...An Image of Africa An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" is the published (and amended) version of the second Chancellor’s Lecture given by Chinua Achebe at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in February 1975. The essay was included in his 1988 collection, Hopes and Impediments. The text is considered to be part of the Postcolonial critical movement, which advocates considering the viewpoints of non-Westernized nations, as well as peoples coping with the effects of colonialism. In An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Achebe accuses Joseph Conrad of being "a thoroughgoing racist" for depicting Africa as "the other world". The essay [edit] According to Achebe, Conrad refuses to bestow "human expression" on Africans, even depriving them of language. Africa itself is rendered as "a foil to Europe, 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". Conrad, he says, portrays Africa as " 'the other world', the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization", which Achebe attributes to Conrad's "residue of antipathy to black people". Achebe moves beyond the text of Conrad's Heart of Darkness in advancing his argument. Achebe quotes a passage from Conrad, as Conrad recalls his first encounter with an African in his own life: A certain enormous buck nigger encountered in Haiti fixed my conception of blind, furious, unreasoning...
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...The novel "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe is centered around Okonkwo, who sets out a quest of self-perfection and indeed succeeds in doing so. His hyperbolic interpretation of manliness leads him into climbing the ladder of success; admired and respected by his clan. And so he soon becomes too deep in his ideology of masculinity which later causes his own tragic demise. The focus of this essay is to discuss the contribution of the various settings in the development of Okonkwo and its relevance in today's society. This novel is partitioned into three main parts which deal with three remarkably different settings. These are Umofia, Mbanta and the Umofia in change respectively. In the first part, which is in Umofia, Achebe offered an understanding of Okonkwo's nature who lived in fear of becoming like his father. Achebe furthered on providing precise characteristics of his father who was notorious for his unmanly behaviour and therefore died in dispute. He had always been associated with agbala; woman and titleless(pg 13). Through this, the reader's are privileged with the significant event that occurred in Okonkwo's course of life in which he grew up in in criticism. This experience has been essential in the formation of his character where he had always been haunted by the actions of his father and attempted to adopt totally opposite characteristics of his father. Although he managed to attain a position of wealth and prestige in his clan, he was always...
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...Dudley 1 Dominiq Dudley Mrs. Skelton AP Literature & Composition 18 March 2011 Conrad vs. Achebe In Heart of Darkness, Conrad’s misunderstanding of the Ibo Culture is symbolized by his misrepresentation of the language. Though Conrad views the language as babbling and grunting, Achebe points out that they are still humans; though others might not understand it, their language and culture is something that is understood to each other. Achebe’s response to Conrad begins with language to prove that the Ibo people have their own culture. Throughout Heart of Darkness, Conrad shows that he doesn’t understand the Ibo language, and culture; and he doesn’t intend to. When Conrad wrote in the voices of the Africans, he portrayed them as elementary instead of intelligent. “In place of speech they made “a violent babble of sounds;” they “exchanged short grunting phrases,” even among themselves” (An Image of Africa 255.)Instead of trying to understand the Africans and their culture, he showed his own image of them and what they sound like to him. Throughout the book Conrad showed examples of his simple mindedness towards the Africans. “Before it stopped running with a muffled rattle, a cry, a very loud cry, as of infinite desolation, soared slowly in the opaque air. It ceased. A complaining clamour, modulated in savage discords, filled our ears…” (2.13) Dudley 2 This showed Conrad’s inability to understand. The men that we around didn’t understand the cries of the natives...
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...Quote | Comment | “No Madonna and Child could touch Her tenderness for a son She would soon have to forget…” | Shows a mother (another way of saying portraying Mary & Jesus) this is a religious image of care, affection and tenderness. Mary also had to watch her son die on the cross, so there is a similarity there and it may also suggest that even prayer cannot help these refugees now. It is one sentence, foregrounding the mother’s love for her son & that she won’t give up on him despite the fact that he’s about to die soon - suggesting a lot of compassion from the mother. This short sentence indicates that there is very little hope or goodness in the lives of the refugees – most of their life is like the struggle depicted in the second sentence. | ‘The air was heavy with odours of diarrhoea Of unwashed children with washed-out ribs And dried-up bottoms struggling in laboured steps Behind blown empty bellies. Other mothers there’ | The sibilance in the description of the unhealthy children who are suffering, emphasizes the hardships they face in the refugee camp. Also intensifying the image of unpleasantness, the way they describe how the children are dirty and unwell.P | ‘long ceased to care’ | The other mothers in the refugee camp didn’t care about their sick child/children dying since they know that nothing can save them. It seems that other mothers don’t care about their child/children anymore – or given up/lost faith/hope, making the mother in this poem seem...
