Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe both involve the colonization on Africa. In Heart of Darkness, the author talks about how savage the natives were and how much there was a need to update the living conditions of the natives and to help them become better people. In Things Fall Apart, the author talks about how the white people came in with their bicycles and their new religion. He talks about how they turned some of their own people against them. In his eyes, the white people came in to destroy the natives beliefs, traditions and gods. They tried to convince the natives that there was only one God and not a group of lesser Gods. Achebe and Con ...view middle of the document...
One of the things they were against was how the natives were like animals. He talks about how they were like dogs on hind legs. " He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler. He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind legs." (Conrad 61) Conrad is talking about the fireman Marlow had on his boat and how he was a improved specimen but people still see them as animals, like dogs, just standing on their hind legs. Conrad's opinion is that with the colonization of Africa, this will change the way the natives are looked at. They will finally be looked at as improved specimen. Achebe sees the colonization of the white man as wrong and disrespectful of the natives. One of the things the white people begin to do is arrest those natives who go against their religion and this is beginning to cause problems in the villages. "They guarded the prison, which was full of men who had offended against the white man's law. Some of these prisoners had thrown away their twins and some had molested the Christians." (Achebe 174-175) At first what seemed to be a joke in Umofia when the white people arrived has now caused many problems, the natives are being arrested for traditions like throwing away twins, which has been a tradition for a long time in their lifestyle. This presses the issue the author has been talking about the entire novel, that the colonization of the white people on Africa, had negative effects because they are beginning to overtake the natives, by arresting them for following their own beliefs. However, Conrad has a different opinion. He feels that with the state Africa is in right now it has the ability to make a civilized European go mad. Conrad talks about the smell and how it smells so bad, compared to a colonized European city. He makes reference to it smelling like a dead hippo. "You can't breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping, and eating, and at the same time keep your precarious grip on existence." (Conrad 68) What Conrad means by this is that the smell in Africa is so bad it is hard to keep your grip on being civilized....
