Isha Kalwani

11th December 2018

​Imperialism has been one of the most powerful forces in human history, serving to
set the foundation of our modern world. While this has led to the formation of a global
society where cultures, ideas, and innovations are spread across countries, imperialism has
also left a history of exploitation, racism, and violence that is still affecting the world today.
During the late 18th to the 19th century, there was the spread of imperialism in Africa. The
Europeans disrupted the native’s traditional ways and imposed their beliefs and social
structures on colonized Africans. When two different kinds of group of people with two
different cultures clash, it is disastrous.
Two talented and brilliant authors, Chinua Achebe and Joseph Conrad wrote two
fantastic novels respectively, ​Things Fall Apart ​and ​Heart Of Darkness​ that are based on the
destruction of imperialism on Africa. Both of these books have gone through different themes
such as blindly following customs, destructive consequence of the self- discovery, madness
as an outcome of imperialism, fate, manliness, etc. ​Things Fall Apart ​was written by Chinua
Achebe in 1958 and it is considered to be one of the foremost stories told in English by an
African voice. Set in a fictional village called Umuofia, the novel talks of a tragic hero called
Okonkwo and the time period when many European countries were setting up colonies in
Africa. ​The Heart Of Darkness ​(1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad
about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the “heart” of
Africa. Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the
River Thames. There are many criterias to explore in these two novellas and there are many
similarities and differences between these two books which are further explored below.
Both stories are based on colonialism in the early 1900s, when many European
countries were setting up colonies in Africa. Both show some of the effects that the white
colonists had on the natives. The Africans were strangled by the White colonization. In ​Heart
of Darkness​, we see the influence that Kurtz has on the natives where they consider him as a
God. We also see how the natives were captured and tied with chains and how they had to
changed their ways of living around the station. In ​Things Fall Apart,​ we see how the white
men wanted to spread Christianity and set up a District Commissioner. The spread of this
new religion made the other natives question their own culture and made them lose faith in
their cultures and practices. Another similarity is the perspective on how the Africans were
viewed as were pretty much the same in both of the books. In ​Things Fall Apart​, we do see as
to how the District Commissioner looks down on the native’s ways as inferior to the
European ways. The District Commissioner even refers to them as ‘primitive’ people who
need to be ‘pacified’. In ​Heart of Darkness, K ​ urtz refers to the Africans as ‘brutes’ who need
to be ‘exterminated’. In the end, both the Direct Commissioner and Kurtz look at the natives
as ‘savages’ whose current ways of life are unacceptable.
The setting of these two novels take place during historic settings in the 1800s to
early 1900s but are held in different places. ​Heart of Darkness ​is held in Congo whereas
Things Fall Apart​ is held in a fictional village in Iguedo, which is in the Umofia clan. In
terms of characterization, Nwoye resembles Mr. Kurtz because the environment changed
him. Nwoye unfortunately followed Kurtz’s path. One example from ​Things Fall Apart i​ s
“Nwoye knew that it was right to be masculine and to be violent, but somehow he still
preferred the stories that his mother used to tell him” Unlike his father, Nwoye converts to
Christianity just like Kurtz. There is also a resemblance in the Russian guy in ​Heart of
Darkness ​and Ezinma in ​Things Fall Apart​. The Russian guy is loyal to Mr. Kurtz, nursed
him through two illnesses and sees Kurtz as a God figure. Ezinma is loved by Okonkwo and
is seen as masculine and loyal to Okonkwo- even gaining his respect. She even puts off her
marriage for Okonkwo’s sake. In terms of characterisation, one important similarity was the
cultural clashes that Okonkwo and marlow faced. They were both from different cultural
backgrounds but both question their identities and make life-defining decisions. It was
extremely hard for Okonkwo and his family to adjust to the new farm. One example from the
book is ‘But it was like beginning life anew without the vigor and enthusiasm of youth.’
Marlow and Okonkwo struggle with an internal conflict and a battle between everything they
ever had known and the new culture threatening to their own values. Marlow is puzzled when
he begins to see the cruelty of the whites and even calls them devils, ‘I’ve seen the devil of
violence, and the devil of greed…’ Both men were seen as strong and powerful, but they both
become weak and struggle to find solutions to their problems.
