The Mysteries of Africa

Chinua Achebe is the well known author of his first novel, “Things Fall Apart”. He was born in the 1930s and raised by Christian parents (converts to the Protestant Church Mission Society) in south Nigeria, in the Igbo village. Storytelling was a large part of the Igbo community and culture, and so Achebe was drawn to it. In school he excelled, and as a child he went to prestigious primary schools. Later on he attended the Government College in Umuahia. The college had rigorous academic standards and made English the language of the school. From here, Achebe transferred to the new University of Idaban, the first college in Nigeria. Here he majored in English, history, and theology. It was also here where he wrote his first short story, “In a Village Church”. Achebe began exploring fields of Christianity and African history, and religions when Geoffrey Parrinder, a professer, arrived at the university to teach comparative religion. After attending the university, Achebe became a teacher at the Merchants of Light school at Oba. He then moved to the city of Lagos, where he started working on “Things Fall Apart”. After it was published, he moved to Enugu and there he married a woman named Christie Okoli. They had four children together. Achebe traveled a lot, including going to the United States and Brazil with an organization called Fellowship for Creative Artists. All the while, Achebe continued writing and publishing other novels; however, “Things Fall Apart” remain his most famous. Achebe accomplished much in his life, such as writing his many books, and being Director of External Broadcasting of NBS (Nigerian Broadcasting Service).

Joseph Conrad Biography

Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski on December 3, 1857 in the Poland. When Conrad was young, his father was exiled to Siberia on suspicion of plotting against the Russian government. After his mother died, Conrad’s father sent him to his uncle’s to be educated. He did not begin to learn English until he was twenty-one years old.

Joseph went to school in Cracow and Switzerland but what he really wanted to do was to go to the sea. In 1878, he landed for the first time in England and spent the next 16 years in the British merchant navy. In 1886, he became a British citizen. Since childhood, he had always wanted to go to Africa. In 1889, he traveled to the Congo and became a captain of a Congo river steamboat. What he saw, did, and felt in the Congo act as the basis for his novel "Heart of Darkness". While in Africa, however, Conrad became very ill and he returned to England to recover. Conrad got married in 1895 with Jessie George and had two sons with her. He lived in poor conditions, his health was failing and he often got in trouble with his temperament. Conrad died in 1924.

“Things Fall Apart” Overview

“Things Fall Apart” is the story of Okonkwo and his tribe, Umuofia. Umuofia is a large, powerful clan in Nigeria. Okonkwo is a strong individual, having to rise from nothing (since his father was a lazy man who produced nothing in his lifetime). His greatest fear is that people would perceive him as being weak, and as a result, Okonkwo rules his family and his tribe with an iron fist, determined not to show laziness or weakness.

At a funeral one day, Okonkwo’s gun explodes, accidentally killing a young man. According to Umuofia’s law, murder is punished by exile for seven years. Bitterly, Okonkwo takes his family to Mbanta, his mother’s home tribe. While Okonkwo is in his exile, white men come to both Mbanta and Umuofia. Missionaries arrive first, preaching of a religion that seems mad to most of the clan. However, the missionaries win people over, at first only outcasts and or men of low rank, but eventually more and more people join. When Okonkwo and his family finally return to Umuofia, they find the tribe changed. The white men’s government had come to Umuofia and the clan is no longer free to rule itself; a District Commissioner now rules with the backup of armed forces.

During a religious gathering, one of the converts unmasks a “spirit”. This is unheard of in Umuofia; it is very offensive. As a result, the clan decides that the church is no longer welcome among them, and tears the white man’s buildings down. Afterward, the District Commissioner requests a meeting with the clan leaders. At this meeting, the leaders are attacked by surprise and taken hostage. As payment for release, they are forced to pay a heavy fine.

After the release, the clan calls a meeting to decide whether to fight back or not against the white men. Unfortunately, the people do not choose war. Angry and defeated, Okonkwo returns home and kills himself.

Overview of “Heart of Darkness”

Heart of Darkness centers around the main character, Marlow, and his journey up the Congo River to meet a man named Kurtz. Marlow takes a job as a riverboat captain. As he travels to Africa and then up the Congo, Marlow realizes that the native inhabitants of the region have been forced into the company’s service, and they suffer terribly from overwork and ill treatment.

Marlow arrives at the Central Station and finds that his steamship has been sunk. He spends several months waiting for parts to repair it. His interest in Kurtz grows during this period. Kurtz is rumored to be ill, making the delays in repairing the ship all the more costly. Marlow eventually gets the parts he needs to repair his ship, and he sets out with a few agents and a crew of cannibals on a trip up the river. The dense jungle and the silence make everyone aboard a little jumpy and the sight of a native village or the sound of drums make the crew nervous.

