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Do Things Fall Apart? A Reconsideration of the

Racist Concept of the Noble Savage Through a

True Representation of the Savagery of the

Noble.
Yasser Khamees

Minia University

I-Introduction
Who cause things to fall apart: the noble savage or the savage noble? This paper aims to criticize the
long-standing theory of the noble savage, which has long tacitly been accepted as a satisfactory
justification of the racist’s demeaning view of the colonized/slave as a savage despite the fact that
his/her behavour may show signs of nobility. In fact, a close reading of works such as Behn's
Oroonoko and Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, and a cursory glance on Cary’s Mister Johnson, Conrad’s
The Heart of Darkness, illustrate the counter theory of the Savagery of the Noble which has provided
an apocalyptic vision of today’s world bitterly characterized by the savage acts done by the so-called
Nobles of the world. Iraq is a case in point. The paper gradually builds up an unbiased image of those
so-called Nobles who are in fact no more than savages.
I-i The Noble Savage
The wave of naturalism which rises in the eighteenth century involves the cult of the scenery, the
child, the peasant as well as the savage. The term noble savage is applied to any wild being who
roams in nature disregarding the value of civilization:
The term noble savage expresses a romantic concept of humankind as unencumbered by
civilization; the natural essence of the unfettered person. The concept symbolises the idea that
without the bounds of civilization, man is essentially good. (Wikipedia)
This does not at all mean that goodness is the opposite of civilization. Rather, what should be
condemned and rejected is the abuse of fellow human beings under the pretext of civilizing them.
The concept of the noble savage is fundamentally based on three constituting elements, viz.,
different classical and medieval conventions; what explorers have observed and what philosophers
and men of letters have deducted. From a modern perspective, the noble savage world is seen as an
exotic one characterized by innocence and simplicity. However:
The myth of the noble savage may have served, in part, as an attempt to re-establish the
value of indigenous lifestyles and delegitimatize imperial excesses-establishing exotic humans
as morally superior in order to counter-balance the perceived political and economic
inferiorities. (Wikipedia)
The romanticist sees in the actual peasant or in the savage a truer picture of primitive virtue. He
rescues the peasant from the hands of the pseudo-classicists and presents him to the world as a. noble
savage Western people have been dehumanizing the so called noble savages under the pretext that
they are being turned into civilized beings:
Although Europeans recognized these people to be human beings, they had no plans to treat them
as equals politically or economically, and also began to speak of them as inferior socially and
psychologically. In part through these and similar processes, Europeans developed a notion of
“the primitive” and “the savage” that legitimized genocide and ethnocide on the one hand, and
European domination on the other. This discourse extended to people of Africa, Asia, and
Oceania as European colonialism, neo- colonialism and imperialism expanded.
(Wikipedia)
The Golden Age proper has a great deal to do with the origin of the noble savage because Noble
Savages had always been likened to men of the Golden Age. In Germania Tacitus depicted a noble
race that lived in a state of savage simplicity. The noble savages have something in common with the
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Germans. They are brave, tough and free from the complexities of life. They do not care about
possessing silver and gold. They are open-hearted, friendly and hospitable. They live in strict chastity
and uncorrupted state of nature. Mothers fulfill their duties by suckling their own children. Those
Germans as Tacitus noted, did not have the same dehumanizing ideas of slavery as the so-called
nobles:
Of their other slaves they make not such use as we do of ours, by distributing amongst them the
several offices and employments of the family. Each of them has a dwelling of his own, each a
household to govern. His lord uses him like a tenant, and obliges him to pay a quantity of grain,
or of cattle, or of cloth. Thus far only the subservience of the slave extends. All the other duties in
a family, not the slaves, but the wives and children discharge. (Tacitus)
Christopher Columbus praised the Indians for the moral attractiveness and physical beauty.
Though the noble savage is originally a Carib, the term is further applied to African-Americans.
Columbus’ narratives depicted Caribs as virtuous, simple, beautiful and intelligent people. They lived
in nakedness and innocence and share their property in common. Slaves who are under the Spaniards’
command in the Spanish gold lust were depicted as humble, patient, peaceful and manageable. They
are a very delicate and tender folk. They have a very clear understanding and can be converted to
Christianity. In his essay “Of the Cannibals”, Montaigne is definitely primitivistic; he comments on
the primitivism of man:
They are savages at the same rate that we say fruit are wild, which nature produces of herself and
by her own ordinary progress; whereas in truth, we ought rather to call those wild, whose natures
we have changed by our artifice, and diverted from the common order. In those, the genuine, most
useful and natural virtues and properties are vigorous and sprightly, which we have helped to
degenerate in these, by accommodating them to the pleasure of our own corrupted palate.
(Montaigne)
In “Of Coaches”, he wavers between two points of view: the savage being “all naked, simply- pure,
in Nature’s lap” and the reference to “wonderful cities of Cusco and Mexico.” (Montaigne)
Though the concept of the noble savage was praised by men of letters, explorers and historians, it
received severe attack .Charles Dickens gives a demeaning description of the noble savage:
To come to the point at once, I beg to say that I have not the least belief in the noble savage. I
consider him a prodigious nuisance, and an enormous superstition. …I don’t care what he calls
me. I call him savage, and I call a savage a something highly desirable to be civilised off the face
of the earth…he is a savage-cruel, false, thievish, murderous; addicted more or less to grease,
entrails, and beastly customs; a wild animal with the questionable gift of boasting; a conceited,
tiresome, blood-thirsty, monotonous humbug. (Dickens)
Had Dickens called for leaving the noble savage as he was, he would have done him a great favor.
What urged Dickens to depict a disfigured portrayal of the noble savage is a long-standing racial point
of view of unjustified superiority. Even if what Dickens said was right, it is not a civilized behaviour
to despise and ill-treat a human being.
Dickens goes on his scathing tirade of the noble savage so much that he forms an image of a
sordid animal:
The noble savage sets a king to reign over him, to whom he submits his life and limbs without a
murmur or question, and whose whole life is passed chin deep in a lake of blood; but who ,after
killing incessantly, is in his turn killed by his relations and friends, the moment a grey hair
appears in his head. All the noble savage’s wars with his fellow-savages (and he takes no pleasure
in anything else) are wars of extermination. … He has no moral feelings of any kind, sort, or
description; and his ‘mission’ may be summed up as simply diabolical. (Dickens)
The above description applies to the so called First World of today. They launch wars on weak
nations with the aim of gobbling their wealth.
During the eighteenth century the noble savage was used as a satirical vehicle. Swift’s
Gulliver’s Travels and Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe hold good in this respect. For the old Houyhnhnm,
Gulliver is a noble savage who symbolizes misanthropic satire. In Robinson Crusoe, Friday, the
noble savage, is put in juxtaposition with Crusoe, the civilized European.
Yeats’ The Second Coming” propagates the racial ideas recurrent in the above mentioned novels,
viz. the savage uncivilized people who will undermine the Western civilization. The whole poem is
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haunted by an unjustified image of a civilization that is doomed to be destroyed at the hands of a

