The Correlation Between Author Bias and Stereotypes in Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart
Anyone reading Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness today has seen the conventions of African fictions before: savages that lead a rather primitive lifestyle, waiting to be civilized by European conquerors. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, however, uncovered the story of these people in a total opposite light: Africans were shown not as barbarians, but as parts of a flourishing society. With that being said, while both narratives dealt with colonial presence in Africa, they have greatly diverged in the ways the continent was presented to the readers.
We, as individuals, are all influenced by the world surrounds us, and have personal experiences that
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Nigeria was still under British colonization then, but unlike Conrad who was a complete foreigner to Africa, Achebe knew his country and people well, thus portraying them as members of a structured and civilized society with a vibrant scene of arts and cultures. Perhaps this could explain for the bias for and against Africa that was present in the work of each respective author.
As to the stereotypes shown in the books, Heart of Darkness was told through the eyes of Marlow - a British ivory transporter - about his thrilling journey up the Congo River into the heart of Africa. He recounted multiple encounters with the natives, whom he repeatedly referred to as savages and "unearthly creatures". In one account, Marlow stumbled upon what he called The Grove of Death - a death pit that was filled with weak and dying native laborers, where he described them as "black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom". He deemed the devastating deaths of the natives with the same dismay as the rusting machinery he previously encountered, nothing more. Perhaps Marlow was great in terms of orders and disciplines, but not so much in terms of