The comparison between the books was interesting since one book follows a black man and his journey through life and how his land becomes invaded by white people, while the other book follows a white man and his journey to Africa where he invades a country for business purposes. So here we get to see Africa through the eyes of a white man and a black man. Of course, we cannot get the same picture of Africa since characters in the two books have different life experiences. For Okonkwo, it is very hard to face the truth that the white people are more powerful in many ways and that he must submit to them. Marlow, on the other hand, never has to submit to a greater power, he is a part of that greatness himself and he invades Okonkwo’s Africa for …show more content…
They were taken as slaves and they worked for the white people exactly as Conrad describes it. Of course, one can question Conrad’s use of words, and he may have had some anger inside of him towards the black race. What makes me question Conrad’s authenticity is how he describes his relation to the black people. In one part of the book he mentions that he feels some kind of kinship to them while in other parts he completely dehumanises them and describes them as animals. This is why I have a hard time accepting his authenticity because he sometimes seems to be going against his own thoughts. In one part of the book he describes a white man that he sees and by the description of that man you instantly know that it is a rich and wealthy man he is describing. Another thing that makes me question Conrad and his authenticity is the following quote from his own biographer, which Achebe have quoted in his essay, “notoriously inaccurate in the rendering of his own story” (Achebe 2006, 346). If his own biographer writes this about him then I am willing to understand why Achebe refuses to see Conrad as truthful in his descriptions of Africa, even if Conrad spent six months in