beastly demon:
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour comes round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? (Foster. 2003: 150-1)
The poem was composed in 1920. The controlling idea of the poem is that history is represented
by spinning gyres which represent periods of time. Each gyre begins with a cataclysmic event. The
poet’s contemporary gyre begins with anarchy resulted from World War I. Therefore, he concludes
that things fall apart. The opening metaphor of a wheeling falcon away from its falconer may be
construed as underscoring young people’s giving up the established standards of the past. The
metaphor suggests another interpretation: the falcon is the head (intellect) and the falconer is the rest
of the body. This metaphor echoes a similar one in the head and body of the Sphinx. The last two
lines of the first stanza dissociate between the best (intellectual people) and the worst (the mob who
are more concerned with passion than intellect). In fact: “’The Second Coming’ would-from its first
publication on6 November 1920 in the Nation-crystallize the doubts and feelings of a generation at a
moment of flux”. (Foster.2003: 150)
The bird-image appears in the second stanza. Indignant desert birds which have long been roosting
on the Sphinx, like a dormant evil, take off when the beast, representing chaos, moves its thighs. The
opening of the second stanza is a call for revelation. Now a revelator, the poet forms an image of the
second coming referred to in the rough beast.
If viewed from another angle, the poem may suggest that the world is moving from a period of
Christianity to one of paganism. Man-God relation is disturbed since man (the falcon) is moving away
from God (the falconer). Therefore, the Second Coming of Christ must be near. However, the poem,
which is in a way an earnest description of the change that is occurring to mankind, may also be seen
as earnest illustration of Yeats’ own pagan epiphany. The concluding lines can criticize Christianity
as weak. The beast, which stands for pagan powers, can not be overcome. Thus the image of the
powerful beast is a challenge to Christianity since Christ is known to overcome the beast in the book
of Revelation.
The poem creates an atmosphere of chaotic existence where the savage, representing a challenge to
Western civilization, deliberately and inhumanly destroys the achievements of mankind. However the
situation is altered in our contemporary world since civilized people cunningly and murderously
exploit the despised savage world.
II-Oroonoko
The savagery of the noble is nightmarishly masked by a putative belief in the superiority of the
colonizer and the supposedly unquestionable inferiority of the native. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of
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Darkness, Marlow, the protagonist, recalls into retrospection his boyhood dreams of visiting all blank
spaces in the map. However, these innocent wishes have turned out to be adult unquenchable desires
for enslaving people and occupying their lands. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe wrote a novel to make
people more aware of the effects of colonization on Africa. In Oroonoko, the fact that Banister,
Oroonoko’s barbarous executioner, is an Irish tauntingly debunks the failures of the English imperial
machinery to civilize the inhabitants of one of its nearest colonies. Moreover , Behn fosters into the
reader’s belief the idea that the colonized are inferior by nature. Therefore, the native Indians are first
humanized by being likened to Adam and Eve only to be dehumanized by being compared to animals.
It is no wonder then that Oroonoko, thus transmuted into a liminal creature inhabiting the space
between civilization and savagery, leads the whites in an ethnographic expedition to an Indian town.
The colonial theory of the so called uncivilized savage who always retreats to his sordid nature
is Western-based and carnivalesque at heart. The West has made up this fake concept to impose hated
patronage. If scrutinized carefully the West’s practices reveal innate savagery. The writer seems to
provide an invitation for colonizers to colonize the land. The position of this text on slavery is very
confusing. It seems to portray a very positive, unrealistic account of the life of the slaves. Oroonoko is
friends with his master, has the freedom to go hunting and fishing and walking around as he pleases
and is treated with the respect owed to a prince. Imoinda is not raped by her master or any of the other
men on the plantation even though she is the most beautiful woman they have ever seen. Everyone
rejoices when Oroonoko and Imoinda find each other again. There is hardly any negative association
whatsoever with being a slave except the savage end. Moreover, Oroonoko, which is, in fact, an
example of racism, was considered an anti-slavery novel in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries:
"The novella had been recognized as a seminal work in the tradition of antislavery writings from the
time of its publication down to our own period. (Brown, 1987: 42)
The most important example of the noble savage is Aphra Behn's Oroonoko. Oroonoko illustrates
the purity and excellence of man in his natural state, untouched by the hand of civilization. He
represents the type of natural goodness. Moreover, Oroonoko stresses the racist concept of the noble
savage. In his Mrs. Behn’s Oroonoko (Kittredge Anniversary Papers, 414-434), Ernest Bernbaum
attacks the book as mere fabrication. In his edition of the works of Mrs. Behn (Vol. I Xiii-Xix)
Montague Summers tries to defend the authenticity of the work. It is not known for sure whether
Oronooko is the result of the writer’s spending her girlhood in Surinam or of her diligent reading of
Warren’s impartial Description of Surinam.
