leader: Dale Marie Taylor
respondent: Kasi Hlavaty
recorder: Brenda K. Rambarran

11 July 2001

Dialogue between Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart

The deconstruction and construction of notions of language and culture

in Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o in "The Language of African Literature," on page 287 of The Post Colonial Studies Reader says: "In my view language was the most important vehicle through which that power fascinated and held the soul prisoner. The bullet was the means of the physical subjugation. Language was the means of the spiritual subjugation."

At the bottom of page 289 in The Post Colonial Studies Reader Thiong'o says: "Values are the basis of a people's identity, their sense of particularity as members of the human race. All this is carried by language. Language as culture is the collective memory bank of a people's experience in history. Culture is almost indistinguishable from the language that makes possible its genesis, growth, banking, articulation and indeed its transmission from one generation to the next..."

Quotes from Conrad's Heart of Darkness:

"I was loafing about hindering you fellows in your work and invading your homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilise you" (Conrad 11).

page 16, Heart of Darkness: "She talked about weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways,' till, upon my word she made me quite uncomfortable. I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit'" (16).

page 19, Heart of Darkness: "Six black men advanced in a file toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow... Another report from the cliff made me think suddenly of that ship of war I had seen firing into a continent. It was the same kind of ominous voice: but these men could by no stretch of imagination be called enemies..." And again on page 20, "They were dying slowly--it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing early now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation lying confusedly in the greenish gloom."

page 26, Heart of Darkness: "the shed was already a heap of embers glowing fiercely. A nigger was being beaten near by. They said he had caused the fire in some way." Previous to this, in a paradoxical statement, the brickmaker of the Central Station refers to Kurtz and Marlowe as "the gang of virtue" (28). "I hear, I admit, but I have a voice too, and for good or evil mine is the speech that cannot be silenced (38).

"The man presented himself as a voice... The point was in his being a gifted creature and that of all his gifts the one that stood out preeminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words_the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light or the deceitful flow form the heart of an impenetrable darkness" (48).

When Marlowe goes into the forest to get Kurtz, he asks Kurtz "Do you know what you are doing?' I whispered. "Perfectly," he answered raising his voice for that single word; it sounded to me far off and yet loud like a hail through a speaking trumpet (64).

From PCSR:

Andre Lefevere in "The Historiography of African Literature Written in English" writes of the evolution of texts as they relate to the use of English as a means of communication among Africans and among a wider audience. He argues that Africans had to be willing to accept the hybrid form of the new poetics being used to transmit some form of African culture using European languages. Achebe's text and other texts like it evolved as African nationalists needed an African literature to "counteract the cultural claims of the colonizers" (469).

Achebe, Things Fall Apart

Page 31, Things Fall Apart: "Okonkwo did as the priest said. Inwardly he was repentant.. And so people said he had no respect for the gods of the clan" (31).

On page 36, "Ani played a greater part in the life of the people than any other deity. She was the ultimate judge of morality and conduct" (36).

On pages 91 and 92, "Uzowulu is a beast. My sister lived with him for nine years. During those years not a single day passed in the sky without his beating the woman. We have tried to settle their quarrels time without number and on each occasion Uzowulu was guilty _" Evil Forest settles the argument by decreeing that Uzowulu will return to his wife and his wife to him. However, if he ever beats her again, Evil Forest will "cut off his genitals," adding.. "It is not bravery when a man fights with a woman" (92).

IOn page 97: "I have learned the man who makes trouble for others is also making it for himself."

In "The Historiography of African Literature Written in English" in PCSR, he writes on page 469, "One needs to know languages in order to be able to carry out missionary activities ..."

On page 144 of Achebe's Things Fall Apart, it is obvious that the transition to an African English literature came at a price. "The arrival of the missionaries had caused a considerable stir in the village of Mbanta. .. When they had all gathered, the white man began to speak to them. He spoke through an interpreter who was an Ibo man, though his dialect was different and harsh to the ears of Mbanta. Many people laughed at his dialect and the way he used words strangely. Instead of saying myself' he always said my buttocks.'"

Question: How can we teach Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart without reinforcing negative stereotypes? What psychological affect does negative social constructions have on the descendants of both the colonizer and the colonized?

The discussion began with an examination of elements in Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart. The presenter noted that Conrad provided a portrait of a nation looking in from the outside. Achebe provided a view of a portion of the nation from the inside looking out. The presenter provided several examples from Heart of Darkness to demonstrate the construction of notions of racial superiority through the use of language, one of the most striking being Marlowe's reference to the "ignorant millions from their horrid ways" and the use of racial slurs. The presenter also noted the lack of speech assigned to any of the African characters in the novel. However, it was noted that there were portions in the Conrad text that suggest some attempt to see Africans as human. Conrad means for Marlowe to learn something from his experience, Kasi Hlavaty noted. The implication of the text then is that the protagonist by the end of the novel is feeling the ironies in life.

