LITR / CRCL 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Student Text-Dialogue Presentation 2005

Leader: Georgeann Ward

6 September 2005

Dialogue between Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart

The Complexity of the Language of Native Africans

One point of dialogue which Chinua Achebe himself introduces in the article, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” is the lack of intelligible language spoken by the natives in Conrad’s work.  Achebe points out that Conrad only bestows language upon the African characters when that language can be used as confirmation of their barbarism (255).  Achebe writes, “It is clearly not part of Conrad’s purpose to confer language upon the ‘rudimentary souls’ of Africa.  In place of speech, they made a ‘violent babble of uncouth sounds.’ They ‘exchanged short grunting phrases’ even among themselves.’  But most of the time, they were too busy with their frenzy” (255).  While Conrad describes the noise of African language using animal imagery, Achebe answers his predecessor’s ignorance with detailed description of the multifaceted communications of his ancestors. 

            Consider the question:  What is the effect of colonizers denying voice to a colonized people? 

Reading Selections from Heart of Darkness:

“But suddenly as we struggled round a bend there would be a glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage.  The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy.  The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us—who could tell?  We were cut off from the comprehension of our surrounding; we glided past like phantoms, wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse” (Conrad 17).

“When we came abreast again they faced the river, stamped their feet, nodded their horned heads, swayed their scarlet bodies . . . they shouted periodically together strings of amazing words that resembled no sounds of human language; and the deep murmurs of the crowd, interrupted suddenly, were like the responses of some satanic litany” (Conrad 66).

“The monotonous beating of a big drum filled the air with muffled shocks and a lingering vibration.  A steady droning sound of many men chanting each to himself some weird incantation came out from the black flat wall of the woods as the humming of bees comes out of a hive, and had a strange narcotic effect upon my half-awake senses.  I believe I dozed off leaning over the rail till an abrupt burst of yells, an overwhelming outbreak of a pent-up and mysterious frenzy, woke me up in a bewildered wonder.  It was cut short all at once and the low droning went on with an effect of audible and soothing silence” (Conrad 63).

Reading Selections from Things Fall Apart:

“The crowd burst into a thunderous roar.  Okafo was swept off his feet by his supporters and carried home shoulder high.  They sang his praise and the young women clapped their hands: 

            ‘Who will wrestle for our village?

                        Okafo will wrestle for our village.

            Has he thrown a hundred men?

                        He has thrown four hundred men.

            Has he thrown a hundred Cats?

                        He has thrown four hundred Cats.

            Then send him word to fight for us.’”  (Achebe 50)

“Having spoken plainly so far, Okoye said the next half a dozen sentences in proverbs.  Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil on which words are eaten” (Achebe 7).

“’The Oracle said to him, ‘Your dead father wants you to sacrifice a goat to him.’  Do you know what he told the Oracle?  He said, ‘Ask my dead father is he ever had a fowl when he was alive.’’  Everybody laughed heartily except Okonkwo, who laughed uneasily because, as the saying, goes, an old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb.  Okonkwo remembered his own father” (Achebe 21).

“Okonkwo had just blown out the palm-oil lamp and stretched himself on his bamboo bed when he heard the ogene of the town crier piercing the still night air.  Gome, gome, gome, gome, boomed the hollow metal.  Then the crier gave his message, and at the end of it beat his instrument again.  And this was the message.  Every man of Umuofia was asked to gather at the market place tomorrow morning.  Okonkwo wondered what was amiss, for he knew certainly that something was amiss.  He had discerned a clear overtone of tragedy in the crier’s voice, and even now he could still hear it as it grew dimmer and dimmer in the distance” (Achebe 9).

Conrad, through Marlow, makes no attempt to understand the language of the natives, but presents to the reader his own misunderstanding of their culture as truth.  Similarly, in a previous class posting, Greg Johnson expands on this idea by detailing a scene from Things Fall Apart in which Achebe shows that even when interpreters were used, Europeans manipulated the translations to suit their own designs.   Johnson then asks, “How much did this type of misperceptions and miscommunications contribute to Africa’s colonization?” 

As stated in class lecture, to ask a question is to offer a gift to the person to whom the question is asked.  Conrad, through the character of Marlow, offers no “gifts” to the Africans with whom he comes in contact, and as a result, the reader is denied the experience of a beautiful and complex exchange of a language replete with layers of meaning.