Three Settings, One Place

Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart, and The Poisonwood Bible are all set in Africa. However, they are all completely different books telling completely different stories. This is because each novel has a polarizing description of Africa, as well as an equally polarizing opinion. In addition, each uses common symbolism in different ways: most notably, in the meanings of the animals in each story. With all of these tools, three very different worlds are shown.

The Africa portrayed in The Poisonwood Bible is much more lush and descriptive than the ones portrayed in Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart. This could be partly due to Barbara Kingsolver’s being a biologist, but it is more due to her characters being more observant than the others. In the case of Things Fall Apart, this is because the characters have spent their entire lives in Africa, so they describe and notice it minimally, the way we would describe and notice our own backyards. In the case of Heart of Darkness, this is because the characters do not care about their surroundings; it is a place where they work, nothing more.

Besides the physical, there is also the mental aspect of life in Africa. In Heart of Darkness, the continent is a primitive wasteland, where human beings can only survive if they are less than human (the locals as animals--more on that in a minute--, Mr. Kurtz as a god, etc.). In Things Fall Apart, again, it is home. In The Poisonwood Bible, it is a beautiful and fascinating place, but it is nothing more than a novelty for the girls and a brief inconvenience; it is a theme park that loses its appeal when they remain after they were supposed to return home. All of these opinions have similarities, but if you take away the place name, a reader would likely imagine a different setting with each one.

Then, there is the portrayal of animals. In Heart of Darkness, Africans are the animals; they are compared to animals throughout the story, and they never receive their own names or descriptions, often shown as a collective entity instead of a group of individual people. In Things Fall Apart, animals are sacred, trusted, and are thought to bring something much worse than bad luck if they are needlessly killed. In The Poisonwood Bible, the animals are feared, but they are also domesticated, serving as the family’s pets at various points in the story. Again, there are some similarities (elements of submission can be found in all of them), but each one has a very different idea of what local wildlife looks like.

All three of these novels are set in the same continent, some even in the same country. Sometimes, though, a reader can forget this. This is because the description and opinion of the continent, along with the portrayal of animals there, is polarizingly different in each one. Marlow would never be able to see eye-to-eye with Okonkwo, who most certainly would never be able to see eye-to-eye with, say, Rachel. This conflicting nature is what makes each novel, while possessing similarities to each other, so complex and interesting, even after being immersed in the others.