Marlow and his crew come across a hut with stacked firewood, together with a note saying that the wood is for them but that they should approach cautiously. Shortly after the steamer has taken on the firewood, it is surrounded by a dense fog. When the fog clears, the ship is attacked by a band of natives, who fire arrows from the safety of the forest. Marlow scares the natives away with the ship’s whistle. Not long after, Marlow and his companions arrive at Kurtz’s Inner Station. Apparently, Kurtz has established himself as a god with the natives and has gone on brutal raids in the surrounding territory in search of ivory. The manager brings Kurtz, who is quite ill, aboard the steamer.

Kurtz disappears in the night, and Marlow goes out in search of him, finding him crawling on all fours toward the native camp. Marlow stops him and convinces him to return to the ship. They set off down the river the next morning, but Kurtz’s health is getting worse.

Marlow listens to Kurtz talk while he steers the ship, and Kurtz entrusts Marlow with a packet of personal documents. The steamer breaks down, and they have to stop for repairs. Kurtz dies, uttering his last words—“The horror! The horror!” Marlow becomes sick soon after and barely survives. Eventually he returns to Europe and goes to see Kurtz’s fiancée. She is still in mourning, even though it has been over a year since Kurtz’s death. She asks what his last words were, but Marlow cannot bring himself to tell her the truth. Instead, he tells her that Kurtz’s last word was her name.

Style Elements of “Things Fall Apart”

1.) Achebe incorporates words from his language into the story.

Example: “‘Every day I tell you that jigida and fire are not friends. But you will never hear. You grew your ears for decoration, not for hearing. One of these days your jigida will catch fire on your waist and then you will know.’” (pg. 71)

-in this example, jigida means a string of waist beads

2.) Imagery:

Example: “The drums were still beating, persistent and unchanging. Their sound was no longer a separate thing from the living village. It was like the pulsation of its heart. It throbbed in the air, in the sunshine, and even in the trees, and filled the village with excitement.” (pg. 44)

3.) Figurative Language:

Example: “’Looking at the king’s mouth, one would think he never sucked at his mother’s breast.’ He was talking about Okonkwo, who had risen so suddenly from great poverty and misfortune to be one of the lords of the clan.” (pg. 26)

4.) Archetype:

Okonkwo could be defined as a tragic hero

Example: “’That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be buried like a dog…’” (pg. 208)

5.) Cultural Allusions

Example: “The story was told in Umuofia, of how [Okonkwo’s] father, Unkoka, had gone to consult the Oracle of the Hills and the Caves to find out why he always had a miserable harvest.” (pg. 16)

Style Elements of “Heart of Darkness”

1. Symbolism

· Fog

- Fog gives one just enough information to begin making decisions but no way to judge the accuracy of that information, which often ends up being wrong. Marlow’s steamer is caught in the fog, meaning that he has no idea where he’s going and no idea whether peril or open water lies ahead.

- “When the sun rose, there was a white fog, very warm and clammy, and more blinding than the night’ (p. 35)

· The “Whited Sepulchre” of Brussels

- A sepulchre implies death and confinement, and Europe is the origin of the colonial enterprises that bring death to white men and to their colonial subjects

- The phrase “whited sepulchre” comes from the biblical Book of Matthew. In the passage, Matthew describes “whited sepulchres” as something beautiful on the outside but containing horrors within.

· Women

- Marlow frequently claims that women are the keepers of naive illusions

- Although this sounds condemnatory, such a role is in fact crucial, as these naive illusions are at the root of the social fictions that justify economic enterprise and colonial expansion

· The River

- The Congo River seems to want to expel Europeans from Africa altogether: its current makes travel upriver slow and difficult, but the flow of water makes travel downriver, back toward “civilization,” rapid and seemingly inevitable.

Themes

· The major themes of “Heart of Darkness” include the hypocrisy of imperialism, madness as a result of imperialism, and the absurdity of evil.

Tone

· The tone of ”Heart of Darkness” is ambivalent: Marlow is disgusted at the brutality of the Company and horrified by Kurtz’s degeneration, but he claims that any thinking man would be tempted into similar behavior.

Reader Response

· In “Things Fall Apart”, the reader is able to connect with Okonkwo and feels his pain and suffering as he struggles. The reader is especially sympathetic when Okonkwo loses everything and is placed in exile due to an accidental misfire of his rifle

· Throughout “Heart of Darkness”, Conrad subtly allows the reader to be aware of how Marlow is feeling and his opinions and perspective on his surroundings. Marlow acts as a guide for the audience as he makes his way up the river.

· The readers also connects with Okonkwo because of the pressures he feels from society and his fears of being compared to his father.

Historical Read

· In the novel “Things Fall Apart”, the events took place around the 1890s. The story takes place in Iguedo, a village near the actual Onitsha which is on the Niger River in Nigeria .