Both the books were exemplary when it comes to imagery. There were different
techniques though. In ​Things Fall Apart​, there were traces of animal imagery and nature
imagery. In the novel, animal imagery is most often used to enhance human characteristics or
help describe aspects of human life. One place we see this is when Okonkwo is in
conversation with Nwakibie. During his conversation, Okonkwo uses this imagery to
describe himself: 'The lizard that jumped from the high iroko tree to the ground said he would
praise himself if no one else did.' Okonkwo uses this imagery to illustrate that he has had to
fend for himself for a long time and can succeed even without someone, specifically his
father, there to help or praise him. The animal imagery helps Okonkwo make his case and
convince Nwakibie that he will be successful and can be trusted with the yam seeds. Nature
imagery is used throughout this novel to give us a better understanding of what is happening.
We can see a good example of this when they described the weather with intense imagery,
‘The blazing sun returned, more fierce than it had ever been known, and scorched all the
green that had appeared with the rains.’ In ​Heart of Darkness​, there is lots of foreshadowing
and dark imagery is mostly used to convey powerful messages. From the beginning of
Marlow's story, we see dark clouds hanging over the Thames as night falls, taking away even
the moonlight and setting the tone for the whole book. Darkness imagery really comes handy
when Marlow leaves London and sets down the Congo River on a steamship under his
command. He sees the jungle as ''so dark-green as to be almost black'', turning a jungle,
which most people know as beautiful and lush green, into a scary dark monster. Conrad also
make good use of the fog to create a feeling of uncertainty of possible dangers.
One obvious distinction in both of these books was that​ ​Heart of Darkness​ tells a
tale from the European’s perspective while ​Things Fall Apart ​tells one from the Native
African Tribe point of view. The role of women in both of these books were different. In
Things Fall Apart​, women were praised in their capacities as wives and mothers. In many
instances, Achebe paints a strong figure of these women in our minds, ‘Anasi was a middle
aged woman, tall and strongly built. There was authority in her bearing and she looked…’
But in the ​Heart of Darkness​, women are not given much attention. The only women that
were mentioned are Kurtz’s mistress, his fiancee, the two ladies knitting and the narrator’s
aunt. The structures of these two stories are also different. In ​Heart of Darkness​, we don’t get
a glimpse of how the natives use to live their lives in the past but, in ​Things Fall Apart,​ we
leants about how the missionaries came, how the native use to live and how it drastically
changed. We get to learn in depth about their cultures and traditions and many words that are
in African languages such as ​Ekwe, Iba, Egwugwu,​ etc.
 Both the authors wanted to educate and make a statement on how brutal were the
effects of imperialism on Africa. However, both of them focus on very different conflicts. In
Heart of Darkness​, the conflict is about the destructive consequence of the self-discovery and
the emotional turmoil that goes in Kurtz’s mind from being separated by the society and
living in an ‘uncivilised’ place such as the African Congo. One example is ‘The wilderness
had found him out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion.
I think it had whispered things to him about himself which he did not know, things of which
he had no conception.’ In ​Things Fall Apart,​ the conflict was based on the arise between
people in societies that try to impose on each other. Achebe’s focus was on the falling apart
and the fading away of a culture due to the colonizers.
There are more of similarities than differences between these books, but Things
Fall Apart portrays a better picture of colonization in Africa than Heart of Darkness. Heart of
Darkness didn’t really talk much about the ethnic groups and the life of the natives. In Things
Fall Apart, we learn how brutal the colonization was and how the indigenous people had to
change their standards of living because of the strong influence of the colonizers. We learn a
lot about the history of Africa because of these two books. There were many existing notions
in Africa such as blindly following traditions. We also see how different was the government
of the indigenous people. Achebe has included ill-treatment of women, murder and killings,
superstitious beliefs, war and other things which do not paint a good image for the African
population. But Achebe’s own brutal analysis of his tribesman is his very strength for his
appreciation of the cultures of Africa. The complex political structures, difficult personalities
who were at conflict with philosophies of self and those of communal responsibility, is
precisely the kind of vindication the world needed to know about a continent ‘so maliciously
misrepresented’. What accounts for the similarities and differences were the author’s national
origin, prior knowledge, and their motivations. Achebe was a Nigerian author and wrote
Things Fall Apart​ in an African’s point of view whereas Conrad was a Polish-British writer
and wrote ​Heart Of Darkness​ in an European’s point of view.
In conclusion, ​Things Fall Apart ​and ​Heart Of Darkness ​indeed have many
similarities and differences due to the national origins of the authors. In the ​Heart of
Darkness​, Joseph Conrad tries to explore the worlds that are hidden to the naked eye. From
his writing, we can depict that he can feel more than he can see and express more than he
could feel. In ​Things Fall Apart,​ Achebe clearly explained how destruction of a person’s
personality has been in our current tribes due to colonization, westernization, and
implementation of Christianity.