LITR 5734: Colonial & Postcolonial Literature

Student Midterm 2008

Allison Coyle

February 23, 2008

Colonial vs. Post Colonial Literature: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

The literature written during the colonial time period is not only an insight into the lives of our ancestry but it is a first class ticket into the mysterious past of cultures around the world. One culture that has become a popular theme in several pieces of colonial and post colonial literature is that of Africa. One novel in particular, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, takes readers inside a time period where imperialism changed the face of Africa in terms of class stratification, as well as, racial, ethnic, and religious differences. The main focus of the colonizers was structuring and institutionalizing their domination of the natives. As seen over many unforgettable historical pasts (Nazi’s in Germany, American Revolutionary War, Cannibalistic Wari’ tribes in Amazonia, etc.). Many wars have been fought due to a concept known as Cultural Bias. Cultural bias is when someone, a group of people, or a nation, is biased to their culture. This biased attitude transgresses over time and in result leads to cultural imperialism, the forcing of one’s ideas, cultures, or languages cross culturally. It is within this attempt to unify, or take over, that cultures begin to clash and corruption prevails.

            This corruption of a culture is exactly what is occurring in The Heart of Darkness. This book was written during the late 1800’s, the peak of the colonial period. Conrad’s narrator, Marlowe, takes you on a personal journey down the Congo River in Africa which has now been taken over by the Europeans. When reading this book for the first time one might get a sense of racism from the language, and selected words that the European’s used to describe the natives. One man in particular, Chinua Achebe, has brought up this idea and made it public within his accusations in his article “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”. Achebe makes his point clear as he writes, “Certainly Conrad had a problem with niggers. His inordinate love of that word itself should be of interest to psychoanalysts. Sometimes his fixation on blackness is equally interesting as when he gives us this brief description, ‘A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms’”. While I respect Achebe’s opinion on this subject matter, I beg to differ with his accusation. Conrad is a writer. I am not a writer myself but I know that their sole purpose when sitting down to write is to tell a story and create a visual picture with words. Conrad wanted readers to become enthralled in the story as if we were right there travelling along the river with Marlowe and his crew. As Pauline Chapman commented in her 2005 midterm “Character’s, Cultures, and Intention in Colonial and Postcolonial Literature”, “Colonial writers are not necessarily supporters of the system. What they can bring to the discussion is an insider’s view of the imperialist- their greed, prejudices, fears, pettiness, arrogance, and attitude of entitlement.” I see Conrad’s words as spoken from Marlowe’s mouth, not his own. This idea of racism is merely a writer trying to convey a story, not a personal vendetta. In Heart of Darkness Conrad shows the reader a side of Marlowe that connects with the natives in a way that counterbalances Achebe’s idea of racism when Marlowe compares them to something he loves, “They shouted, sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had faces like grotesque masks- these chaps, but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement, that was as natural and true as the surf along the coast.”

In addition, it is important to remember that we are not reading a novel that was written in our own time period where racial slurs such as the word “nigger” are considered as equally sinful as attempted murder. It was written in a time period when the word “nigger” was just a reference to a person of color. I am by no means saying that it is ok to imply that a person of African descent should be labeled a “nigger” but in this time period people would not have even thought twice. It wasn’t considered a racial slur as it is today. This is a great example of how language can be misconstrued not only in terms of time but also across cultures. (Objective 1b-Historicism: To counter challenges to global knowledge and planetary identity by enhancing knowledge and identifying persistent oppositional themes or identities in cross cultural dialogues: First World vs. Third World). The language used in novels, whether they are colonial or postcolonial, can set a tone that the reader can identify certain characters with. Chinua Achebe’s book Things Fall Apart, written in postcolonial times, is a documentation of the aftermath of European imperialism among a traditional Igbo village in Africa. Throughout his novel Achebe has included the native language of the Igbo in many ways to show a contrast to Conrad’s Heart of Darkness where natives language is referred to as “a violent babble of uncouth sounds”. This is merely a conflict of first world vs. third world. Of course any outsider (Marlowe) listening in on a language so misunderstood is going to shrug it off as uneducated “grunting”. Yet, in Things Fall Apart, Achebe shows readers that the Igbo language is in fact a beautiful, complex, and comprehensible language. Achebe does this by including native Igbo songs, proverbs, and folktales. He allows readers to understand the importance of the Igbo language when he writes, “Having spoken plainly thus far, Okoye said the next half dozen sentences in proverbs. Among the Igbo, the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil on which words are eaten”. This battle of cultural dominance is a present theme in Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart.

