LITR / CRCL 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Sample Student Midterm 2003

Rebecca Stasney
LITR 5734
9 June 2003

Voice, Perspective, Identity and Individuality

Colonial and Postcolonial Literature Midterm Exam

            When read as a dialogue, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart appear to not only speak to one another, but also to question and argue with one another.  The voice of each work is revealed through this dialogue, and in turn, the reader is afforded contrasted expressions of perspective, identity, and individuality.  The poetry of Walcott, in many ways, seems to respond to both Achebe and Conrad, allowing for an intertextual juxtaposition of African and English viewpoint.  As a comprehensive entity, these works provide the modern reader with a discourse on the significance of personal expression and its meaning within the context of the age and effects of exploration and colonization.

            Heart of Darkness relates the voice and perspective of the colonizers.  The novel is almost entirely Marlow’s account of his experiences in the African Congo.  Marlow is an English seaman, and is, by default, automatically associated with the colonizing forces.  It becomes apparent, however, that Marlow is not interested in the wealth or supremacy associated with colonization.  Rather, he is sympathetic to the poverty and disease of the natives, often describing them as figurative, distorted shapes rather than actual human figures:

“Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles sat with their legs drawn up.  One, with his chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing, in an intolerable and appalling manner: his brother phantom rested its forehead, as if overcome with a great weariness; and all about others were scattered in every pose of contorted collapse, as in some picture of massacre or a pestilence” (20).  

 Marlow’s immediate recognition of the dehumanization of the natives is representative of his sensitivity and awareness and gives a voice to those opposed to such treatment.  In other words, perhaps Conrad’s intent was to characterize Marlow in such a way to reveal individuality amongst those associated with the mainstream views of the colonizers. 

In Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, we are given an account of the daily lives and customs of the natives.  Achebe also gives them a voice—something Conrad, for the most part, fails to do, although it is not clear exactly what his intentions were in this regard.  Nevertheless, it is as if Achebe was motivated to accurately represent the serenity and normalcy of the Ibo tribe as it was before the integration of European colonists.  Here we find the organization, efficiency, and intelligence that Conrad’s natives, as a whole, appear to lack.  The Ibo are given a sense of individuality and are not simply massed into an incoherent group of figures as they are in Heart of Darkness.  It seems obvious that Achebe saw a great danger in Conrad’s representative methods, and wanted, in response, to put into context the reality of Ibo society. It is likely that Achebe also recognized the historical value and responsibility of his work.  As Georg M. Gugelberger points out, the postcolonial writer appears to take on an important obligation to the culture they are representing:  

“‘To be colonized,’ according to Walter Rodney, ‘is to be removed from history.’  And Memmi, defining the situation of the colonized, claims that ‘the most serious blow suffered by the colonized is being removed from history’ (Colonizer 91).  Postcolonial writing, then, is the slow, painful, and highly complex means of fighting one’s way into European-made history, in other words, a process of dialogue and necessary correction”  (582).

In essence, Achebe’s basic purpose in his work seems to be, as he relates in his essay entitled “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” to both recount and counter Conrad’s misrepresentation of Africa.  Achebe concern is for the discontinuation of “the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this age-long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the world” (257).  In response, Achebe develops a sense of individuality for the Ibo tribe and Africans in general.     

Both Conrad and Achebe, however, do not by any means entirely portray the opposite culture in a negative manner.  The cannibalistic tribesmen traveling with Marlow appear to show great self-discipline despite their surrounding conditions:  “Restraint!  What possible restraint?  Was it superstition, disgust, patience, fear—or some kind of primitive honour?  No fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze” (51).  In this way, Marlow differentiates these natives from the stereotypical notion of their behavior and also from the native figures he first encounters.  Though the passage may not stand out as a great breakthrough in cross-cultural understanding, it nevertheless affords at least some sense of awareness and sensibility on the part of Conrad despite Achebe’s later objections.  Achebe’s incorporation of the positive depiction of Mr. Brown, a European missionary, likewise suggests his own realization of exceptionality.  Mr. Brown’s ability to listen and his compassion earned him great respect admiration amongst the majority of the Ibo people:  “Mr. Brown came to be respected even by the clan, because he trod softly on its faith.  He made friends with some of the great men of the clan and on one of his frequent visits to the neighboring villages he had been presented with a carved elephant tusk, which was a sign of dignity and rank” (179).  Mr. Brown is highly contrasted with Mr. Smith whose only wish was to assimilate the Ibo tribe to European customs.  Achebe’s inclusion of the forbearing Mr. Brown may, however, simply be a sarcastic response to what he feels was inappropriate in Conrad’s depiction of the so-called cannibals.  Nevertheless, though Conrad and Achebe’s works reveal two entirely different perspectives (and despite the possibility of irony), the two similarly allocate a sense of cross-cultural awareness and tolerance.    

Through Conrad and Achebe, we are allowed both English and African viewpoints.  Derek Walcott, a celebrated poet of diverse background, is partially representative of both cultures, giving a voice to others who search for a way to deal with their own diversity.  Much of Walcott’s poetry appears to be a personal exploration of his own struggle concerning the conflicting nature of his cross-cultural background.  Sylvia Krzmarzick, in relation to Walcott’s poem “The Divided Child” insists, “Walcott is a two-fold hybrid.  He has two parent cultures and is of two races” (website contribution).  Other poems, such as “A Far Cry from Africa,” further examine the nature of multi-cultural identity.  In this poem, the stanzas are divided between natural images of the landscape of Africa and grotesque images of violence and death.  In the first stanza, for instance, the “tawny pelt / Of Africa” regresses into a scene filled with dead bodies and decay.  Similarly, the second stanza begins with a simple description of African wildlife, but likewise reverts to hostility and aggression.  The internal divisions within these first two stanzas seem to symbolically represent the speaker’s own discord.  This inner struggle becomes more clearly defined through the progression of the third stanza.  Here, the speaker articulates his pain, insisting he is “poisoned with the blood of both,” and because of this, he is “divided to the vein,” and unable to choose between the two.  “A Far Cry from Africa” expresses, perhaps, something similar to what Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart communicate as a dialogue, while, at the same time, answering the criticisms of each.  The poem, in being representative of both African and English culture, mediates between the two and allows for a unity of diversity.  The inner conflict that lies at the heart of the poem takes into consideration the attributes and faults and burdens of each part of the speaker, while at the same time allowing the voice of one torn between two cultures to finally be identified and considered.  

In the same way that “A Far Cry from Africa” gives a voice to those placed between cultures, Walcott’s poem “Jean Rhys” gives a voice to a fictional character in the Charlotte Brontë novel Jane Eyre.  The poem is based on the characterization of Antoinetta Bertha Mason, the daughter of a West India planter and merchant, who consequently, through Walcott, becomes an important symbolic figure within the context of colonization.  In the novel, Mr. Rochester marries Bertha, a woman of mixed decendency, likely out of regard for his business connections in the West Indies.  Bertha was taken out of her native land by Rochester, and out of her inability to assimilate to European culture, she slowly loses her senses and goes insane.  Walcott’s poem gives insight into the character of Bertha, who, for the most part of the novel remained both hidden and separated from society.  Bertha, through Walcott, now has a greater sense of identity and individuality.