Comparative Study of "Things Fall Apart" and "Heart of Darkness"
Paper:
14: The African Literature
KAUSHAL
DESAI
PG
Enrollment No: BU13141001177
MA
Sem.: 4
Roll
No: 12
Department
of English,
Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University,
Bhavnagar (Gujarat-India)
Abstract
The
African Literature is always be in the stag of popping for. And as a study of interest
for research substance, “Things Fall Apart” is a considered as tragedy as well
as a quest for come in the contact to the world literature. “Hear Of Darkness”
is also the type that one cannot surely say that colonial aspect is guiding for
or killing for. The literature helps to shape the perspective of person about the world.
It helps more when person reads something which is unknown to him.In the well
known book “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, an image of a not so well
known place (Africa) is depicted. Some would say that Conrad’s novel does much
harm to the perspective of Africa. In an attempt to give a different
perspective of Africa to the rest of the world, Albert Chinualumoga Achebe and similar African writers have
struggled through and published well known literatures throughout the world.
With the goal to not only give some realism to the truths of Africa portrayed
in western literature, but to write back to those blind truths such as those
seen in Conrad’s "Heart Of Darkness". In both the novel African
society and culture has been described but in different way.Chinua Achebe writes
in his book that he also discussing several points like as one can see in
Joseph Conrad’s “The Heart of Darkness”. While looking both the novel with
several perspectives, my attempt of comparing these both works, I can say that
the time of colonialism, treatment of the society, rigidity, cruelty, mindset,
mind map of the characters. Many things that is come out. More can observed
that how power can speak in the society. African literature is mostly conveying
the demarcation of the time and place in which they are living. Frantz Fanon,
AimeCesaire has also described many things regarding African literature and
their cultivating routes.
Keywords: African Literature,
Society, Rigidity, mindset, European idea, Culture.
First
of all, there are some points to discuss is that, Before Things Fall Apart was published, most novels about Africa had been written
by Europeans, and they largely portrayed Africans as savages who needed to be
enlightened by Europeans. For example, Joseph Conrad’s classic tale Heart of
Darkness (1899), one of the most celebrated novels of the early twentieth
century, presents Africa as a wild, “dark,” and uncivilized continent. Chinua
Achebe broke apart this dominant model with Things Fall Apart, a novel that
portrays Igbo society with specificity and sympathy and examines the effects of
European colonialism from an African perspective.Through the both of the novel,
Things Fall Apart” &“Heart of Darkness” one can compete with
both in different ways.
As
per our concern with is topic, one can elaborate it in different way like, why
the mindset of African people is differs from the European or any other?
Another question is why colonizers get on the African people with cruelty of
them. Things
Fall Apart and Heart of
Darkness shows
how differently two cultures can perceive greed, corruption, and power. The
authors experience two complete different views due to their particular
scenario. Conrad, the author of Heart of Darkness, focuses on the European side of the African story
and the way he experienced slavery. Achebe, writer of Things FallApart, describes the simple, modern life
of the African’s while comparing it to the unreasonable Europeans. In “Heart of
darkness” Africa is portrayed as an underdeveloped and primitive place. It also
suggests that Africa’s native people are also underdeveloped and primitive.
This narrative makes the reader to think that Africa itself is unknown and
primitive that is why African people are also underdeveloped and primitive.
While in, “Things fall apart” Achebe has portrayed the different Africa. This
novel has discredited the idea of Heart of Darkness by showing the image of
Africa before colonialism came into existence. Achabe claims that the image of
Africa which is portrayed in Heart of Darkness is not because of African
people’s lack of awareness and knowledge but it’s a result of colonialism. In
the article “Times Literary Supplement”, Achebe attacks on Conrad for being as
racist.With
our thinking we see outcome but what is real we may not know. Like that, a
clear picture of Africa is drown here.
In the both the novel we see
colonialism and how the colonial aspect can lean on with the constant
observing. Here, I want to put lines from Yeats’s poem“The Second Coming”;
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon
cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere
anarchy is loosed upon the world"
(Poetry Foundation)
Something that is lurking
behind and that may kill the entire phenomena. However the arrival for new
Avatar is recalling the idea. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad got to see
King Leopold’s Africa and brilliantly portrays it in this classic frame tale.
It is a journey with Marlowe up the mighty mysterious Congo River and discovers
the brutality that all humans are capable of. Likewise African people also get to
know that how our type is differs when one can think of Africa as something
that is in minority.