This struggle between the change to European culture and the traditional ways of life begins to take a toll on characters from both novels. Cultural imperialism shows its’ upper hand on Kurtz as his removal from his everyday life into the reality of European control begins to give him a since of freedom he had never felt before. He is now faced with this new way of life which creates new questions of morality that he has to decide internally without the help from his people. This new found freedom is overwhelming and, in result, drives him to insanity. (A good modern day example of this madness can be seen in the movie “28 Days”. Infection has spread across Europe and the country of England has been quarantined.  Madness begins to corrupt the city of London and people begin doing things they never imagined in order to survive.) Survival in a world of such uncertainties can be a good explanation of Kurtz’ actions.       This struggle can also be seen in Things Fall Apart as Okonkwo struggles internally withhis fear of losing the status within his culture if he accepts the European way of life. Many of the Igbo people have decided to convert and embrace many of the European traditions such as Christianity. It allows them to move up the social ladder, all the while leaving Okonkwo to fend for himself. His battle to keep his position within his own culture is becoming irrelevant as the Europeans break down the culture. The traditions of the Igbo that were once so important become innate and these traditions, sadly, begin to dwindle. For Okonkwo the threat to his culture becomes a threat to his ancestors. This threat transcribes to his identity, thus leading to his opposition to change. 

This internal struggle that is so deep within Okonkwo can also be seen within modern day poet Derek Walcott. (Objective 2b: To extend the intertextuality of the novel or fiction to poetry and film by colonial, imperial, or post-colonial sources, especially Derek Walcott of St. Lucia, West Indies).  Walcott sheds a new light in his poem A Far Cry from Africa. The poem itself is a beautiful piece of art that is filled with vivid imagery and emotions. Yet without any background knowledge into Walcott’s personal identity crisis, the meaning of Walcott’s poem might sadly go unnoticed. Within this poem Walcott discussed his loyalty to Africa and Britain as he is of both bloodlines. On one hand Walcott characterizes the Africans as “flies/Batten upon the bloodstreams of veldt”. It seems as though he is depicting them as savages who abuse the God given land in which they live on. To a reader it can create this savior type image of the British coming in to save the natural resources and save the Africans from themselves. Within the same breath he then writes “Only the worm, colonel of carrion, cries: ‘Waste no compassion on these separate dead’”.  The worm is a reference to the British in which Walcott demotes their status, as well as their intentions, to a creature not only used in terms of disgust, yet also one that exists below a fly in the circle of life.  It appears as though Walcott’s culture has taken center stage and the negatives of both his African and British ancestry distinguish a cultural bias. His battle between the two deepens as he begins to question the pieces of each culture that he admires as he writes, “how choose/Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?”. He is in love with both ways of life which is romantic. His guilt for wanting to live a civilized life in the world of the British and yet he cannot deny the truths of the immoral treatment of his African ancestry during the colonial period.

            Coming into this class I was fearful of the fact that I myself am not a Literature student, yet a Cross Cultural Student. The first day I felt my fears were confirmed as the class led into a discussion over Heart of Darkness and Achebe’s article “An Image of Africa”. Yet, as the discussion progressed I began to realize that these two pieces of writing were filled with issues that I have been engrossed in over the past two years of my Graduate studies within the Cross Cultural field. The dialogue that can be found between many of the books I have read in the past such as I, Rigoberta Menchu’: An Indian Woman in Guatemala by Rigoberta Menchu’ and The Women of Colonial Latin America by Susan Socolow , both of which were read during Dr. Jach’s Studies of Latin American History course. I feel as though literature students would benefit from a Cross Cultural perspective as it will open many new doors to untouched territory in future class discussions.

“Maybe there’s no such thing as a weak or strong culture, but one’s relationship to one’s culture can certainly be weak or strong”. – Ira Siwatu