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The Myth Of The Dark Continent Summary

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THE MYTH OF THE DARK CONTINENT: The Representation of Africa in Black Ivory Honors Thesis By Abubakar Abubakar Mairamri Supervised by Ass. Prof. Dr. Mansoor ABBASI THE DEPARTMENT OF ENLIGH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE MELIKSAH UNIVERSITY KAYSERI June 2015 The Myth of the Dark Continent: The Representation of Africa in Black Ivory Honors Thesis By Abubakar Abubakar Mairamri Supervised by Ass. Prof. Dr. Mansoor ABBASI THE DEPARTMENT OF ENLIGH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE MELIKSAH UNIVERSITY KAYSERI June 2015 The Myth of the Dark Continent: The Representation of Africa in Black Ivory Abubakar Abubakar Mairamri B.A., Department of English Language and Literature Supervisor: Ass. Prof. Dr. Mansoor ABBASI June 2015 ABSTRACT My thesis examines the representation …show more content…
Black Ivory: A Tale of Adventure among the slavers of East Africa tells the story of two English men who find their selves shipwrecked along the coast of East Africa, also finding their selves amidst Arab and Portuguese slave-traders. The novel was published in 1873 as it can be said to be specifically for the juvenile youths. In it contains a message, themes of hope, love and laughter, and also the horrors and the sufferings of the slave …show more content…
No doubt the aim of the abolitionist campaign was to expose the horrors of the slave trade. However in doing so, portrayal of the African natives as simplistic creatures and victims represented the African as backward, uncivilized and ignorant. An example being Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in which he sought to expose the horrors in the Congo.

Chinua Achebe in his essay, An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has written about his concern of Heart of Darkness and the effect of such books in the academic world. (Achebe 2006). He realizes that there are many books like Heart of Darkness but Conrad’s book was so unique that he labelled it “permanent literature”, a lasting literature that would be used seriously in the academic world. Furthermore, the other thing that concerns Achebe is the image of Africa and Africans portrayed in the

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