Things Fall Apart vs. Heart of Darkness Essay

     Europeans viewed Africa as a place where there were more jobs as well as investment opportunities doe the middle class, and a place where the lower class was offered higher status, better job opportunities, and a chance to leave life behind and start again fresh. They also believed that the African people were people who needed to be helped so the Europeans went over on various church missions. Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “White Man’s

The history of Africa is very complex. Europeans invaded Africa and stripped them of their culture and denied future generations their history. Despite the focus on the time of enslavement in modern history, African history expands far beyond that. African history has been consistently whitewashed and many historians have attempted to put our history in a box. In order to understand and study the African experience, one must realize that the history of Africa extends far beyond the times of enslavement and colonialism.

One of the main driving factors of European imperialism in Africa is that Europeans wanted to help Africans in need. Part of Africa needed food, water, shelter, and education so some European countries went to travel to Africa so they could help these people. According to Rudyard Kipling’s poem, “Take up the white man’s burden, The savage wars of peace-, Fill full the mouths of Famine, And bid the sickness cease.” (Doc F) In the poem Kipling talks about how the Europeans needed to go to Africa and

In “The White Man’s Burden,” Rudyard Kipling writes, “Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half child...” Kipling is referring to people that were ‘uncivilized’ in accordance to European standards, and in this case, Africans. This demonstrates the superiority they felt in comparison, and in their minds, giving them the right to go in and civilize these people themselves with religion, clothing, education, etc. Kipling also mentions, “Take up the White Man’s burden—The savage wars of peace—Fill full the mouth of Famine—And big the sickness cease.” By this, Kipling meant it was an obligation for the Europeans to feed the starving and to help the sick. It illustrates the mindset of the Europeans who thought they were sacrificing and help the African colonies by colonizing them, whether it was what they truly believed or a mean to make themselves look better. The nationalistic and superior beliefs that Europeans harbored were significant motives for European imperialism in

In history, colonization was a truly popular tradition practiced by great and powerful empires in order to extract and retrieve all materials necessary to support their homeland. However, in order to achieve such sense of commerce and well-being, those colonists who had the power, had to colonize weaker and far less advanced societies. Great powers such as Britain and France would then travel to these societies and implement their rule in order to gain prosperity. Some, those who benefited from colonization, felt that the practice of colonization was an obligation to better the “uncivilized,” societies and help them advance, but the emotional and physical hurt that came from colonizing outweighed the positive aspects. The intention was good, but the manner in which colonization was carried out was poor. This topic is immensely controversial that pieces such as Kipling’s poem, “A White Man’s Burden,” and Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart,” have been written in order to support or go against colonization. But despite much debate, colonization has been a tradition that has caused those regions being colonized much struggle and negativity.

Africa, being the second largest continent on earth, has always enticed foreigners to exploit their land and way of life. The biggest offender of trying to diminish their way of life is the western presence, always attempting to alter their normality into their own because they see it as the best way to live, which is not always the case. Throughout history, Africa has been under the impression of the white man and their customs, which can be demonstrated in the novels The Posionwood Bible, by Barbra Kingsolver, and The Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. Both Conrad and Kingsolver display the futile efforts of the western presence to “civilize” Africans with their numerous points of view, clever symbolism, and conveying diction.

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.

Europeans contained the belief that their customs and religious values were the sole method in living. Missionaries from throughout Europe desired to journey to foreign lands in order to teach the civilized and Christian ways of living to the natives. Often missionaries were in competition for converts, and thus supplied imperialism with other drives (Patterson, par. 10). The Social Darwinist ideas were prevalent in this time. The Europeans believed in the survival of the fittest, and it was generally accepted that the Anglo-Saxons were the superior race. In the 1890’s Rudyard Kipling published “Whiteman’s Burden”. This poem defines the white man as responsible for civilizing the “others”. It is supportive of the imperialism of other countries

However, some westerners actually genuinely thought that they should help and westernize the inferior countries of the world. The British went into Africa, thinking that it was their duty to spread their advances of medicine, law, western civilization, and the Christian religion. This was proved to be embraced in the "anthem of imperialism," called the White Man's Burden by Rudyard Kipling. He expressed in the poem that the duty of the "white man" was to teach and help the people who they cast the inferior rank to. However, it is hard to believe that this was Britain's most important goal in their imperialism.

     In one of his most famous poems, Rudyard Kipling said, "Take up the white man's burden!" (146). He was only one of many who believed in the virtues of imperialism in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. During that period, imperialism was on the rise, and Africa was being swallowed up by competing European nations. The imperialists had many arguments supporting imperialism. They said it was beneficial and, in some cases, essential. Their arguments did not satisfy everyone, but that did not bother them. The justifications ranged from economics to social services, while touching on everything else in between (Hayes 222-3).

A tragic hero could be considered a "noble person with a fatal flaw" or "an opponent of society who is willing to take action that 'sensible people' might applaud

Rudyard Kipling’s 1899 poem “The White Man’s Burden” epitomizes the European man’s view on imperialism, Euro-centrism and social Darwinism. Four centuries before 1899, such ideas were briefly hinted in the letter from Christopher Columbus to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, however by 1899 these attitudes strengthened and developed fully into their complete meaning. The U.S and Europe’s imperialism in the nineteenth century were the most influential ever in the history of human civilization. The immense motive for imperialism came from social factors including religion and Social Darwinism.

Today's society contains stories that model the ideal life that each individual lives each day. Stories may shape our mind in creative and positive ways that may enlighten the road towards the future. They have been examples for us to survive by and thrive on for decades: in the past, and now, continuing in the future. People around the world have been told stories that may have influenced their lives in a unique way. Children long to be enlightened by stories that fill their young and fruitful minds, allowing thoughts and new ideas to be instilled. Throughout the worlds' cultures and literature, stories have influenced the actions and morals of man with their underlying

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad both were written in the imperialist era. Chinua Achebe and Joseph Conrad both create the main characters Okwonko and Marlow who come from different continent and settles in the other continents. Both Okonkwo and Marlow question their identities when they reach these foreign lands due to the clash in culture between where they came from and the new homes. The development of new cultures with new ways of living affects the general view of both Okonkwo and Marlow in the novels. This research, therefore, focuses on the clash between cultures in the books Things Fall Apart and in the Heart of Darkness.

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