Achebe is not a man that stands by and watches people and cultures get criticized. He spoke up about Heart of Darkness and how he felt it was a racist story that misrepresented African people and their culture. In Things Fall Apart, he built on this opinion and wrote about African life in a village to provide the world with an accurate representation of African people and their culture. He simply won't accept the stereotypes put in place my society and built on by books such as Heart of Darkness. Through Things Fall Apart, Achebe clears away all stereotypes put in place about African people and their culture and replaces it with realistic villages, characters, and cultural events or ideas that represent Africa and its inhabitants in an accurate manner.
After making it clear that he found Heart of Darkness to be incredibly racist and inaccurate, Achebe explained himself and why he found this to be true. He found Joseph Conrad's story to focus on the lives of the white men rather than those of the African men, women, and children living there. Achebe felt that Conrad made the civilians of Africa blend into the background like scenery rather than represent that as the people that they truly are. This did not sit well with Achebe by any means. In addition, the little that Conrad's story did speak of African people, it was all generally negative. In all descriptions of the civilians of Africa, Conrad made them sound like reckless individuals and characterized them more as animals rather than people. To any reader, especially to Achebe, this stood out the most as being incredibly racist and inaccurate.
Achebe didn't want more people to write stories like Conrad's story, so he wrote his own. He didn't want people believing the ridiculous and animal-like stereotypes that we're placed on African people and their culture, he wanted accurate representations to be accessible for readers to they could understand what Africa. its people, and their culture was actually like. I think this action speaks volumes to the importance of this topic to Achebe. He created a complex story all focused on African people and their culture and accurately portrayed these ideas while creating an intriguing and informative story. The characters he creates have depth to them, unlike those in Heart of Darkness that just blended into the background like they were a piece of the setting. Achebe made sure that the important pieces of the book and the messages he was trying to send were made clear, his representation of Africa and Africans was accurate and detail-oriented which showed the reader how unique and special this story is.
Achebe did not accept stories like Heart of Darkness and didn't allow them to go on through society without commenting on their inaccuracies and imperfections. Achebe did not tolerate racist stories and corrected them at every chance. His story conveys an accurate representation of African people and their culture, proving to the world what is accurate and culturally acceptable and what is not.
I like that you continue to contrast Things Fall Apart to Heart of Darkness as complete opposites in their views. However, rather than just comparing to one story, it would have been interesting is you focused more on post-colonialist ideas and criticisms in general. It would also be interesting if you found when Achebe's essay was written compared to when Things Fall Apart was written, because your blog points out that the novel is almost in response to Conrad's book and the message it was leaving in society. I like your interpretation that Achebe meant to prove something with his novel. Interesting post!
ReplyDeleteYour intro is perfect, it sets up your post well and gives context. I like how the post contrasts this novel with Conrad's. Your opinion is clear and you give support. There could be a few more specific references to both novels, but overall I think you get your point across well. I like how you focus on Achebe proving to Conrad that a book on Africans can be a fantastic, complex, intriguing novel. Good job!
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