“The works cited are often diverse, from distant parts of the library…. Moreover, they do not at
all solve the intriguing questions about the works origin…All that can be concluded about the
composition of the work is that, though apparently written in haste, it was probably put together
very slowly”. (Todd. 1996:260-1)
Oronooko is often seen as stressing the fancy of the purity of man in his natural state uncorrupted by
sophisticated civilization.
Though he bears a somewhat Carib name, he is not an Indian but a black African brought from
Coramantien to Surinam. He is the grandson of the King of Coramantien, who keeps a typically
Turkish harem. The writer illustrates the noble origin of Oronooko through physical description:
His face was not of that brown rusty black which most of that nation are, but of perfect ebony, or
polished jet. His eyes were the most awful that could be seen, and very piercing; the white of 'em
being like snow, as were his teeth. His nose was rising and Roman, instead of African and flat.
His mouth the finest shaped that could be seen; far from those great turned lips which are so
natural to the rest of the Negroes. The whole proportion and air of his face was so nobly and
exactly formed that, bating his color, there could be nothing in nature more beautiful, agreeable,
and handsome. (Behn)
The writer’s Eurocentric description of Oroonoko who is seen as a European Ideal of beauty is an
index of a demeaning ethnic depreciation to the rest of the race. Behn did not even mention the
African habit of tribal scarring. If she did, she would find it difficult to convince the European readers
that those slaves were worth saving:
[I]t is generally agreed that she has carefully modified her hero’s Africanness to make him a more
acceptable romance figure and has provided him with some distinctively European traits. (Todd.
1996: 262-3)
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The writer’s description of Oronooko’s character contradicts the concept of the noble savage. He is
portrayed as a well cultivated person:
the most illustrious courts could not have produced a braver man ,both for greatness of courage
and mind, a judgment more solid, a wit more quick, and a conversation more sweet and
diverting. He knew almost as much as if he had read much: he had heard of and admired the
Romans: he had heard of the late Civil Wars in England, and the deplorable death of our great
monarch; and would discourse of it with all the sense and abhorrence of the injustice imaginable.
He had an extreme good and graceful mien, and all the civility of a well-bred great man. He had
nothing of barbarity in his nature, but in all points addressed himself as if his education had been
in some European court. (Behn)
The writer’s praise of Oronooko is partly based on his supposedly invaluable knowledge of war and
destruction that befell Europe, which illustrates the savagery of the nobles. Moreover, Oroonoko’s
nobility is, as she sees it, based on the European civilization:
Indeed, the discursive weight that Behn gives to European civilization establishes a disturbing
connection between her portrait of the African prince and the argument that slavery was justified
because it rescued blacks from savagery. (Starr. 1990: 362-72, 366.)
The depiction of Imoinda as an object of white man’s lust further highlights the savage drive that
lurks dormant in the deep reaches of the colonizer’s soul:
she was female to the noble male; the beautiful black Venus to our young Mars; as charming in
her person as he, and of delicate virtues. I have seen a hundred white men sighing after her, and
making a thousand vows at her feet all in vain, and unsuccessful. (Behn)
In fact stressing Imoinda’s beauty is an implied criticism of the libidinous nature of those people who
appreciate nothing but her physical characteristics:
The prince returned to court with quite another humor than before; and though he did not speak
much of the fair Imoinda, he had the pleasure to hear all his followers speak of nothing but the
charms of that maid, insomuch that, even in the presence of the old king, they were extolling her,
and heightening, if possible, the beauties they had found in her: so that nothing else was talked of,
no other sound was heard in every corner where there were whisperers, but Imoinda! Imoinda!
(Behn)
The coup is complete with a good-for-nothing, womanizer, old king. The way the king thinks of to
get Imoinda is symbolically illustrative of the European viewpoint of African and Third World
political regimes. He thinks that “the obedience the people pay their king was not at all inferior to
what they paid their gods; and what love would not oblige Imoinda to do, duty would compel her to.”
(Behn)
Europeans are seen as cunning and opportunists. We might contrast the nobility of Oroonoko or
the innocent native Indians with the moral corruption of the "civilized" colonialists. The whites'
treatment of Oroonoko demonstrates that although they are the dominant power in the colony they
recognize his potential to lead others and to disrupt their world. Even the narrator, who praises him,
promises his freedom and is writing his story, took measures to curb his freedom and keep him
watched. The way that the Europeans treat slaves and savages alike stems from two concepts: the first
of these is their fear; both of what is different and its power as a threat to their own, and the second is
the assumption that Europeans are superior and that they have the right to force their culture on to
those whom they regard as savages
The notion that Western culture is superior and should be appreciated by slaves is not only
enforced by violence. When the narrator describes how she entertains Oroonoko with the lives of the
Romans and Imoinda with stories of nuns and Christianity, she too is forcing her own culture onto
