Things Fall Apart: Eurocentrism

In Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart, the Ibo society has a strict system of behavioral customs that are assigned by gender. These customs restrict the freedom of Ibo woman and help to reinforce generation after generation the notion that Ibo men are superior to women. In Achebe's essay An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, he claims that Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, despite it's insights, ought to be eradicated from literature as an appropriate piece of work on the argument that it is racist. Achebe focuses on gender roles and avoiding stereotypes to dismiss the racist attitude towards Africans in his novel by bringing the reader down to the level of his unbiased narration of a historical fiction novel.

In the article "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," Chinua Achebe criticizes Joseph Conrad for his racist views toward the natives of Africa. After one reads Achebe’s critique, it is clear that Conrad wanted the novella to be perceived as a racist text. Conrad depicts the uncivilized treatment of nonwhites during the period of colonization without condemning such actions. After analyzing Achebe’s famous work and Conrad’s novella I have come to agree with Achebe; Conrad “was a thoroughgoing racist.” (Achebe) Heart of Darkness portrays this position clearly. Throughout the novella, Conrad describes and represents the Africans and Africa itself in a racist way. According to Chinua Achebe, the harsh behavior of English people towards the natives, the lack of equality felt by the English towards the Africans, and the word choices of the English to and about the savages reveal Conrad's racist position in the work.

A “Eurocentric” approach to history is a way of teaching history, mainly focused on Europe, while ignoring the other countries such as China, India, Japan, Southeast Asia, or other societies.

Kurtz dying words are a cryptic whisper: “The horror, the horror”. There could be more than one possibility of the “horror” Kurtz could have been talking about. I think that it symbolizes the darkness of Kurtz’s tyrant and savage-like qualities that he gained when he lived with the natives. When he

Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart illustrate the different ways of presenting Africa in literature. In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad shows Africa through the perspective of the colonizing Europeans, who tend to depict all the natives as savages. 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 European readers.

Achebe argues that the racist observed in the Heart of Darkness is expressed due to the western psychology or as Achebe states “desire,” this being to show Africa as an antithesis to Europe. He first states Conrad as “one of the great stylists of modern fiction.” [pg.1] He praises Conrad’s talents in writing but believes Conrad’s obvious racism has not been addressed. He later describes in more detail that

In Things Fall Apart, Umuofia is representative of Africa. Achebe writes the novel in the tumultuous time of postcolonial Africa. Western literature at this time has not been friendly towards the African nations. European arrogance and unfamiliar African mythologies and religions create stereotypical ideas about the Sub-Saharan cultures and lifestyles. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of darkness specifically aids in the Western mindset about Africa. Conrad’s aim, although perhaps not primarily meant to degrade Africa, nevertheless paints a picture of African citizens and cultures in a light that Achebe could not accept . In a conscious effort to counter the influence of novels like Heart of Darkness, Achebe decides to write Things Fall Apart as an attempt

In his famous critical essay, “An Image of Africa” (1975), Chinua Achebe takes a strong stance against Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. He asserts that Conrad was a racist and his novella is a product of his racism. A following quote that is good to show Achebe opinion for Conrad is:

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)

He uses derogatory and offensive remarks that devalue people of color and make them out to be savages. Chinua Achebe, a well-known writer, talked 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 "set Africa up as a foil to Europe,"(Achebe) while he also "projects the image of Africa as “the other world”. Africa is said to be a “prehistoric” world. Conrad described this land as non-advanced and inferior to the western countries.

Through language, writers can tell vivid stories and convey strong emotions to readers, Chinua Achebe and Joseph Conrad both use language quite effectively. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad uses language in regards to Africans with a very negative tone. Achebe, the author of the novel Things Fall Apart, illustrates the feel of tribal life in Nigeria during the time of African colonialism and the African culture and customs. Both Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart analyze the image of Africa and their perspectives of the African peoples during the time of colonialism.

In “An Image of Africa”, Chinua Achebe comes to the bold conclusion that Joseph Conrad “was a bloody racist” (788), with his discussion centering primarily on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as a racist text. Achebe’s reasoning for this branding rests on the claims that Conrad depicts Africa as “a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar in comparison with which Europe 's own state of spiritual grace will be manifest” (783), that Africans in Heart of Darkness are dehumanized through both the characterization of individual Africans and the Congo as a setting, and finally that Marlow is no more than a mouthpiece for Conrad’s personal views on race and imperialism. However, Achebe makes critical oversights and contradictions in the development of each of these argumentative pillars, which prove fatal to the validity of his overarching contention. This should not be construed, though, as a yes-or-no assessment of whether Conrad was a racist outside of what his written work suggests—Achebe himself has “neither the desire nor, indeed, the competence to do so with the tools of the social and biological sciences” (783)—but as an assessment of claims specific to Heart of Darkness and their implications for Conrad’s views and attitudes.

“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."

In my reading of Things Fall Apart, it has better informed me of a culture that I did not know of before, and by reading it helped correct some broad misconceptions that I previously held of the people and their cultures of Africa. Reading the novel also gave me another perspective on the effects of imperialism/colonialism by the Europeans on the Africans. I believe Achebe has succeeded in enabling the West an opportunity to have them "listen to the weak" (Achebe interview), but whether or not Western society decides to listen will come down to the individual within the society--if they do choose to listen to the call of the "weak." In this essay I will share