· The culture in “Things Fall Apart” is similar to Achebe’s culture. Hh lived in Ogidi where people spoke the language Ibo and lived in independent villages. The customs and traditions in the novel reflect those that Achebe was familiar with from his own experiences.

· As was illustrated in the novel, the Europeans would often abuse their power and use violence for their personal gain.

· “Heart of Darkness” is mostly autobiographical. It is based on Conrad’s journey on the Congo River in 1890

· ‘The Company’ was really a company formed by King Leopold II from Belgium . They were in charge of running the Congo Free State . This was voted into existence by the congress in Berlin . Conrad refers to this in his novel as “the international society for the suppression of savage customs”.

Biographical Read

· Both “Things Fall Apart” and “Heart of Darkness” are set in Africa during the time of Imperialism. Conrad always wanted to visit Africa and his journey to the Congo is the basis for his novel “Heart of Darkness”.
Achebe was born in Nigeria.

· Conrad was a sailor for most of his life. He characterizes Marlow, the main character of “Heart of Darkness” as a sailor and bases Marlow’s journeys on his own personal experiences.

· Chinua Achebe parents were converts to the Protestant Church Mission Society. In his novel, Achebe shows the conflict between the tribes and the missionaries and the dispute between one all powerful god and the worship of many gods.

· Joseph Conrad was known for having problems with his temper. This is similar to Okonkwo, the main character of “Things Fall Apart, whose temper plagues him throughout the novel

Sociopolitical Analytical Essay

“The story of [a] man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him.” These words would give anyone the impression that the man in reference was a simple nobody. That, however, could not be more wrong. Spoken by a white man, this phrase represents the superiority that the Europeans believed they had over the African tribes. The stories of Okonkwo in “Things Fall Apart” along with Marlow and Kurtz in “Heart of Darkness” both illustrate the sociopolitical battles between the governments of the ancient African tribes and the intruding Europeans.

In “Heart of Darkness”, Kurtz is a white man whose downfall in life seems to be his opinion on the way the Europeans governed. He chose to ignore the rules of the Europeans and sympathized with the natives. By rejecting the social standard that he was meant to live up to as a white man, he gained the disapproval and hatred of his fellow white men. Throughout the novel “Heart of Darkness, Marlow along with Kurtz go through self-conflicts regarding their images as “civilized” Europeans, and their desires to abandon their society’s standards of morality. In doing a sociopolitical read, there were many issues regarding people and their governments. When the Europeans arrive in Africa, they learn just how different the two cultures are. However, the Europeans have no respect for the African tribes, and demand that the tribes conform to their rules and way of life. A huge element of the story was hypocrisy; hypocrisy mainly in issues involving imperialism. As Marlow journeys, he witnesses torture and slavery. However, this is not the way that the Europeans view their actions. They see their actions as “trade” and “civilization”. Their hypocrisy is their excuses used to justify imperialism.

Similarly, in “Things Fall Apart”, there are many examples of sociopolitical issues. Okonkwo is an influential leader of Umuofia. Born and raised in this tribe, Okonkwo goes through many trials, but none are as great as the ones he faces when the Europeans arrive. Slowly but persistently the Europeans invade the African tribes. What starts out as a simple, harmless little church turns into the complete overtaking and destruction of the tribes’ governments and religion, to be replaced with that of the intruder’s. At first the people of the tribes do not seem to mind having a church built; they do not foresee any of their fellow Africans joining the band of Christians. To their surprise, as time passes, Africans start trickling into the church, and becoming part of the new European society. As the Europeans continue to brainwash these people with their ideas, their power continues to increases. In the end, the tribes begin falling apart due to disagreement and unwillingness of the tribes to act in defense of their ways of life.

A tragic ending occurs in both “Heart of Darkness” and “Things Fall Apart”. Okonkwo, having lived through the destruction of his tribe due to the Europeans, gives up all hope and kills himself. This in itself was even more tragic, considering Okonkwo was a fighter who never gave up, and loved his way of life and his tribe. The act of his suicide represents the tribes’ hopes of ever getting their way of life back before the Europeans ever arrived. In “Heart of Darkness”, Kurtz dies gasping “the horror! The horror!” referring to what he has witnessed of the Europeans’ treatment of the Africans. In both novels, the Europeans’ invasion and the forcing of their governments and “civilization” onto the Africans brings upon the obliteration of the Africans’ way of life.

Feminist Analytical Essay

It has, and always will be, thought that females are the inferior sex. Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart” support this stereotypical view. The two novels can be easily compared because of their settings and time periods. Both take place in Africa during the time of exploration and the spread of Christianity among “cannibal” tribes. The sexist remarks and thinking in these novels is justified, however, by the time period and the fact that sexist and feminist thinking is a thing of the extremely distant future. The women in “Heart of Darkness” and “Things Fall Apart” are portrayed as incompetent and “well insulated from reality”. Marlow, the main character in “Heart of Darkness”, and his fellow sea voyagers represent the values and perspectives of the British establishment in this sexist outlook on women. Okonkwo, the main character of “Things Fall Apart”, practices polygamy within his tribe, which shows the primitive and immorality of the time period and practices of his people.