them. Behn appreciates Oroonoko's integrity and accepts that he does not like the riddles of the
Trinity, but teaches it instead to Imoinda who, as a female slave is lower in terms of power and is not
given the chance to make her own choice.
The two Indian captains’ seemingly savage acts are meant to be put into juxtaposition with the
civilized English captain. Though Behn stresses their humanity and nobility, her description
emphasizes their inhuman repulsiveness: "For my part I took 'em for Hobgoblins, or Fiends, rather
than Men" (Behn). On the other hand, the captain of the English ship is introduced in so dignifying
terms that one takes him for all virtues incarnated:
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This commander was a man of a finer sort of address and conversation, better bred, and more
engaging, than most of those sorts of men are; so that he seemed rather never to have been bred
out of a court than almost all his life at sea. This captain therefore was always better received at
court than most of the traders to those countries were; and especially by Oroonoko, who was
more civilized, according to the European mode, than any other had been, and took more delight
in the white nations, and, above all, men of parts and wit. (Behn)
However, the savagery of the noble captain shows itself when he tricks Oroonoko and his companions
into slavery. After inviting them to his ship:
the captain, who had well laid his design before, gave the word, and seized on all his guests; they
clapping great irons suddenly on the prince, when he was leaped down into the hold to view that
part of the vessel; and locking him fast down, secured him. The same treachery was used to all the
rest; and all in one instant, in several places of the ship, were lashed fast in irons, and betrayed to
slavery. (Behn)
In fact the captain chants the same dirge of any colonizer everywhere. He not only enslaved them but
he also saw to it that they were sold in separate groups thus undermining any stamina to resist.
Trefery, Oroonoko’s master, is introduced as a counterbalance to the captain concerning their
relationship to Oroonoko in particular and the rest of the slaves in general. He symbolizes the noble
civilized good natured man. After being introduced to Oroonoko:
Trefry soon found he was yet something greater than he confessed; and from that moment began
to conceive so vast an esteem for him that he ever after loved him as his dearest brother, and
showed him all the civilities due to so great a man. (Behn)
Behn may be seen as degrading slaves. The slaves are kept in order by a mixture of brute force
and threats of whipping and punishments. Also as soon as slaves arrive they are given different
clothes, a different name and presumably spoken to in English. On arrival Oroonoko is dressed in "a
sort of brown holland suit" and renamed Caesar by his new 'owners'. The reason Behn gives for
renaming slaves is that their native ones are "likely very barbarous, and hard to pronounce."
The scene when Oroonoko goes to see his house and his part of land underscores Behn’s attempts at
disfiguring the nature of African people who, surprisingly enough, paid homage to Oroonoko, the
very man who sold them into slavery:
At last, he would needs go view his land, his house, and the business assigned him. But he no
sooner came to the houses of the slaves, which are like a little town by itself, the negroes all
having left work, but they all came forth to behold him, and found he was that prince who had, at
several times, sold most of 'em to these parts; and from a veneration they pay to great men,
especially if they know 'em, and from the surprise and awe they had at the sight of him, they all
cast themselves at his feet, crying out, in their language, "Live, O King! Long live, O King!" and
kissing his feet, paid him even divine homage. (Behn)
Behn further stresses her attack of the slaves depicting them as coward fit for nothing but slavery.
After Oroonoko urged them to rebel against white men, they let him down when the white gave them
false promises of forgiveness.
The punishment of the slaves underlines the savage nature of the white people. If put into
juxtaposition, Oroonoko’s act of killing Imoinda, though seen as a savage one, reveals a noble and
romantic nature. He had slain her so as not to be abused by the white people. Therefore, she “on her
knees, besought him, not to leave her a prey to his enemies.” (Behn) The last encounter between
Oroonoko and the civilized white people stress the nature of both parties. Weak as he is, he did not
surrender:
Look ye, ye faithless crew," said he, "'tis not life I seek, nor am I afraid of dying" (and at that
word, cut a piece of flesh from his own throat, and threw it at 'em), "yet still I would live if I
could, till I had perfected my revenge. But oh! It cannot be; I feel life gliding from my eyes and
heart; and if I make not haste, I shall fall a victim to the shameful whip." At that, he ripped up his
own belly, and took his bowels and pulled 'em out, with what strength he could; while some, on
their knees imploring, besought him to hold his hand. (Behn)
The savagery Oroonoko committed against himself is meant to ennoble him. On the contrary, his
execution is an ignoble action meant to inexplicably dehumanize a fellow human being:
the executioner came, and first cut off his members, and threw them into the fire; after that, with
an ill-favored knife, they cut off his ears and his nose and burned them; he still smoked on, as if
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nothing had touched him; then they hacked off one of his arms, and still he bore up, and held his
pipe; but at the cutting off the other arm, his head sunk, and his pipe dropped, and he gave up the
ghost, without a groan or a reproach. (Behn)

