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Chinua Achebe

These were the very stereotypes and assumptions Achebe wrote in reaction to
Author’s Life

1930 – 2013
Nigerian poet and novelist
Member of the Igbo

Three main cultural groups: Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba

Wrote Things Fall Apart 1950; published 1958

8 million copies sold; 50 languages

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New Imperialism & Colonialism

1870-1900
European invasion & conquest
Also called the “scramble for Africa” or the “partition of Africa”
Nigeria colonized by the British

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Colonialism as Euphamism

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Origins of British Colonialism

Slave Trade (1650)

1740: British primary slave-traders
1807: Parliament prohibits slave-trade

Missionaries (1800’s)
Trade

Palm Oil (beginning circa 1840)

Exploration

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Heart of Darkness

1899
Written by Joseph Conrad

Polish-British
Merchant-Marine & Steamer Captain (Congo)

Narrator: Charles Marlow

Voyage into the heart of Africa via the Congo River
Searching for Kurtz, missing Station Chief

Publishes anti-African literature
But when they get there, Kurtz has “Gone Native”
Final words “The horror! The horror!”

Raises important questions about imperialism and racism

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Heart of Darkness

We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. But suddenly as we struggled round a bend there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage. The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us -- who could tell? We were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse. We could not understand because we were too far and could not remember, because we were traveling in the night of first ages, of those ages that are gone, leaving hardly a sign -- and no memories.

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An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”

Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as "the other world," the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant beastiality. The book opens on the River Thames, tranquil, resting, peacefully "at the decline of day after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks." But the actual story will take place on the River Congo, the very antithesis of the Thames. The River Congo is quite decidedly not a River Emeritus. It has rendered no service and enjoys no old-age pension. We are told that "Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world.”

-Chinua Achebe

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Things Fall Apart

Written as a rebuttal to Heart of Darkness
YET written in Western style

Roots in Greek Tragedy
Modernist

Questioning traditional values
Pushing back against colonialism & violence of war
Liminality (“threshold”)– ambiguity and disorientation of being caught between space, time and culture

Okonkwo: Tragic hero; but also modern man (individual struggle against society & corruption)

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