LITR 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Sample Student Midterm 2005

Robert Ausmus

October 3, 2005

European Colonization and the Destruction of Indigenous Culture

     When I first heard of Colonial and Postcolonial Literature as a graduate course offering at UH-Clear Lake, I knew what the course dealt with and was eager to study it again formally.  The first time I consciously studied postcolonial literature occurred in an undergraduate humanities course.  At that time, however, my understanding of the topic proved vague at best.  We studied works from Africa, Native America, and various cultures throughout Asia.

     In order to better grasp the subject matter, I searched numerous sources to discover the meaning of post-colonialism.  Although “attempts at coming up with a single definition of postcolonial theory have proved controversial”, I was satisfied that post-colonialism simply referred to “a literary theory or critical approach [that] deals with literature produced in countries that were once, or are now, colonies of other countries” (Wikipedia—Post-colonialism).  Literature 5734 identifies postcolonial literature, but it does much more than that.  It places postcolonial works in dialogue with colonial works, and in the process of doing so, it facilitates a much broader and useful meaning to readers than the texts could produce on their own.  I am pleased with what I gleaned from my undergraduate study of postcolonial texts, but I am more pleased with my graduate experience having read them in dialogue with colonial texts.

     Having briefly described my learning curve regarding colonial and postcolonial texts, I would now like to discuss relevant issues pertaining to Joseph Conrad’s colonial work entitled Heart of Darkness and Chinua Achebe’s postcolonial work entitled Things Fall Apart.  These two pivotal novels clearly illustrate the harsh conditions that transpire when polarized cultures converge.  As these novels adeptly show, European colonization of indigenous people permanently changed cultures that should have been left alone.  I will argue that European missionaries comprise a group or phase of colonizers that perpetuate the colonization process—or in these two cases the subjugating process—of indigenous people.

     Missionaries are often the first group of colonizers to enter an indigenous region.  They most often venture among supposed heathens in order to bring them the light and knowledge that can initially help them become—in the minds of the colonizers at least—civilized people.  To the typical European colonist, Christianity coupled with what Max Weber would later call the Protestant ethic acts as the impetus toward enlightenment.  This concept is blatantly obvious in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, but it is also evident early on in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. 

     Most of Heart of Darkness is told through the perception of a man named Marlow.  Marlow—thought by many to be the mind and will of Conrad himself—tells his fellow seafarers about a voyage he made to Africa.  While conversing with his shipmates, he recounts a few moments he shared with his aunt prior to setting off on his first adventure to Africa.  During the conversation with his aunt, Marlow realizes that he is “Something of an emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle (Kimbrough 15).  Although Marlow did not journey to Africa to save souls per se, he did see himself more enlightened and spiritually superior to the indigenous people he traveled among.  Marlow’s aunt clearly envisioned her nephew’s role.  Marlow indicated that “She talked about ‘weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways’” (Kimbrough 16).  Both Marlow and his aunt disdained Africans and thought they were ignorant, uncivilized, and godless savages.  They felt it was their role to improve them, and that process—though resulting in capitalistic ventures—began with spiritual enlightenment.

     One of the problems associated with colonization has to do with altering the natural course of a group of people.  Some would say that whatever series of events a group experiences is their natural course.  That may or may not be true, but my assertion is that dominant groups should avoid meddling with others for the sake of profit, whether their profit consists of ivory or souls.  Walter Rodney asserts that “To be colonized is to be removed from history” (Groden and Kreiswirth 582).  Furthermore, Albert Memmi “claims that ‘the most serious blow suffered by the colonized is being removed from history’” (Groden and Kreiswirth 582). 

     These two men illustrate the extreme consequence colonizers inflict upon the colonized; and that is their removal from history.  It is a deplorable practice that has happened too often.  This practice is seen in Heart of Darkness from a colonizer’s point of view, and it is seen in Things Fall Apart from the point of view of the colonized.  In an essay written in response to Conrad’s racism in Heart of Darkness, Chinua Achebe told of two encounters he had had with people about the validity of African history and literature.  He used these two encounters as practical evidence sustaining a Eurocentric claim made by an Oxford professor named Hugh Trevor Roper.  According to Achebe, Roper apparently claimed that “African history did not exist” (Kimbrough 251).  It is really sad when supposedly educated people in a modern era exhibit ignorance of this sort and perpetuate injustices from so long ago.

