How do you interpret Africa and its natives? What perspective are you viewing them from? Is it prejudice or is it unbiased? Does your perspective follow any stereotypes made about Africans? Everyone can interpret Africa and Africans in completely different perspectives. In the novels, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, present Africa and its natives in two different ways. They illustrate Africa from different perspectives. Conrad’s novel presents African from the view of the colonizing Europeans. These Europeans depict the natives as savages, from their perspective. While in Achebe’s novel, Africa and its natives are viewed as humans that are living in a growing society. This perspective gives a more
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While traveling through Africa, Marlow depicts the natives of Africa as “savages.” He compares them to the wilderness of the jungle or wild animals. This perspective greatly differs from Achebe’s, Things Fall Apart, which follows the life of Okonkwo, who strives to keep the culture in his community. The moment European missionaries arrive at Okonkwo’s clan, Umuofia; Okonkwo tries to keep and protect his community’s culture from the missionaries, who want to destroy their way of life to civilize them. Although this backfires on Okonkwo, who shows his rigid mentality and unlawful behavior, which provokes the stereotype that Africans are wild and “untamed.” In Heart of Darkness, there is clear presentation of European prejudice against Africans. They portray the natives as “shadows,” and “creatures,” not as human beings. The men aren’t seen as individuals by the Europeans, but they are seen as formless shapes with no humanizing characteristics. This creates the imagery that the natives are nothing more than an amorphous form. Marlow’s depictions originate from the stereotype which states that all Africans are the same, such as they don’t have any defining individualistic features, unlike the Europeans who are depicted in refined
While traveling through Africa, Marlow depicts the natives of Africa as “savages.” He compares them to the wilderness of the jungle or wild animals. This perspective greatly differs from Achebe’s, Things Fall Apart, which follows the life of Okonkwo, who strives to keep the culture in his community. The moment European missionaries arrive at Okonkwo’s clan, Umuofia; Okonkwo tries to keep and protect his community’s culture from the missionaries, who want to destroy their way of life to civilize them. Although this backfires on Okonkwo, who shows his rigid mentality and unlawful behavior, which provokes the stereotype that Africans are wild and “untamed.” In Heart of Darkness, there is clear presentation of European prejudice against Africans. They portray the natives as “shadows,” and “creatures,” not as human beings. The men aren’t seen as individuals by the Europeans, but they are seen as formless shapes with no humanizing characteristics. This creates the imagery that the natives are nothing more than an amorphous form. Marlow’s depictions originate from the stereotype which states that all Africans are the same, such as they don’t have any defining individualistic features, unlike the Europeans who are depicted in refined