III-Mister Johnson
Cary’s Mister Johnson and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness complete the appalling image of backward
people Behn’s Oroonoko formed. Achebe points out the dangerous effects books such as Mister
Johnson have:
…it did open my eyes to the fact that my home was under attack and that my home was not
merely a house or a town, but an awakening story in which the first fragments of my own
existence began to have coherence and meaning. (Otchet)
In Mister Johnson the setting is racially portrayed. Fada is described as a land of savage, backward
people:
Fada is the ordinary native town of the Western Sudan. It has no beauty, convenience, or health. It
is a dwelling-place at one stage from the rabbit warren or the badger burrow; and not so cleanly
kept as the latter. It is a pioneer settlement five or six hundred years old, built on its own rubbish
heaps, without charm even of antiquity. Its squalor and its stinks are all new. Its oldest
compounds, except the Emir’s mud box, are not twenty years old. The sun and the ram destroy all
its antiquity, even of smell. But neither has it the freshness of the new. All its mud walls are eaten
as if by smallpox; half of the mats in any compound are always rotten. Poverty and ignorance, the
absolute government of jealous savages, conservative as only the savage can be, have kept it at
the first frontier of civilization. Its people would not know the change if time jumped back fifty
thousand years. They live like mice or rats in a palace floor; all the magnificence and variety of
the arts, the ideas, the learning, and the battles of civilization go on over their heads and they do
not even imagine them. (Cary. 1947:.99)
The supposed barren nature of Fada is highlighted: “Fada has not been able to achieve its own
native arts or the characteristic beauty of its country. There are no flowering trees or irrigated gardens;
no painted or moulded courtyard walls.” (Cary.1947:.99)
To complete the repulsive image Cary deliberately draws, Fada is seen as a landfill site or exotic
place:
An English child in Fada, with eyes that still see what is in front of them, would be terrified by
the dirt, the stinks, the great sores on naked bodies, the twisted limbs, the babies with their
enormous swollen stomachs and their hernias; the whole place, flattened upon the earth like the
scab of a wound, would strike it as something between a prison and a hospital. (Cary.1947:.9)
Not only the setting but the characters are also racially portrayed. Throughout the book Cary
hammers home the innate stupidity and inferiority of the natives which function as a foil to the natural
intelligence and superiority of the colonizer. Johnson is depicted as a trivial good-for-nothing human
being:
His ambition is always to make a perfect S in one sweeping movement. He frequently practises
S’s alone for half an hour on end. He looks at the result now and smiles with delight. It is
beautiful. The thickening of the stroke as it turns over the small loop makes a sensation. He feels
it like a jump of joy inside him. (Cary.1947:.21)
Cary goes so far as to endow Johnson with inhuman qualities since Johnson is made to love death so
long as his master will be the executioner. Strangely enough, Johnson implores Rudbeck to kill him:
Only I like you do him youself, sah. If you no fit to shoot me. I don’ ’gree for dem sergeant do it.,
too much. He no my frien’. But you my frien’. You my father and my mother. I tink you hang me
youself… I tank you for my frien’ Mister Rudbeckde bigges’ heartg in de worl’.’
Rudbeck leans through the door, aims the carbine at the back of the boy’s head and blows his
brains out. (Cary.1947: 224-5)
The savagery of the nobles is further underlined since Rudbeck sees nothing wrong in what he has
just done: “He goes on towards the office with his usual rolling gait. He is insisting with the whole
force of his obstinate nature that he has done nothing unusual, that he has taken the obvious
reasonable course”. (Cary.1947: 226)
IV- Heart of Darkness
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Not only does the meaning of darkness in Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness incorporate the
Belgian Congo, the African savages, the journey to the innermost soul, and England as the corruptor
in its attempted colonization of the African people for selfish and commercial purposes but it also
stresses racism as the essential heart of darkness. The savagery of the colonizer shows itself clearly in
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The narrator depicts a savage scene where the noble colonizer savagely
beats the supposed savage native:
It appears the Company had received news that one of their captains had been killed in a scuffle
with the natives. …I heard the original quarrel arose from a misunderstanding about some hens.
Yes, two black hens. Fresleven--that was the fellow's name, a Dane--thought himself wronged
somehow in the bargain, so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village with a
stick. Oh, it didn't surprise me in the least to hear this, and at the same time to be told that
Fresleven was the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs. (Conrad. 1994:13)
Chinua Achebe delivered a lecture at the University of Massachusetts about Conrad's Heart of
Darkness, entitled "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Achebe notes that
Africa functions as a mere background, set up as “a foil to Europe” (Achebe. 1988:.251) Therefore
Africa is seen as the antithetical image of civilization which is Europe. In fact, Conrad eliminates
"the African as a human factor," thus "reducing Africa to the role of props."(Achebe. 1988:257)
Achebe’s appreciation of Conrad as a bloody racist have been hectically argued and criticized. (Wyer)
However, nobody can miss certain passages which can never be labeled under a title but racist.
The way Conrad writes about the White people and how they treated the natives (Black), in Africa
suggests strongly that darkness refers to racism. During the colonization of Africa, white people
thought of themselves as more superior than the natives. A significant passage from the novel
illustrating this point is when Marlow gives an account of the miserable state of the slaves, which is
further stressed through physical description:
A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up
the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the
clink kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends
Behind wagged to and fro like tails. I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots
in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose
bights swung between them, rhythmically clinking. (Conrad.1994:.22)
The above description underscores an image of dehumanized people who are treated no more than
animals. The animalistic image is further stressed by the “short ends” which function as “tails”.
The natives though chained and mistreated are in fact helpless and harmless:
"They were dying slowly--it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals,
they were nothing earthly now,--nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying
confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of
time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became
inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest .These moribund shapes were free as
air--and nearly as thin. I began to distinguish the gleam of eyes under the trees. Then, glancing
down, I saw a face near my hand. The black bones reclined at full length with one shoulder
against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me, enormous and
vacant, a kind of blind, white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died out slowly. The man
seemed young--almost a boy--but you know with them it's hard to tell. I found nothing else to do
but to offer him one of my good Swede's ship's biscuits I had in my pocket. The fingers closed
slowly on it and held--there was no other movement and no other glance. (Conrad. 1994:24-5)
The indifferent and selfish nature of the colonizer shows through a contrastive image to the above
one. The colonizer cares for the welfare of none but him. Among those miserable black shadows
the narrator is surprised to see an elegant person:
I met a white man, in such an unexpected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took him
for a sort of vision. I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers,
a clear necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined
parasol held in a big white hand. He was amazing, and had a penholder behind his ear. (Conrad.
1994:25)
 9