     Achebe’s Things Fall Apart serves as a postcolonial response to Conrad, his Heart of Darkness, and to others who espouse similar sentiments.  This novel shows the African perspective to colonization in general and to the Christian missionaries who initiated it.  Achebe points out that the coming of the white evangelists became “a source of sorrow to the leaders of the clan; but that many of them believed that the strange faith and the white man’s god would not last” (Achebe 101).  To the Igbo, the strange new religion and its teachers ignored the cultural norms they held in high regard.  For example, the Christians built their church in the Evil Forest, they protected twin infants, and they attracted women and less prominent and untitled men in the clan.  The Christians were thought of as a weak and backward people. 

     At one point in the novel, some of the Christian teachers had a dialogue with members of the clan.  In this particular conversation, the missionaries openly repudiated the gods of the Igbo.  One of the missionaries said that the Igbo “gods are not alive and cannot do you any harm.”  He further indicated that “They are pieces of wood and stone” (Achebe 103).  Many of the Igbo thought the Christians were mad, and they left in laughter because the Igbo people possess a highly sophisticated animistic pantheon.  In addition to numerous gods, goddesses, oracles, and egwugwu, a form of ancestral hero worship, they profess the existence of a personal god or chi. 

     The Igbo religion—if their spiritual belief system can even be referred to as a religion—is actually inseparable from life itself.  In other words, their daily life is completely fused with the corpus of their spirituality.  For a missionary to say that Igbo gods are nothing more than items made from wood or stone, s/he is really saying that Igbo culture does not exist, that the Igbo themselves do not exist.  The missionary’s assertion about Igbo gods forms an excellent example of foreshadowing.  For instance, Igbo culture is represented by Igbo gods.  The Igbo themselves realize that their relics are made of wood and stone, but those relics represent the existence and power of gods that actually exist.  So, if the relic is nothing more than wood or stone, then the god does not exist.  And since the Igbo pantheon is fused with all aspects of life, the culture which the gods are constructed from ceases to exist as well. 

     The preceding idea came to me when I read Derek Walcott’s poem entitled Ruins of a Great House.  In this poem, Walcott laments the faded glory and grandeur of a time period long past.  The period of time that Walcott longs for becomes emblematized in the ruins of a plantation house.  He misses the once powerful and flourishing culture that produced the house, but like the Igbo analogy, the house, or relic, that ceases to produce validity reflects a culture that ceases to exist.  The entirety of Walcott’s poem is telling, but the first few words adequately express the point I am attempting to make.  The first few words in Ruins of a Great House, the few words that epitomize Walcott’s and my position, are “Stones only, the disjecta membra of this Great House,” (Walcott 19).  The dismembered remnants, the leftover stones of Walcott’s plantation house symbolize a broken and fragmentary era.  This is also the case with the culture of the Igbo.

     Walcott’s plantation house and the African cultures in Nigeria and Congo could not withstand the pressures of colonization, and all three of them fell.  In the case of indigenous African culture, Christian missionary zeal brought about their untimely demise.  Colonizing missionaries most always precede merchants.  Merchants are most often followed by magistrates.  Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart attest to this formula as well.  In both novels, the people and their lands and resources became valuable commodities to the European colonizers.  The colonists also perverted the natives’ way of life by introducing new commodities to them.  Ashley Salter pointed out in her 2003 midterm that “Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart suggest the topics of Christianity and capitalism are intertwined and inevitable material for colonial and postcolonial authors” (Salter 2003).  I believe Salter is perfectly correct because colonization depends upon establishing religious, political, and among other things, economic dependence among subordinate groups.  The whole process of colonization promotes identity-loss among indigenous groups.  In essence, colonization causes things to fall apart.  Christian missionary service—a service that is designed to build and uplift others—often acts as the driving force behind colonization and the destruction of indigenous culture.