Chinua Achebe's Heart Of Darkness

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“People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories”, a quote once said by Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian novelist, poet, and critic best known for his first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958). He described how imposed Western values led to social disorientation of the traditional African society. Achebe means to say that stories inspire everlasting change. With his novel, he hopes his readers will achieve that everlasting change. Recognizing the truths in society and disregarding the false accusations from outside forces. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart questions and challenges the previous literary discussions from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and other colonial texts by constituting a new perspective of African history and beliefs through the use of argumentative, narrative, and linguistic strategies.
Although Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" does dispute the morality of European imperialism in Africa, racism is still showcased by the Europeans at this time. An example is the relationship between his African American cousins with the biblical symbols of the evil night. Throughout Heart of Darkness, sin is portrayed by the images of darkness and Christianity and enlightenment is portrayed by the light in the novel. But to Conrad, darkness is overruled by every element on earth. Africa is a place of deep darkness, vacant of history and civilization, and perhaps the African people are the human form of an untamed perdition. To him, Africa is "so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness" (HoD 130). “It is a place of dusty niggers” (HoD 83), dressed severely with fierce nostrils . . . bloodshoot eyes, and sharp teeth" (HoD 111). Conrad’s diction is harsh a...

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...e Africans with much truth. Despite lacking in technology, the Africans are a fairly advanced society. Achebe described them perfectly and didn’t undermine their culture as the Europeans did.
Chinua Achebe has helped create a new perspective and new story of Nigerian and African history. Through the aid of his works, Things Fall Apart being the most influential piece, he was able to challenge previous texts that falsely depicted the African culture. The goal of the colonials and Europeans was to disrupt the African’s way of life. The Africans were essentially just like the white’s, the only difference was the color of their skin. The whites could not accept the fact that they were different, that is why the vandalism of the African culture occurred. Achebe used his work of art, being his novel, to accurately portray the innocent African people in a positive way.

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