notion, Africans were not only perceived as culturally alien people who inhabited a different geographical space but were also denizens a different time. Africa was the land of childhood removed from the light of self conscious history” This mechanism of thought contributed to the foreclosing of any relationship of kinship between Africans and European natives. This notion even helps bolster the stance of corrupt western governments who don’t fulfill the needs of their people. They use Africa as a scapegoat to cover up their failures and shortcomings and the Victim is the distraught African people.
Most of what we know to be African Literature, talks about the changes from an un-dignified "lion-chasing" culture to that of a semi-dignified European society. The novel Things Fall Apart by Nigerian-born author Chinua Achebe, tells the story of a Umuofian villager named Okonkwo, and how Okonkwo has to come to grips with the changes that are happening in everyday Ibo life. The novel Things Fall Apart is not your typical "tall African tale." The novel is a story, a story not just about one person, but about an entire civil-society circa 1890's that becomes overwhelmed with the ideas and beliefs of the European colonizers, or as some like to refer, "the white man." Author Chinua Achebe witnessed this "invasion" first-hand, so who better
Nwoye’s betrayal in the novel is the same level of betrayal that Achebe is condemned with in his lifetime. African literary theorists who vie for the purity of African literature for African languages defy Achebe as a European traitor, writing his stories with his back turned to his native homeland. Yet this thesis argues for a reevaluation of that criticism. Achebe does not in fact deny his beliefs, his country, or his heritage. He rather aligns himself in a tragically ironic way with the hero of Things Fall Apart. Achebe writes his own struggle with colonialism into the life and death of Okonkwo. It is interesting to note that Achebe’s father was in many ways very similar to Nwoye. His father, Isaiah Achebe, was orphaned early in life and spent most of his childhood with his uncle, Udoh. Udoh was a man of the land; he prided himself on tradition and leadership. Chinua writes in his essay, “My Dad and Me,” that the differences between Isaiah and Udoh were seen early through the eyes of Chinua, a questioning child who was placed in the middle
Literature has for centuries used to bring out an artist perception of the happenings in the community and also counter certain perceptions that some people may have in regards to a certain community. For a long time, the continent of Africa and Africans have been stereotyped as being uncivilized. Chinua Achebe who is one of the most renowned African writers in his book Things Fall apart counters the stereotyping of Africans by narrating the story of an African community that boasts of development and intellectuals. It is significant to note that the primary reason as to why Chinua Achebe wrote the novel Things fall apart was to counter the stereo types such as Joseph Conrad towards the continent of Africa. According to Conrad Africans were savages who did not have a specific language to communicate but used grants.
Chinua Achebe very much believed that perceptions of African peoples were skewed by Europeans due to a lack of authentic stories available to both European colonists and missionaries. This basic assumption is seen in Things Fall Apart in a variety of places. Until the explosion of Colonization on the African continent, Africans were considered savage and unruly. Achebe was one of the first native writers to give voice to these marginalized peoples and present them in a positive light.
Things Fall Apart was written by Chinua Achebe in 1958. She wrote this novel to break the stereotypes of European portraits on native Africans. It is set in the 1890s and portrays the conflict between Nigeria’s white colonial government and the traditional established culture of the Igbo people. Achebe’s novel, Things Fall Apart, breaks the stereotypes placed on African people in general, through the use of symbolism, theme, and by highlighting Okonkwo’s motivations throughout the novel.
Chinua Achebe, a well-known writer, once gave a lecture at the University of Massachusetts about Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, entitled "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Throughout his essay, Achebe notes how Conrad used Africa as a background only, and how he "set Africa up as a foil to Europe,"(Achebe, p.251) while he also "projects the image of Africa as 'the other world,' the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization."(Achebe, p.252) By his own interpretations of the text, Achebe shows that Conrad eliminates "the African as a human factor," thereby "reducing Africa to the role of props."(Achebe, p.257)
Joseph Conrad often mocked the African peoples. In his novel, Heart of Darkness, he referred to the African people as “savages” and used strong language that looked down upon them. Conrad describes a passing native, “They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages.” Conrad depicts the Africans in very vivid descriptions and uses negative language with an almost disgusted tone. He sees the Africans as inhuman, feels they are not civilized, and believes himself to be far more superior than them. Conrad does not bother to try and understand their culture or language. He insults their language and believes it is merely just incomprehensible grunts. Conrad remarks that looking at an African “was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind legs.” The comparison he uses is very insulting to the African people and so degrading that Conrad found an African working as so surprising. He was taken away that an African could be civilized and Conrad was just mocking the natives. By using such cynical language, Conrad changes what the readers think of Africans to become negative. This view of African peoples from Conrad contrasts Achebe’s perspective of African peoples and their lives which was more influenced by his own race, culture, and beliefs just as Conrad’s novel was.
“In response to Conrad's stereotypical depiction of Africans, Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart through the point of view of the natives to show Africans, not as primitives, but as members of a thriving society. Things Fall Apart follows Okonkwo's life as he strives for prestige in his community. When European missionaries come to Umuofia, Okonkwo's clan, Okonkwo tries to protect the culture that the missionaries would destroy in the name of "civilizing" the natives. However his rigid mentality and violent behavior has the opposite of its intended effect, perpetuating the stereotype of the wild African in the eyes of the
Chinua Achebe is considered as the man who redefined our way of reading Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Indeed, while focusing on the description of Africa, the father of African literature criticized the novella for its racist stereotypes towards Africans and highlights the colonizer’s oppression on them. Even after thirty four years after his first delivered public lecture excoriating the book, “An image of Africa” he spoke again against it in an interview with Robert Siegel where he related that its author “was a seductive writer. He could pull his reader into the fray. And if it were not for what he said about me and my people, I would probably be thinking only of that seduction."