This novella was written at a time when African people were not considered equal, to man; rather they
were considered sub-humans. Racism was everywhere and what came from it was people who wrote
about it naturally. However, contemporary writers, including Conrad of course, should have thought
of a "politically correct" way to put things.

V-Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart was written in answer to appalling colonial novels such as Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness and Cary’s Mister Johnson. The rich variety of ethnic and cultural identities of Africa, on
which European colonialism has left a strong impact, is portrayed in Achebe’s works. In the Picador
edition of Chinua Achebe’s The African Trilogy, he states:
“I know around ‘51, ‘52, I was quite certain that I was going to try my hand at writing, and one
of the things that set me thinking was Joyce Cary’s novel, set in Nigeria, Mister Johnson, which
was praised so much, and it was clear to me that it was a most superficial picture of - not only of
the country - but even of the Nigerian character, and so I thought if this was famous, then perhaps
someone ought to look at this from the inside” (Dennis, and Pieterse, eds.1972.)
Unlike the characters in Mister Johnson, those in The African Trilogy are complex and
multidimensional. Cary portrays an uncivilized corrupt African society. In Things Fall Apart Achebe
shows Ibo society with its long-standing systems of religious, social and political beliefs. Cary’s novel
is a superficial representation of the individual in his social context. On the other hand, in Things Fall
Apart, Achebe gives an insightful scrutiny of the Ibo society from which individual emotional and
psychological status develops. The novel challenges stereotypical images of Africans as savages and
shows sets of complicatedly rich traditions, customs and values.
In fact the novel aims to educate both the colonialist and the turncoat Africans. Therefore,
Achebe used the English language to impart his favoured image of Africa to a cosmopolitan,
international audience. The image of the silent or incomprehensible country that has often been
portrayed in books such as Heart of Darkness is changed by Achebe’s representation of the
imaginative, often formal language of the Ibo. The complexity of the Ibo language is obvious
since the Ibo words Achebe pepped the novel with are difficult to translate into English.
Moreover, the variety of African languages is stressed when the villagers of Umuofia make fun of
Mr. Brown’s translator because his language is slightly different from their own.
Things Fall Apart depicts the clash between Nigeria’s white colonial government and the
traditional culture of the Igbo people in 1890s. Despite changing stereotypical images of Africans,
Achebe did not stereotype European colonialists. Therefore, he introduces various types of characters
like the benevolent Mr. Brown, the zealous Reverend Smith, and the calculating District
Commissioner. Unlike the other two characters, Mr. Brown serves as a counter balance to the
savagery of the white nobles since he succeeds in winning a large number of converts because he
listens to the villagers’ stories, beliefs, and opinions. He also accepts the converts unconditionally. His
conversation with Akunna, a clan leader of Umuofia, represents this sympathetic stance.
The novel is seen as a story of disintegration of an African culture because of European invasion.
At a deeper level, the novel shows the contradictions and dynamics in the Igbo society. Despite the
advice he receives, Okonkwo, a wealthy and respected warrior, takes part in killing Ekemefuna, a boy
given to Okonkwo from a neighbouring village. Obierika, Okonkwo’s close friend, criticizes
Umuofia’s culture. The internal dynamism of the society shows the fact that social customs and
values have been falling apart since the society develops. Ogbuefi Ezeudu, the oldest man in the
village, complains about the mild nature of punishment imposed for breaking the peace of Ani.
Uchendu complains about the fact that Okonkwo’s generation abandoned some of the old traditions:
Those were good days when a man had friends in distant clans. Your generation does not know
that. You stay at home, afraid of your next-door neighbor. Even a man’s motherland is strange to
him nowadays. (Achebe.1994:137)
The dehumanizing lens through which Europeans view Africa as a foil of Western culture is
challenged in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart. The representation of the Igbo language as a complex one
full of proverbs and literary devices overshadows the primitiveness of Africa. The Igbo social fabric is
far stronger than The European ones since man’s worth is determined according to his actions.
Therefore, Okonkwo stood high among his fellow clansmen because of his courageous deeds. The
 10

