Post-Colonialism In Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

“There are Two Sides to Every Story” Some authors use re-storying as a technique to offer a balanced perspective of a certain event or time period. Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” provides an alternative narrative for post-colonialism in opposition to Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” Conrad’s book is primarily characterized by bold racist analogies and by explicating the evils of Africa. By writing “Things Fall Apart” through a different perspective, Achebe gives an opposite bias and message. Achebe acknowledges Conrad’s racist claims through mocking and debunking him. Achebe also exploits the destructive results of material-motivated imperialists, as well as offering a different interpretation of certain topics discussed in “Heart of Darkness.” Joseph Conrad disregards the humanity of native African people as he often refers to them as “savages,” and Achebe mocks Conrad’s portrayal of Africans. Joseph Conrad presents the savagery of the natives when he writes,“‘They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces…’” (64). Achebe exploits Conrad’s savage image of Africans by occasionally portraying the natives in his story as savages and inhuman. An example of a savage depiction of a native African is when Achebe says,“That was his fifth head;...he drank his palm-wine from his first human head” (10). Achebe …show more content…
While both novels contain racism as a result of ignorance, the racism in “Things Fall Apart” is a ploy by Achebe to show how ludicrous the racist logic in “Heart of Darkness” is. Conrad makes the absurd comparison of a black man to a dog, “‘...to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind legs’” (66). Achebe mockingly imitates Conrad’s racism when he writes, “‘An albino [the white man],’ suggested Okonkwo” (138). Both are ignorant statements, but Achebe’s is a tool in exploiting Conrad’s