Things Fall Apart deconstructs notions of racial inferiority by providing several examples of tribal life, the presenter said. Achebe uses a flawed character to demonstrate a departure from tribal community values. Though Okonkwo engages in domestic violence, Achebe provides examples of what can happen to members of the tribe who do such things, thereby deconstructing the idea that African men place no value on their mothers, sisters and daughters. This idea was commented on by members of the class who agreed to some degree. The presenter drew on Post Colonial Studies Reader to underscore the idea that Africans needed to use English as a method of countering negative views of African life. The presenter used the story of the tortoise and the birds to demonstrate the important role of language in the African community. The presenter quoted Thiong'o who says that "language is the collective memory bank of a people" (Thiong'o 289).

One of the questions posed by the presenter was, given the racially ordered society in which we live, how do we teach these texts without inadvertently reinforcing racial stereotypes?

Jennifer said that it's important to provide historical background so that high school students will understand the context in which the material belongs. Carolyn noted that most students will understand the impropriety of the racial stereotypes. Linton Gilling noted that students are tired of studying the so called classics of literature and are eager to learn what has been called minority literature. Verena Ollikkala noted that educational systems need to make this kind of literature a standard part of the canon. Linton further commented on the state of affairs for people of African descent in this country when they must change their language and other aspects of life in order to survive. The discussion turned to the use of language in the texts when Kasi Hlavaty noted that language seemed to work not as the "means of spiritual subjugation" for Nwoye as it did for other characters in the Achebe text. She noted that Nwoye was fascinated by the new culture and "lured by the poetics of English." She noted the Nwoye wanted to learn to read and write.

The overall message was that language works in Achebe's text to deconstruct notions of African inferiority. Yet there were hints of a culture struggling to understand African culture in Conrad's text. Language then served as a means of producing the hybridized culture that brought Achebe's text to us.

In Things Fall Apart, Achebe foreshadows the end of the world ;the incursion of the African Ibo and the subsequent dissolution of the indigenous culture. On page 13 of Things Fall Apart" Okonkwo was ruled with one passion--to hate everything his father Unoka loved". Here the tragic hero, Okonkwo represents a constant fear of failure; fear of resembling his father. Achebe attempts to shed the light on this in order to remind his people not to be ashamed of their ancestors' past , and to refuse the European notion that Africa has no history nor culture that worth any value. However, Achebe describes Okonkwo as a persistent figure who tries to challenge failure" He knew he was a fierce fighter, but that year had been enough to break the heart of a lion"(24). Ibo's culture is held together by one string ,which is its own tradition. This string will not break, but when pulled it, the string is going to cause everything it holds literally fall apart. This is clearly presented when Ezeani, the priest warned Okonkwo of the evil he did towards his gods, and how this would affect the whole tribe. Okonkwo represents the break-up of the Ibo clan before the forces of the white man's religious and political organizations.

Helen Tiffin in her essay, Post-colonial Literatures and Counter-discourse suggests that purity cannot be applied to colonized cultures. Hence, reality is not free when it is still under the European domination. Reality should be revealed away from the control of both the colonized and the colonizer. "Post-colonial cultures are inevitably hybridised" and the process is to create an independent local identity (95 PCSR). However, between traditional culture and the modern world, what role did colonization play in changing the African life? To answer this question we have to consider notions such as culture, religion, commerce, and government.

With respect to the mentioned question, we have to say that hybridization of culture did play an important role in changing the African life, for example in Achebe's book, the ceremonial grounds that were used to be held for meetings, were gone with a different government. After colonization, modern technology was present in Africa , but it wasn't beneficial because of the lack of experience with the new tool, which the white man left in Africa. Moreover, Africa moved from pantheistic life to monotheistic life, and with this process monogamy replaced polygamy. However, Achebe in Things Fall Apart portrays the change in Africa with the encroachment of Europe's colonialism. This accompanied a shift from patrimony to matrimony. Women became more independent and with this change, the European social system verses the African system for example, in Europe the role of women was in the church, but later they resisted the decorative role and shared the male in building an equitable society. With hybridization the culture's purity is lost and this is revealed in Achebe's book " He died of the swelling which was an abomination to the earth goddess…when a man was…not allowed to die in the house"(18).

In Jamaica Kincaid's essay, A Small Place, we hear the voice of the colonized who cannot forget the English traders who stole the treasures of the Africans' woods. This reminds us with " Mr. Kurtz…his various lusts…there was something wanting in him" (Heart of Darkness 57). Jamaica Kincaid hints to the negative side that the colonizer played in Africa and that is by teaching the Africans their own traditions through the schools that they opened there "…you distorted or erased my history and glorified your own"(94). Kincaid speaks ironically of the only language she speaks, and which is the colonizer's own language. Helen Tiffin believes that it is not possible to develop regional formations away from their historical implications during the European colonization, and what we are going to have is the "fixity of that alterity, naturalising difference within its own cognitive codes"(PCSR 95,98).