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...Things Fall Apart Important Quotations Explained 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. Explanation for Quotation 1 >> Achebe uses this opening stanza of William Butler Yeats’s poem “The Second Coming,” from which the title of the novel is taken, as an epigraph to the novel. In invoking these lines, Achebe hints at the chaos that arises when a system collapses. That “the center cannot hold” is an ironic reference to both the imminent collapse of the African tribal system, threatened by the rise of imperialist bureaucracies, and the imminent disintegration of the British Empire. Achebe, writing in 1959, had the benefit of retrospection in depicting Nigerian society and British colonialism in the 1890s. Yet Achebe’s allusion is not simply political, nor is it ironic on only one level. Yeats’s poem is about the Second Coming, a return and revelation of sorts. In Things Fall Apart, this revelation refers to the advent of the Christian missionaries (and the alleged revelation of their teachings), further satirizing their supposed benevolence in converting the Igbo. For an agricultural society accustomed to a series of cycles, including that of the locusts, the notion of return would be quite credible and familiar. The hyperbolic and even contradictory nature of the passage’s language suggests the inability of humankind to thwart...
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...retreating to his mother’s tribe/clan was not a very masculine route to embark upon. When he, along with his wives and children, arrive at his Mother’s Tribe Okonkwo’s uncle comes to him after watching and realising how apprehensive Okonkwo is about having been exiled and losing a lot, if not all, of the faith and trust that the people of Umuofia had for him. His uncle tells him that it is not a shameful deed for him to have come back to his mother and that he should look after, to the best of his abilities, his wives and children. His uncle then moves on to telling Okonkwo that if he doesn’t look after his family, and let’s the sorrow overcome him, he will lose the battle, not be able to prosper and his family will eventually die. Achebe also introduces a new tradition in this chapter. He introduces the tradition of the isa-ifi ceremony. Basically, it is linked with a wedding ceremony, where after the bride money has been paid and the bride is questioned. If the bride lies during this questioning she dies at child birth. Towards the end of the chapter, Okonkwo’s uncle talks to his son’s and daughter’s as well as Okonkwo during a gathering. However, he primarily wishes to speak to Okonkwo. His uncle puts across a point by saying that all his son’s and daughter’s and even Okonkwo, who has more children than him, are still children. They are not as wise as he is and probably won’t be for...
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... After reading Achebe’s novel, one can conclude that women held high status in the Igbo society since they play an important role as religious figures, procreators, caretakers, and as the symbolic nurturers of the culture as a whole. Religion is a very powerful and influential factor in the lives of the Igbos. Women were able to participate in religion through the role of priestesses. The chief priestess is in charge of the ceremonies and rituals pertaining to the gods. Priesthood is considered a special gift from the gods. For both men and women, the words of a priestess were equal to the words of the gods that she represents, and therefore they are considered unquestionable and binding. Women are also vital in a literal sense- they posses the procreative powers of their society. Although companionship is important in marriages, it is the birth of children which truly defines the success of a marriage. The more healthy children a woman could bear, the more respect she receives. The survival of both individual families and the community as a whole depended on the women's ability to bear children. Even after the birth of a child, a mother continues to influence his growth and development through the practice of storytelling. It is through storytelling that mothers instill the values, morals, and traditions needed to function in the society as adults. Even for boys, until they reach a certain age, their father does not influence them significantly. However, the most important aspect...
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...Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” is a twentieth century work of art that serves the purpose of conveying the intricacies of African culture while at the same time giving voice to the underrepresented and exploited inhabitants of Nigeria. This work was written in response to Western writings on African culture, which treated Africa in a cultureless and subhuman light of view. “Things Fall Apart” portrays the conflict between the White colonial government and the indigenous Igbo people in Nigeria, illuminating the European and African perspectives on Colonial control, race, religion and culture. The Igbos believed that each man was responsible for his fate or destiny. They believed that a man has the ability to change his life and achieve status through economics and military accomplishments, the latter being through agriculture, and that all of this results solely from hard work. The Nigerian society, unlike European societies, was characterized by a Darwinian society in the way that people who achieved great feats were rewarded, rather than a caste-like system where there was no chance of improving one’s status. The ability to move up in rank in Nigerian culture is portrayed in the story of Onkonkwo. Born to an indebted and effeminate father, Okonkwo strives to rise through the social system and achieve everything his father could not. He is intolerant and biased towards women to the point where he describes weak men as women. Okonkwo views emotion as a weakness and thus...
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...began to view Africans as inferior and apelike rather than as actual human beings. In his book Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe tells the story of Okonkwo, a well-known and respected leader of Umuofia, as he watches his village fall apart after meeting the Europeans. Achebe contradicts imperialistic stereotypes of Africa by depicting Africa as civilized; the Igbo have their own religion, customs, and government. Religion constitutes a significant part of the Igbo culture just as it is for many other civilized cultures. As a young boy, Okonkwo’s father...
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...fear is plainly shown in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart through Okonkwo’s hamartia that moves him towards his eventual demise. Achebe proves that living solely by fear of failure will create the very thing one’s life is motivated to destroy. Okonkwo’s fear of failure manifests itself in five distinct ways: Fear of following in his father’s footsteps, fear of becoming feminine, fear of losing religion, fear of discrediting his family name, and fear of disgracing the Ibo gods. These fears accumulate under the fear of failure that acts as Okonkwo’s hamartia, motivating him to commit suicide at the conclusion of the book. Achebe begins Things Fall Apart with a lengthy description of Okonkwo’s past, including his lazy...
