Achebe on Conrad

[Otto Sell]

> > 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.
>

Is it? He must allow to take the same measuring scale on his own literature
as he puts on the books of others.
"handling of women affairs" - remember, I'm no native speaker and my
intention wasn't discriminatory at all.

I consider Achebe's harsh critic as a bit presumptuous and unfair in
general. But it's not irrelevant.

>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?

When Marlow says  that London has been "one of the dark places" he surely
considers those old Brits who fought against the Romans as humans and
individuals or not. So I think it's only fair to believe that at least the
author saw the Africans.

Otto



Otto