Camille Buxton

December 11, 2009

Culture Clashes and Literature

When Achebe writes in “Named for Victoria, Queen of England” of the significance of his baptismal name, Albert Chinualumogu, the reader is immediately struck by his parents’ attempts at the melding of British and Nigerian cultures in their personal lives and extending that into the daily lives of their children. They gave a Nigerian boy born in 1930 the name of the long-deceased husband of the British ruler whose tenure saw a major increase in African colonization by European nations while also maintaining a traditional last name, which he refers to as “a full-length philosophical statement.” The European and African combination of Achebe’s original name indicates the attempt at adaptation to a new imposed culture, while his renaming indicates the cultural clashes provoked by colonization.  

Literature often addresses the clashing of divergent cultures, providing readers with some insight into this phenomenon. In this class the collisions of European and African cultures was addressed using colonial and post colonial literature as references. The texts used to address these culture clashes were Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart, and “Prayer for Peace.”  In Heart of Darkness, Europe and Africa clash in Kurtz’s mind as he becomes overly influenced by Conrad’s version of indigenous culture. It would be easy for the reader to take Conrad’s version of history, which depicts Africans as a homogenous group of sub humans without direction or culture. When viewed through balanced, contemporary eyes, the text provokes the reader to question the veracity of certain aspects of the European account of the colonization of the continent. If Achebe’s “An Image of Africa” and Mwikisa’s “Conrad's Image of Africa: Recovering African Voices in Heart of Darkness” are read in conjunction with the novel, the reader soon discovers that Conrad omits a considerable amount of historical information about this period including the tendency of Europeans to impose their cultures on the colonized Africans. Conrad’s version of colonization is one of Europeans being influenced by Africa and Africans, but the converse was more likely true as explorers and missionaries like Stanley and Schweitzer overran the continent bringing Europe with them.

Things Fall Apart offers an account of the head-on collision of European and African cultures that differs considerably from Conrad’s description of the same event. Achebe presents the Igbo of Nigeria as a self-sustaining people. When viewed individually, all Igbo cultural norms are not always ideal, but overall their customs help maintain the well-being of the tribe. Unlike the tendency of Behn, Fenimore Cooper, and other writers of European descent to portray indigenous people as “noble savages,” Achebe presents a wide array of characters that have the capacity to be noble, but are as subject to human frailties as their European counterparts. In this novel, the culture clash is slower and steadier than in Conrad as it is about the imposition of Christianity on the region; it is not a clash but a long-term influence. Achebe’s novel addresses the slow introduction of Christianity to the Igbo and the role of this religion as a forerunner of other norms such as European law and two-partner marriage. He suggests that the Igbo—particularly those on the fringes of the tribe’s social structure—evolve from being purely African to being heavily influenced by Europe perhaps in response to dissatisfaction with tribal culture. This European influence leads to the tribe falling apart because it cannot hold itself together under the strain of unfamiliar beliefs and laws that take the place of tradition.   

Unlike Conrad or Achebe’s texts that deal with the aftermath of the collision of cultures and their influence upon one another, Senghor’s “Prayer for Peace” takes a different approach, addressing the exportation of African culture to other areas of the world.  Senghor presents the image of a “Crucified Africa” on a global cross arms stretching from the Americas to Asia, shading both as it hangs, refusing to die after 400 years. This image probably references the use of Africa by European nations for profit from the slave trade to land and mineral wealth. The imagery is striking because it portrays Africa in a state of martyrdom that may not be far from the truth, but also because it addresses Africa’s influence on different cultures across the globe. Senghor notes Africa’s influence on Haiti, writing that the island is Africa’s heart. This may be true because of its role in becoming the first former European colony in the Americas to gain independence with a leader of African descent. Senghor may be crediting Haiti’s independence with African influence by associating the island nation with the continent’s heart if the use of this organ in the poem references valor and strength rather than love.

Literature often assumes the responsibility of not only navigating the space between divergent cultures, but of explaining the resulting hybrid culture. Although the purpose of this class has been to create a dialogue between colonial and post colonial texts, it has also been able to expand student knowledge of a variety of cultures using literature. In this instance, the role of literature has been predominantly educational as the variety of cultures presented were explained using the literary texts. Therefore, literature has become a useful tool by expanding its reach from the realm of entertainment to education.