Chinua Achebe effectively portrays the elements of feminism as he accurately embellishes the accounts of the place of a woman during this time period and setting. Okonkwo and his fellow tribesmen practice polygamy, having more than one wife. These wives are expected the cook, clean, obey their husband, and produce healthy children, preferably males- all the stereotypical occupations that a woman is thought to have. Although Okonkwo is “shunned” for beating his youngest wife during the Week of Peace, it can be inferred that it would be acceptable to beat his wife at any other time. Female inferiority is also shown by his daughter’s arranged marriage, decided by the men of the tribe. During this ritual, the intended bride makes herself look as beautiful as possible for her potential husband. This shows that women are looked upon as possessions that should be beautiful, efficient, and inferior.

In Joseph Conrad’s novel, the feminism is more subtle— however, it is present nonetheless. There are only three women featured in “Heart of Darkness”. Each woman is viewed through the eyes of Marlow, a skeptical Englishman who is not shy in showing his views on the incompetence of women. He mocks his aunt repeatedly for being “naïve” on the actual purpose of his trip to Africa. He criticizes Kurtz’s Intended for believing that Kurtz only had love for her. However, it is quite evidence that the so-called “incompetence” and “ignorance” of these women is brought on by the lies and deceit of men. Marlow leads his aunt to believe that his expedition to Africa is for the bettering of humanity and the tribes of the region, when, in actuality, it is for self-gain and greed. Marlow lies to Kurtz’s Intended and tells her that Kurtz’s last words were her name, sealing her belief that she was his true love. It is completely ridiculous for Marlow to criticize these women of being ignorant when he is a chauvinist male liar that represents the white male society of the time.

The sexism that is represented in “Heart of Darkness” and “Things Fall Apart” are very similar because of the settings and time periods of the novels. The women in these novels are shown as inferior and possess no rights of respect from the opposite sex. Okonkwo represents the males in the African tribes, while Marlow represents white Englishmen. Although they both come from different places, Marlow and Okonkwo share a similarity in their sexist and stereotypical views of women.

Quiz

Who is the main character of “Heart of Darkness”?

Anita
George
Tracy
Marlow
Danielle

What is the setting of “Heart of Darkness”?

England
Sweden
The Nile River
Idaho
The Congo River

Where was Joseph Conrad born?

Germany
Poland
The United States
South America
In an elevator

What was Joseph Conrad’s birth name?

Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski
Jonathan Allen Zenowski
Jodie Maghakian
Hiroki Z`kon
Bill

What influenced Conrad to write “Heart of Darkness”?

His fascination with the mysteries of Africa
His racist views
His trip to the Congo
Nothing. He just made the novel up.
The death of his grandmother

What does Kurtz’s fiancée think were Kurtz’s last words?

Long live Africa
Freedom
Goodbye
Don’t forget me
Her name

Which is a major theme of the novel “Heart of Darkness”?

The hypocrisy of imperialism
The forcefulness of love
The struggle between change and tradition
The value of humility
The necessity of rebellion

Which is NOT a major symbol in the novel “Heart of Darkness”?

Fog
Mirrors
The “whited sepulchre” of Brussels
Women
The River

What is the tone of “Heart of Darkness”?

Morbid
Ecstatic
Apathetic
Ambivalent
Nonchalant

Where was Joseph Conrad’s father exiled?

France
West Virginia
Siberia
Canada
The Philippines

What job does Marlow take with the Company?

The cook
A river boat captain
The first mate
CEO
A janitor

When did Joseph Conrad learn to speak English?

12 years old
He never did
37 years old
When he learned to talk
21 years old

“Things Fall Apart” is the story of ______ and his tribe of ______.

14. Okonkwo’s greatest fear in life was ____________.

15. Among writing many books, Chinua Achebe was also the director of ____.

Okonkwo’s punishment for accidentally killing someone was _______.
_______ were the first white men to arrive at the tribes.
The stories of Okonkwo in “Things Fall Apart” and Marlow and Kurtz in “Heart of Darkness” both illustrate the sociopolitical battles between the _________ and ________.
A huge element of “Heart of Darkness” was ________.
“Things Fall Apart” ends with Okonkwo’s _______.
The invasion of the Europeans starts with the formation of one _______.
In “Things Fall Apart”, Okonkwo can be defined as a _____ ______.
Achebe wrote his first short story when he was attending this university.
When Achebe moved to the city of Lagos, he started working on ___________.
Achebe began exploring fields of _____ and _____, and _____ when Parrinder arrived at the university.