colonizer’s intended ignorance of African subcultures is highlighted through a representation of them.

Ikemefuna’s folk stories illustrate the fact that all African people do not have the same culture.
“Ikemefuna had an endless stock of folk tales. Even those which Nwoye knew already were told with
a new freshness and the local flavor of a different clan.” (Achebe.1994:34). They have a system of
values which is not found in a supposedly noble society.
Time and again the peaceful nature of the Igbo society and practices of socialization are
highlighted throughout the novel. For example, sharing palm-wine and kola nuts is repeated
throughout the novel to underscore the peacefulness and sociability of the Igbo. Sharing common
traditions and customs governs all their dealings. For instance, on the occasion of collecting a debt
from Unoka, Okoye, Unoka’s neighbor does not immediately talk business. Rather, they share a kola
nut, pray to their ancestors and discuss community affairs in detail. Wishing not to put Unoka in a real
fix, the neighbor tackles the subject of debt through a series of Igbo proverbs, a shared oral tradition.
Among the Ibo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with
which words are eaten. Okoye was a great talker and he spoke for a long time, skirting round the
subject and then hitting it finally. In short, he was asking Unoka to return the two hundred
cowries he had borrowed from him more than two years before. (Achebe.1944:7)
The above quotation portrays an image of highly decorous people. Therefore, the European
representations of stereotypical African savages are seen to be false.
Throughout Things Fall Apart, Igbo customs and social institutions stress the wisdom of finding a
peaceful solution to conflict before seeking a violent one. Peace and justice prevail in the so-called
savage society:
…the neighboring clans… would not go to war against it [Umuofia] without first trying a
peaceful solution. And in fairness to Umuofia it should be recorded that it never went to war
unless its case was clear and just and was accepted as such by its Oracle—Oracle of the Hills and
the Caves. (Achebe.1994: 12)
Taken allegorically, the above quotation tauntingly scandalizes the supposed noble community in
which the United Nations play the role of a helpless Oracle. The religious values of the Ibo symbolize
and scandalize today’s world order. The oracle who is always consulted before declaring war,
symbolizes the United Nations’ ineffective role. It can not even condemn the ignoble savage acts of
the United States which has invaded Iraq for no apparent reason.
The Ibos’ fear of punishment of their gods should they declare war without a just cause scandalizes
the United States uncalculated invasion to Iraq. The priest’s chastising Okonkwo for breaking the
piece of the sacred week represents a long standing tradition of avoiding war and symbolically
stresses the absent role of the international community concerning issues such as Iraq’s. The tale of
the Tortoise and birds told by Ekwefe to her daughter Ezinma is symbolic. The tortoise symbolizes
the colonizer’s greed. Moreover, the birds’ striping the tortoise of the feathers symbolizes cooperation
among the colonized.
Things Fall Apart tackles the effects of colonialism. Colonialists enlighten, educate and treat
illnesses of the Ibos. However, they impose European cultural and social codes thus disfiguring the
cultural values and traditions of the natives. The book serves as a reminder to the West that Africa has
languages and culture that should be understood and appreciated. The book focuses on the horrors of
the colonialist traumatic experience from the eyes of the colonized. The book addresses both African
and Western readers. Achebe’s aim is to assert that Africa’s past is not as savage as the colonial
power portrays. He succeeds in depicting a past with a complex system of cultural and social values,
customs and traditions. The strong bonds of kinship, which are gradually destroyed by the
missionaries, are shown to be the only way to resist the unknown. Obierika points out:
The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused
at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has own our brothers, and our clan can no
longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.
(Achebe.1994:176)
Obierika states why they can not fight the colonizer. In fact he epitomizes the politics of the colonial
power.
Like Behn’s Oroonoko, Things Fall Apart scandalizes the savagery and treacherous nature of the
so called European nobles. Obierika’s account of how the white man destroyed Abame highlights
sadistic nature of the nobles. Because one of the invaders was killed:
 11

Three white men and a very large number of other men surrounded the market. They must have
used a powerful medicine to make themselves invisible until the market was full. And they began
to shoot. Every body was killed, except the old and the sick who were at home and a handful of
men and women whose chi were wide awake and brought them out of the market. (Achebe.1994:
139-40)
After the egwugwu had burnt the church, the District Commissioner returned from his tour and asked
the leaders of Umuofia to meet him. The commissioner set a trap for them since he promised them to
discuss the church’s burning in friendly terms. As soon as they put their machetes on the floor, they
were handcuffed and thrown imprisoned for several days, where they suffered insults and physical
abuse. The commissioner further emphasized his savagery and triviality by imagining that Okonkwo’s
death will make an interesting part in his book entitled The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the
Lower Niger.
Things Fall Apart assumes the nature of an epic with Okonkwo as the hero. Okonkwo’s career is
not his alone, but is bound with the fortune and destiny of his society. He becomes a hero because he
accomplishes great things for himself and his community; therefore he wins much fame:
Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages and even beyond. His fame rested on
solid personal achievements. As a young man of eighteen he had brought honour to his village by
throwing Amalinze the Cat. Amalinze was the great wrestler who for seven years was unbeaten,
from Umuofia to Mbaino. He was called the Cat because his back would never touch the earth. It
was this man that Okonkwo threw in a fight which the old man agreed was one of the fiercest
since the founder of their town engaged a spirit of the wild for seven days and seven nights.
(Achebe.1994:3)
Okonkwo undergoes many tests and ordeals such as beating Amalinze the Cat, his struggle against his
father’s past and his strife to build up his fame. Since he represents his society, the novel praises as
well as criticizes the culture whose tensions and contradictions Okonkwo embodies.
The contradictions in Okonkwo’s character show themselves when his heroism is valued by virtue
of an assessment of his motives as well as achievements. All his accomplishments are fear-motivated.
His fear of being like his father urges him to succeed. His suicide is controversial since it is not a
characteristic of a hero. However, the act of suicide is not a self-willed one. Rather it is forced upon
him. His clan and the colonizer share the responsibility with him. Obierika condemns the District
Commissioner as he blames Okonkwo’s suicide on the colonial rule: “That man was one of the
greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself; and now he will be buried like a dog.”
(Achebe. 208) In fact the savagery of the colonizer, who is supposed to be noble, plays an important
part in taking the life of so great a man. The colonial system is supposed to keep order and civilize
people. However, it spreads chaos and jeopardizes people’s life to the extent that they are urged to kill
themselves.

