CHINUA ACHEBE

By CAMILLE RELLOSA

Nigeria
(1906-1960) African tribes and
territories under British control
Missions conducted by British
people
Establishment of colonial schools
1960 Independence

Profile
Ogidi, Eastern Nigeria (1930)
Father: churchman (Evangelical Protestant Mission)
Exposure to Igbo culture
Education:
Government College (Umuahia)
1948: University College (Ibadan)
Work experience
1953: Nigeria Broadcasting Company (producer)
1967: University of Nigeria (senior researcher)
1976: University of Nigeria (English professor)
1985: University of Nigeria (professor Emeritus)
Other schools in the US

Profile

Involvements
1962 to 1987:
Heinemanns
African Writers
Series (founding
editor)
1967 to 1970:
Nigerian Civil War
(outspoken public
speaker)

 Questions the European Canon

and the Moral and Social values
of art.

QUESTION: How should we

respond to classical works that
exhibit racist or other
condemnable views?

 ACHEBE: (Presupposes a social

theory of art) Holding that art
propagates social views and values.
The Novelist as Teacher (1965)
Literatures pedagogical mission and
its ethical and political
responsibilities

 Africans as savage, subhuman,

incapable of speech
Racism
Achebe questions Heart of
Darkness as a Western canon

Opposition to European Imperialism

Sympathy for Africans

 Critics says:
Allegory of an individual psychological
descent
Allegory of a decontextualized battle
between good and evil
Flawed in Racism
Limited depiction of Africa (Western
perspective)
Represents relatively progressive views

 Culture Wars (1980s to 1990s)

Traditionalists
political correctness
Impose moralistic and political standards
on classic works of literature
Priority for formal aesthetic properties
Progressive Theorists
Contests a literary canon that carries
racist, orientalist, sexist, homphobic, and
other negative values.
Priority for arts social value

An Image of Africa: Racism in

Conrads Heart of Darkness
(1977)

Conrad on Heart of Darkness

Achebe on Heart of Darkness
Achebe on Conrad

 African History does not exist

Africa as the other world
Africa as antithesis of Europe (of
civilization)
Questions the issue of kinship
Setting:
River Thames (Good) and River
Congo (Bad)

 Reflected the European racist

assumptions of the darkness or
inferiority of Africans.
Reflected the dominant image of Africa
in the Western imagination.

The real question is the

dehumanization of Africa and Africans.

 How can a novel which celebrates

this dehumanization, which
depersonalizes a portion of the
human race, can be called a great
work of art?
ACHEBEs Answer: NO, it cannot.

 For Conrad, things being in their place is

of the utmost importance.
Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing
racist.
Conrads attitude has a residue of
antipathy to black people.
Conrads picture of the peoples of the
Congo seems inadequate.

 It is not part of Conrads purpose to

confer language on the rudimentary
souls of Africa.

Conrad saw and condemned the evil

of imperial exploitation but was
strangely unaware of the racism on
which it sharpened its iron tooth.

 Students say that

Conrad is less charitable to the Europeans
The point of the story is to ridicule Europes
civilizing mission in Africa
Africa is merely a setting for the disintegration
of the mind

Africa treated as a place without humanity

Africa as a metaphysical battlefield devoid of
all recognizable humanity

the attitude to the African in

Heart of Darkness is not
Conrads but that of his fictional
narrator Conrad might indeed
be holding it up to irony and
criticism.

neglects to hint clearly and

adequately, at an alternative
frame of reference by which we
may judge the actions and
opinions of his characters.

Bibliography
"Albert Chinualumogu Achebe." Bio. A&E
Television Networks, 2014. Web.
21 June 2014.
Emergent Literature reading
Google Images