Achebe on Conrad

[jbor]

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>From: "Otto Sell" <o.sell at telda.net>
>

> I don't agree at all with Mr. Achebe here. This could
> have happened to any mind and it has so to African minds after the Europeans
> went.

Indeed. _Things Fall Apart_ narrates the way in which one African's mind
(Okonkwo's), and his culture, disintegrated after the European missionaries
came.

But Achebe's general point in reference to _HoD_ is that neither Kurtz, nor
Marlow, *nor Conrad*, knew or cared in the least about what was happening to
African minds or culture. He is arguing that it was beneath their notice. I
think the way Achebe presents his arguments is sometimes extreme, but he
makes his case effectively with substantial textual corrroboration.

Personally, I think that perhaps Marlow (and Conrad himself) were largely
*ignorant* of African culture and society and the devastation which was
wrought by colonial imperialism, rather than "bloody colonialists" like
Kurtz. I'm just not sure how good an excuse ignorance is, and whether or not
this makes the "blood" (real or metaphorical) on their hands any less red
than that on Kurtz's. Certainly I can understand how, from Achebe's
perspective and in the light of the novel's stature in the canon, it is not
a particularly good excuse.

> I'm sure I could find some more criticism on Achebe's handling of women
> affairs in his novels if I wanted too.
> http://landow.stg.brown.edu/post/nigeria/women.html
> This is very lame.

Isn't this is a little bit presumptuous; unfair and irrelevant at least? You
want to discredit Achebe's critique of Conrad by trying to locate
commentaries which criticise the way Achebe depicts gender relationships in
his fiction. (And, indeed, the discriminatory phrase "handling of women
affairs" is your own.) The women characters in _Things Fall Apart_ are named
and individualised just as the men are; that women were regarded as
subservient in Ibo culture is not a reflection of Achebe's chauvinism.

The unanswered question remains how far, or in what ways, Conrad's
perspective aligns with Charlie Marlow's. This is the point on which
Achebe's critique of _Heart of Darkness_ might be challenged. If it is fair
to suggest that Marlow does not perceive Africans as individuals, as equally
"human" and worthy of "salvation" as Kurtz is, or, indeed, as he himself is
-- and I think this is in fact a fair enough assertion to make -- then in
what way or ways does that additional framing narrative serve to distance
Conrad's viewpoint from Marlow's?

best