Representation of Africa in “Heart of Darkness” and “Things Fall apart”

Name: Jinal B. ParmarRoll no:11

Paper no:14 “The African Literature”M. A. Semester: 4

Year: 2015PG Enrolment no.: 13101025

Email ID: jinal.parmar989883@gmail.comSubmitted to: Department of English

Smt. S. B. GardiM. K. Bhavnagar University

Dt:11th March 2015

Things Fall Apart Heart of

Darkness

Introduction of the writer

Joseph Conrad

Chinua Achebe

Introduction of the writer

“Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness”

Introduction of the novel

• Story follows white

man and journey

through Africa

• Marlow is narrator of

the story

• Imperialism is at the

center of the novel

Introduction of the novel

• Modern African novel in English• Story takes place in Africa during the time of Colonialism• Story focused on the character Okonkwo• His experience in colonization Africa• Talks about Ibo culture• Title of the novel comes from a line in W. B. Yeats' poem "The Second Coming"

Both novels

Heart of Darkness Things fall Apart

Joseph Conrad

Published in 1899

Image of Late 19th

century Africa

Africans as “Savages”

Presented as Dark

image of Africa

Chinua Achebe

Published in 1958

Image of mid 20th

century Africa

Igbo Culture

presented the real

picture of Africa

Things Fall Apart

Heart of Darkness

Both novels

Heart of Darkness Things fall Apart

Achebe claims that the image of Africa which is portrayed in Heart of Darkness is not because of African people’s lack of awareness and knowledge but it’s a result of colonialism

seen African as ANIMALISTIC

Art of conversation structured and civilized society

Representation of Women

“When the British came to Ibo land, for instance, at the beginning of the 20th century, and defeated the men in pitched battles in different places, and set up their administrations, the men surrendered. And it was the women who led the first revolt”

-Chinua Achebe

“Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men”

-Joseph Conrad

“Africa as other world”

Accuses Joseph Conrad

of being "a thoroughgoing

racist" for depicting Africa

as "the other world”

“Antithesis of Europe

and there of civilization”

Considered as racist

Said says that “Heart of

Darkness works so

effectively because its

politics and aesthetics are,

so to speak, imperialist,

which in the closing years of

the nineteenth century

seemed to be at the same

time an aesthetic, politics

and even epistemology

inevitable an unavoidable”

The idea of “OTHER” and

“US”

JanMohammed states,

“Colonial literature is an exploration of a

world at the boundaries of civilization; a world

that has not been domesticated by European

signification." It is a world perceived as

"uncontrollable, chaotic, unattainable, and

ultimately evil."

Thank you..