Things Falling Apart at the Heart of Darkness

Literature helps shape peoples perspectives on the world. Even more so when a person reads about something that is unknown to them. 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. Giving Africa and its’ natives an unknown and primitive face. African authors such as Chinua Achebe find these types of writings to be disgraceful and very much fiction. In an attempt to give a different perspective of Africa to the rest of the world, 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 Chinua Achebe’s novel “Things Fall Apart” Achebe writes back to Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” in an attempt to discredit these blind “truths” surrounding time, language, and the indigenous societies of Africa, and to go so far as to say the western influence helped to cause the blind perspective of Africa.

Turning Back Time on the People of Africa:

In Heart of Darkness Africa is portrayed as a very underdeveloped and primitive place. This also suggests that Africa’s native people are underdeveloped and primitive. The writing style takes the reader on a journey that seems to go backwards in time. This suggests to the reader that Africa itself is of this nature; unknown and therefore underdeveloped and primitive. Things Fall Apart discredits this idea by showing an image of Africa before colonialism came into the picture. And goes as far as to make a suggestion that what made the image of Africa similar to that portrayed in Heart of Darkness was a result of colonialism.

The complex Societies of Africa:

Things Fall Apart depicts Africa as a place which holds natives that have a complex society. This is shown through the complex ways of life the Ibo people have. Although very different from a westerners way of life a “Feast of the New Yam was held every year before the harvest began, to honor the earth Goddess and the ancestral spirits of the clan” (Achebe 36). Unfortunately, even though a New Yam Festival, earth goddess, and ancestral spirits are a very complex system of belief and ritual, some if not most western people will view it as primitive and underdeveloped due to how unknown and different it is to their society’s belief system.

Achebe Writes Back to Conrad:

Achebe is writing back in Things Fall Apart to Conrad by telling a story of the indigenous way of life for the Ibo in Africa before colonialism. The story portrays a society of people who have a very complex belief system, calendar which is based off of harvesting, as well as rules to how the society should be run. Achebe is pointing out that the indigenous people of Africa have a set of systems and beliefs that create a way of life which works for them. And to take his writing even further to suggest that what made the people of Africa underdeveloped and primitive was the colonizers, “The postcolonial African state was determined by the colonial state” (Olaniyan 273). “The British had frozen the indigenous institutions while at the same time robbing the colonized of every scope and freedom for self development” (Olaniyan 272). The westerners took the foundations of the indigenous people’s societies and ways of living and left them with nothing. They also began “reformation of the natives’ minds, by assigning the mark of the negative to everything African and the positive to everything European” (Olaniyan 273).

After setting up how the Ibo people live and their belief systems, Achebe shows the brute destruction that colonialism had, not only on the foundation of the indigenous’ societies but on their psyche. Okonkwo, the main character is set up throughout the story to be prided on being “well known throughout the nine villages…by throwing Amalinze the Cat…one of the fiercest since the founder of their town” (Achebe 3). This mind set Okonkwo has of being strong, “He was afraid of being thought weak” (Achebe 61), is completely broken down by the chaos that ensues from the arrival of the westerners. Okonkwo a man of strength whose biggest fear in life is to fail and be known as someone who is weak, is driven to suicide (which can be seen as one of the very weakest things a man could do), by the chaotic mess the western colonizers created by introducing a new belief system and completely disregarding the natives’.

The most powerful portion of writing back Achebe does to Conrad in his Novel is seen at the end. After Okonkwo hangs himself one of the westerners who is “in charge” talks about how he is going to write a book about the events he has witnessed; as a westerner in Africa, with a western perspective (Similar to what Conrad did). He will be portraying a blind version of Africa. A westernized version of Africa; so far as to say a western created Africa. He talks about writing a story, one in which “Every day brought him new material…” talking about Okonkwo, “The story of this man who killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading” (Achebe 208). To go further, the novel was based on Okonkwo's life, and without understanding where he came from one could not understand why he truly hung himself, the westerner goes on “One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate…He had already chosen the title of the book after much thought: The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger” (Achebe 209). Achebe wrote an entire book on the “man who killed a messenger and hanged himself” (Achebe 209). And he ends the novel with a western writer saying he could only write a page or a paragraph on him. Almost as if implying this western writer, the commissioner is Conrad. Showing that Conrad’s vision, his experience was blinded because he did not know or understand where the people he encountered came from. Achebe implies that Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was written based on a westerner perspective, and with that outside perspective there is no real way of knowing what or why the native people are doing what they are doing. The outcome is seen in western authors' postcolonial literature by depictions of unknown groups of people as savages or primitive. When in reality the author has no understanding of the group of people being presented.

Conclusion:

Achebe shows through his writing in Things Fall Apart that Africa is a civilized place. He shows that what brought about the confusion and chaos amongst the natives was due to the breaking down of their beliefs by the colonizers. It is a representation that the colonizers were blind to what was really going on and through this blindness came literature which was supposed to be a representation of the indigenous people there. When really writings about the indigenous peoples of Africa by the colonizers depicted a false truth of what Africa really is. In this effort to write back to Conrad, Achebe shows Conrad what truly made up his novel. As well as taking the main crop of postcolonial literature perspective and seeing the same stories from the other side. Portraying the indigenous perspective into postcolonial literature helps to discredit the blind truths of Africa presented in writings such as Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.