New Historicism through “Heart of Darkness” and “Things Fall Apart”
New Historicism is literary theory that developed in the late 1980s-early 1990s. The theory attempts to keep the reader from assuming a direct comparison with an unfamiliar setting or an event that happened in the past. The truth of literature cannot be established as it involves both the writer and the reader. The culture and traditions change over time, and the society’s values shift as well. The author is a participant of the culture that he or she is experiencing, presenting a subjective point of view, and no readers can identify themselves with such point of view. Although people never questioned the validity of the traditional history, New Historicism asserts that the stories are subjective narratives told from the standpoint of the powerful. This idea of false credentials can be sensed through the study of the novels “Heart of Darkness” and “Things Fall Apart.”
The narrative “Heart of Darkness” by Conrad is the story of an English man named Marlow who goes on a journey in …show more content…
The novel develops around the life of Okonkwo, a respectable leader and warrior of Ibo people. Achebe displays the African traditions with its splendor and its malice. Everything went ordinary until European missionaries came to the African village and started to impose themselves through Christianity and a new form of English government. The nations clash was unacceptable for African people as European missionaries become more aggressive and neglecting toward the natives’ traditions and were eager to enforce their British form of culture. Okonkwo commits suicide as he understands that there is no hope for African people to withstand the colonists. Achebe’s story shows the grief of the weak people who lost their voice in telling their part of the truth in the
New Historicism is literary theory that developed in the late 1980s-early 1990s. The theory attempts to keep the reader from assuming a direct comparison with an unfamiliar setting or an event that happened in the past. The truth of literature cannot be established as it involves both the writer and the reader. The culture and traditions change over time, and the society’s values shift as well. The author is a participant of the culture that he or she is experiencing, presenting a subjective point of view, and no readers can identify themselves with such point of view. Although people never questioned the validity of the traditional history, New Historicism asserts that the stories are subjective narratives told from the standpoint of the powerful. This idea of false credentials can be sensed through the study of the novels “Heart of Darkness” and “Things Fall Apart.”
The narrative “Heart of Darkness” by Conrad is the story of an English man named Marlow who goes on a journey in …show more content…
The novel develops around the life of Okonkwo, a respectable leader and warrior of Ibo people. Achebe displays the African traditions with its splendor and its malice. Everything went ordinary until European missionaries came to the African village and started to impose themselves through Christianity and a new form of English government. The nations clash was unacceptable for African people as European missionaries become more aggressive and neglecting toward the natives’ traditions and were eager to enforce their British form of culture. Okonkwo commits suicide as he understands that there is no hope for African people to withstand the colonists. Achebe’s story shows the grief of the weak people who lost their voice in telling their part of the truth in the