The story of Chinua Achebe’s
“Things fall apart” takes place in the Africa during the time of colonialism.
In this novel we follow the life of one man, Okonkwo and his experience of
colonization of Africa. Though most of the novel is focused on Okonkwo, the
narrator generally provides insight into the thoughts of most characters. There
are times when the narration is focused around different characters – namely
Ikemefuna, Nwoye, Obierika, and Ekwefi. The multiplicity of voices allows the
reader to see different characters through a variety of lenses. Access to the
internal thoughts of a variety of characters also gives dimensionality to the
Igbo people as a whole – Achebe never lets the reader assume that the Igbo
people are homogenous and could be summed up in one single character. On the
other hand, “The heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, follows the life of White
man and his journey in Africa. One thing that is very interesting in this story
is the narrator. The story is told through one of four people who sit and
listen to Marlow, who is narrating the whole story. Sometimes this can be
really confusing. Deeper into the story we follow Marlow’s journey to find
Kurtz. However, the story is going on with a sub way that how classically
Joseph Conrad is describing the facts.
In the
“Heart of Darkness” my sense can observe with globalized way that the awful
presentations of the Africans are based on Conrad’s lack of knowledge. The
Africans in the story do not have any names and they do not even participate in
real conversations. Conrad’s descriptions of them are animalistic. They appear
only sporadically in the text. It is rare to see an African in a longer part of
the story. This means that we are not introduced to the African point of view
of the actions taking place. We only get to take part of the “white” side of
the story. While In “Things Fall apart” African culture and people is portrayed
from Achebe’s perspective. One may think that these Africans are savages, but
actually they had many great abilities. The art of conversation and the use of
proverbs are regarded very highly by this tribe. We also read about their
clothing and food customs. Another thing that is good with part one and the
description of the tribe is that Achebe is realistic. He does not try to make
the Ibotribe look good, instead he shows us their good and bad sides. Here, Conrad
without knowing the real African culture represent it with prejudice and shows
African more animalistic while Achebe as the native has leaved in Africa and
has better understanding of African culture and tradition. He presents the real
image of Africa without any prejudice.
At this point we
examine that how misery that Okonkwo face and with that we can compare with Heart
of Darkness, through claimed as the racist novel, it is deeply religious
one. Conrad is not making a jock by presenting the Light of the Asia:
"Lord Bhuddha in three diffient
places clearly though Bruce Johnson in his "Heart of Darkness" and
the problem of Empatiness" refers the presence of the Buddha in "four
crucial occasions" connect the story to the religion clearly."
In both religious matters and how
the idea can cultivate by character’s thinking and what they believe. As Frantz Fanon writes in his
revolutionary, The Wretched of the Earth “The goal of colonial domination was
to convince the natives that colonialism came to lighten their darkness, when
in fact it functioned as a means of establishing control and mastery.” Yet, the both novel is more nuanced and complex in
its treatment of encroaching colonialism.
Well, if we talk about the
language of Achebe & Conrad. So one can say that both are considered as highly intellectual and democratize. African
people did not hear of culture for the first time from Europeans. Their
societies were not mindless, but frequently had a philosophy of great depth and
value and beauty. They had poetry, and above all, they had dignity. It is this
dignity that African people all but lost during the colonial period, and it is
this that they must now regain.The use of English is presents the
complexities and depths of an African culture to readers of other cultures as
well as to readers of his own culture. By using Englishin which he has been
proficient since childhood he reaches many more readers and has a much greater
literary impact than he would by writing in a language such as Igbo. Writers
who write in their native language must eventually allow their works to be
translated, often into English, so readers outside the culture can learn about
it. Yet by using English, Achebe faces a problem. How can he present the
African heritage and culture in a language that can never describe it
adequately? Indeed, one of the primary tasks of Things Fall Apart is to
confront this lack of understanding between the Igbo culture and the
colonialist culture. In the novel, the Igbo ask how the white man can call Igbo
customs bad when he does not even speak the Igbo language. An understanding of
Igbo culture can only be possible when the outsider can relate to the Igbo
language and terminology.
Conrad
is used to live in the place where Europeans are. He knows very well about the
language and their cultural routes. But to describe the way African culture as
he very minutely observed as described in his novel.