VI- Savagery of Today’s Nobles

The above unbiased image of the savage noble shows itself in our world today—Iraq is a case in
point. Since March 2003, thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed by the Anglo-American forces.
Accurate information about Iraqi casualties is inaccessible to the press and the international
community since it will, as a matter of course, condemn the nobles of the first world and disfigure
their image. However, the scandal over the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners by coalition forces, which
is a blow to coalition efforts, has become one of the most serious issues facing the Bush
administration. At Abu Ghraib prison, near Baghdad, Iraqi prisoners have ruthlessly been abused at
the hands of US soldiers: “Prisoners are said to have been kept naked in darkened cells without
facilities, and in one case, beaten to death. The ICRC report apparently accuses both American and
British troops of ill-treatment.” (BBC NEWS. “Iraq Prison Abuse Scandal”) Such an abuse is
considered a deliberate attempt to break prisoners' morale and prepare them for questioning.
Dehumanization of Iraqi people at the hands of British soldiers takes many forms. For example
“The Red Cross has reported cases of abuse of arrested Iraqi men, one of whom died after being
severely beaten"”. (BBC NEWS) The charges include “indecent assault understood to have involved
making victims engage in sexual activity between themselves.” (BBC NEWS. “Iraq Prison Abuse
Scandal”) Not only British soldiers but American ones have been charged of abusing Iraqis:
 12

Seven American soldiers have been charged with abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The first
soldier to face court martial proceedings was Specialist Jeremy Sivits He was charged with
conspiracy to maltreat detainees; dereliction of duty for negligently failing to protect detainees
from abuse, cruelty and maltreatment; and maltreatment of detainees. He admitted taking many of
the pictures of abuse of prisoners which have been published in the media - pleaded guilty and
was given a one-year jail sentence. Three other soldiers - Specialist Charles Graner, Sgt Javal
Davis and Staff Sgt Chip Frederick - went before an initial hearing on 21 June - a session to sort
out legal technicalities before a full trial. They may face more serious charges and sentences of up
to 24 years, if found guilty. Seven soldiers in all have been accused. (BBC NEWS. “Iraq Prison
Abuse Scandal”) [Italics mine]
The prison scandal makes it harder to believe in the so-called noble mission of the coalition. In
fact the Anglo-American troops are reduced to no more than superiority-obsessed paranoids.
Therefore:
The scandal has dealt a serious blow to the coalition's efforts to win over Iraqi hearts and minds.
The images have been rebroadcast by Arab satellite TV channels, further inflaming anti-US
sentiment in Iraq and across the Middle East. (BBC NEWS. “Iraq Prison Abuse Scandal”)
Hatred of the coalition forces has incessantly been highlighted by ongoing acts of abuse the most
famous of which is the one committed by a female called Private Lynndie England who faces charges
of abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail and of photographing them in humiliating poses. She is
expected to be imprisoned for 38 years since “she appeared in photographs pointing at prisoners'
genitals and holding a naked Iraqi detainee on a leash… [However], her lawyers say she was acting
under orders from superiors”. (BBC NEWS. ‘Iraq Abuse Photos ‘Taken For Fun’) [Brackets mine]

VII- Conclusion
Contrary to Yeats’s hopes, revelation is not at hand and the second coming is far beyond. The wheel
has turned to the full. Chaos and anarchy loom over the world. Despicable Atrocities done by savage
nobles stress the fact that civilization and progress, as they understand them, can never co-exist with
simple human feelings. The literary works discussed above trace examples of racial dehumanization
of the colonized starting with Oroonoko and ending with Okonkwo. Deprived of humanity, savage
nobles give full vent to their sadistic feelings whenever possible; Iraq is always there to provide a
living example. However, being civilized does not at all mean to be inhuman. Rather, common human
feelings such as love, co-operation, tolerance and the like are the solid grounds on which any relation
should be based.

References
-Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1959 (New York: Doubleday, 1994)
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Kimbrough, ed., Heart of Darkness: An Authoritative Text-Backgrounds and Sources of Criticism,
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- Achebe, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart
of Darkness." (New York: Doubleday, 1989:1-20.)
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 13

- Dickens, Charles on ‘The Noble Savage’ Available on: www.heretical.com/miscella/dickens.html

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