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...Persephany Magdaleno Mr. Lopez July 23, 2014 AP Lit Things Fall Apart "The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart"(pg.176). Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, a historical fictional novel, was written to present a complex, dynamic society to a western audience who perceived African society as primitive, simple, and reversed. I strongly recommend this novel because of its differentiated perspectives of two intertwining stories for example: Okonkwo, a respected and powerful figure in the Ibo village, Umuofia, was also warrior whose major weakness in the novel is the inability to accept change. This ends up destroying him in the finale of the book. Chinua Achebe's other story described the influences of white missionaries on African tribes. Chinua Achebe also addresses the clash of cultures in the second part, especially within their religions, but implies that there is no right or wrong in their differences between their cultures. Fear is an emphasized theme throughout the novel because fear is what drives Okonkwo terror by the wrath of god's, guilt, and his community disapproval upon them. This theme is also looked as symbolization to Okonkwo's dedication to be a successful man because the fear was so fierce that it controlled...
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...of post colonial fiction easily includes Chinua Achebe’s novels. Postcolonial study delineates all aspects of the colonial process from the beginning to the end of colonial contact. Chinua Achebe’s novels contain the experiences of Nigerian people after the end of British Empire. Achebe’s novels are the replication of African history as well. Therefore, his novels describe an archetypal post colonial era African country. Chinua Achebe is one of the finest Nigerian novelists of the twentieth century, whose novels show various post colonial aspects in them. Achebe throws light on the changes in African society and politics, His four novels cover the entire colonial history of Africa from the early days of European advent to the post colonial aspects like retrieval of an identity and own past, language liberty, cultural change, disestablishment of Eurocentric norms and complexes of this period of perplexity. Achebe wrote novels chronologically one is attached to another as, pre-colonial, colonial, post colonial and commonwealth. Chinua Achebe has depicted traditional Igbo society and African history through writing his novels chronologically. His opening novel Things fall Apart has given trace on the conflict between Igbo and Western customs through the character of Okonkwo, a proud village leaders whose refusal to adapt to the encroaching European influences...
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...Imperialism. The Africans are taken over by the Europeans. Things Fall Apart is a book written from an African’s perspective, this African is Chinua Achebe who was actually from Nigeria. White Man’s Burden is a poem written from a European’s point of view. Rudyard Kipling wrote White Man’s Burden, he was a European. The authors of each of these texts clearly convey their opinions on imperialism. In White Man’s Burden, Kipling shows that imperialism is something to be proud of, a community is establishing their power. However, in Things Fall Apart, Achebe demonstrates that imperialism is not all glorious, it is humiliating to the imperialized country....
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...Colonization and Cultural Change in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe There is a major importance of customs and traditions in the African nations. The customs and traditions decide the fate of the men, women, and children of each separate tribe, as well as how the men are viewed from neighboring tribes. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart achieves the paradoxical effect of enabling African tribal life to be accessible to western society, while simultaneously excluding it. The incursion of the colonizing force is changing or threatening to change almost every aspect of their society: religion, family structure, gender roles, relations, and trade. In this novel Achebe uses the term Locusts to symbolize the arrival of white settlers who will feast on and exploit the resources of the Igbo. Achebe aims to show that Africa is not the uncivilized, simple country that it is portrayed as by other cultures. His work aims to show the reader to understand the tribe and assist the reader to think about the reasoning behind the beliefs that may be viewed as odd or illogical. For instance; that a child should be murdered or the spirits of the dead must be appeased, if not it can have grave consequences for some tribal members. Or the tribal concept of 'bloating' they simply take people suffering with it to the evil forest and leave them for dead, to them this perfectly logical. Paul Brians (Washington State University, 2002) states that "its most striking feature is to create...
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...glorify only the hunter.” Chinua Achebe, Home and Exile Literature is the expression of life in words of truth and beauty.It encompasses all genres of literature-poetry,prose,fiction,drama,philosophy,history etc.Among them,fiction is any narrative,whether in prose or verse,which is invented instead of being an account of events that actually happened. The voice of Africa in the world of letters tries to emancipate Africa from its literary stereotype.Africa is no longer a gloomy phenomenon,a dark continent.Chinua Achebe, the major exponent of the modern African novel,is greatly concerned with the two realities of social man –his individual and group identity,the legacy of colonialism, and the shift in the system of values of life leading to rampant corruption- moral and monetary. He is also concerned with the use of English as the medium of expression of African experience defining the relevance of colonial and post-colonial experience to the present .Achebe’s novels are dialectic tranformation of experience, a new way of looking at tradition to create a different order of reality through universalizing imagination.Though he has followed the established tradition of novel writing in English, Achebe has put few things ‘African’ and has successfully employed certain narrative techniques of narration to give authenticity and African flavour to his novels in order to attract the native audience and overseas readers as well. Chinua Achebe , the doyen of African writing, the...
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