Essay Comparing Heart Of Darkness And Things Fall Apart

Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart have different approaches to the portrayal of African. In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad depicted a backwards and primitive Africa through the standpoint of the Europeans colonize, where all natives are described as barbarians Whereas Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, written in response to Conrad’s stereotypical portrayal of Africans, exhibit the African society through a non-stereotypical perspective, depicting them not as savages, but rather as members of a traditional society. Things Fall Apart follows Okonkwo’s life as he strives for recognition in his community. When the European missionaries arrive at Umuofia with the mission of “civilizing” the natives, Okonkwo endeavor to protect his culture. However, his intrusive thoughts and violent deeds only further perpetuate the European stereotype of Africans being primitives and savages.
European prejudice towards Africans is shown in Heart of Darkness. The story protagonist, Marlow, while traveling through Africa, had has several encounters with the natives, to which he describes all of them as savages, drawing comparisons between them and the wild animals of the jungle. In one instance, he even found a death pit in the ground, a literal open grave where the

He just sits there and wonder “who could tell?” rather than making an effort to understand what they were saying because he believed that, as little-minded people, they didn’t have anything reasonable to say. The book also doesn’t include a specific language, most likely due to Conrad’s influence by European stereotypes of Africans, with only a few exceptions where we do see the natives do speak, but only to discuss subjects that further implicate their barbarians nature. Throughout the book, Conrad uses a specific writing technique that ignores anything that might contradict the stereotype and shows only what support