Further
look on the example of the economic customs of the village is the marriage
negotiations for Obierika's daughter. The opening ceremonies the costume and
jewelry of the bride, the use of the sticks, and the drinking of the palm wine
illustrate the complexity of Umuofian ritual. These African customs are
reminiscent of marriage customs in other cultures in which the bride's parents
pay a dowry or pay the cost of the wedding (although in Igbo custom, the groom
himself pays the bride price). Such customs refute commonly held notions about
primitive and uncivilized African society.
“The
Heart of Darkness” is little hard to understand and its depressing and
horrifying. Not as racist as some people believe. In response to the European's
stereotypical depiction of Africans, Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart, which portrays Africans in a
structured and civilized society. Although the clan defies the European
stereotype, the protagonist, Okonkwo, does not confirming the European beliefs
more than contradicting them. While Igbo culture reveres strength and masculinity,
Okonkwo's behavior is hyper masculine, typically manifesting itself through
violence (Iyasere 378). Okonkwo is described as "a man of action, a man of
war" (Achebe, Things 8), and while his achievements are honored, his
violent nature is extreme. Also, Okonkwo is entirely inflexible. He believes
that "one is either a man or a woman: there can be no compromise, no
composite”. Combining this obsession with masculinity and the inability to be
both masculine and feminine creates a character that fears anything feminine:
His whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure
and of weakness It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble
his father. Even as a little boy, he resented his father's failure and weakness
and so Okonkwo was ruled by one passion to hate everything that his father
Unoka had loved. One of those things was gentleness and another was idleness.
So, Heart of Darkness illustrates the European notions
that all Africans are the same: savage, primitive, and inhuman. To contrast
this stereotype, Chinua Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart, showing a civilized and structured African society.
Unfortunately, the protagonist of Things Fall Apart was not an accurate representation of a civilized
African. Yet, since he was a prominent member of society, rather than destroy
the stereotype, his violent behavior and unwillingness to yield merely
strengthens the European's beliefs about the natives. Both books are
representing African Culture as well as European culture, but writer’s treatment
towards Representation of culture is different. The Ibo and European people in
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe have two distinct cultures that begin to
blend when the white men come as missionaries and try to communicate and live
together with the Africans. European culture also differs from native culture
on the Congo Rivers in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Only one man, Kurtz,
really connects with the natives and then is taken away dying by his fellow
Europeans. In both of these novels, specific places represent evil things in
different cultures. Europeans treat a church as holy ground but to the Ibo
culture who didn't know Jesus, it was just a building raised by the white
invaders who settled among them. Europeans found the Congo River and a town on
its banks and it was thought of as evil because they hadn't experienced living
there or vines covering them as they traveled along the river added to their
thinking of an evil atmosphere.
A
culture also defines the place of women in society and the treatment they
receive from members within the society. In “Things fall apart” Ibo culture
regarded women as gentle, weak and obedient to their men. Some women had the
status of a priestess and were therefore respected and treated as a deity
instead of a common woman. The woman's job was in the house taking care of the
children, preparing the meals, and raising easy crops. The men do the brave
things such as fighting, hunting, and raising difficult crops, so, women in
Things Fall Apart are insulted and oppressed, but their contribution to farm
and family is at least in places acknowledged. While Women in “Heart of
Darkness”, on the other hand, are isolated and protected; “their role is
limited to living in their own world because they might be too weak to face all
the obstacles and temptations in the real one. It can be seen in Marlow’s
statement,
“Women…we must help them to stay in that beautiful world of
their own, lest ours gets worst”
(Heart of Darkness)
Up side I putted a
wordle image that can say various words to define and that can make a nut shell
view on this topic.
Let’s conclude this comparative
study with criticism way that, both the writers gave fact of the African
culture and its route. While observing this both the work made a large impact on Africans, it has also
proven to be popular among international audiences. It is one of those rare
novels that can be read and reread from many different perspectives and
continues to generate many diverse interpretations. It continues to endure as
an international classic. And this comparative study is really gives deeper thoughts
to think and point out something new.
Works Cited
"African Literature." New Objects in Literature
(n.d.).
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. United Kingdom:
Blackwood's Magazine, February 1899.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - Free eBook.<http:/manybooks.net/titles/conradjoetext96hdark12a.html>.
Poetry Foundation. 2015. Poetry Magazine .
Monday-Friday 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
<http:/www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/172062>.
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