The novels Heart of Darkness (1900) and Things Fall Apart (1956) are the most unique and outstanding works based on philosophical and psychological interpretations, historical and sociological issues. Both works reflect disillusion and grief experienced by African people. The authors vividly portray that the end of the slave trade brought a severe economic crisis that was not really overcome until the twentieth century. Grandiose plans for colonization, intended to make Africa a “second Brazil,” achieved very modest results: a few coffee planters settled in the central highland.
Thesis
Both works are great works of art as they depict the reality of life and skillfully portray human suffering and hardship experienced by millions of propelling.
The title Heart of Darkness has a symbolic meaning portraying history and rejection of African values and traditions Thus, while the dominance of the trading class continued, a small settler class with its own political goals arose alongside it. In wild rubber, moreover, the whites had a new, easily collectible, potential export product. But the transition from a labor-exporting economy to one which utilized local natural resources seems to have been beyond Portuguese strength. The African colonies were also subservient to the needs of the more important Asian and South American possessions. The work of art reflects the reality of life and hardship experienced by people: “The vision seemed to enter the house with me – the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests,… the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart – the heart of a conquering darkness” (Conrad 66).
Similar to Heart of Darkness, the novel Things Fall Apart depicts cruelty and oppression dominated inside the African continent. Achebe vividly depicts that the administrador embodied military, administrative, and judicial authority, all three. He saw to law and order, the execution of the law, and the completion of public works. He supervised tax collection, administered the census, and watched over and advised local chiefs. He also served as the lowest level of the judicial system, since, in contrast to British practice, there were no native courts. Finally, it was the administrador’s duty to see to it, as the law quaintly stated, that “the natives gave up their habits of indolence” and became peasants and agricultural laborers. “Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” (Achebe 32).
Conrad uses avid images of oppression and suffering to create a unique world unknown to European people. The difference is governed not merely by language, but by an entire attitude. At once serious in nature and ludicrous in expression, is representative of the general dramatic situation in which the evil characters of the novel find themselves. This curious juxtaposition of elements has been aptly characterized by the phrase, evil. Like other colonizing powers, the whites also acted on the maxim of divide and rule, destroying the larger African polities in order to integrate the smaller divisions into the colonial state. That radically altered the political landscape and also ushered in fundamental social and economic transformations. The latter did not always signify progress for the Africans but because they lay outside the ken of colonial officials went unconsidered by them. “When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality—the reality, I tell you—fades. The inner truth is hidden—luckily, luckily. But I felt it all the same” (Conrad 87). Conrad uses the word “reality” to depict the essence of the wilderness.
Similar to Conrad, Achebe portrays historical settings and social relations inside the African community. The creation of a unified territorial administration was one of the aims sought by reformers around the turn of the century. Another less important aim was securing more autonomy for the individual colonies. These demands, coming from leading colonial officials, coincided with wishes which local communities of white settlers and businessmen had been expressing for years. Built to convey a theme of highest eminence to an audience of broadest diversity, they combined symbolism, typology, realism, and homiletics. Within a dramatic context representing the providential order that governed all things and all mankind, there arose a dramaturgical method that staged evil as something comic, not only for reasons grounded in the medieval philosophy of evil but for the more practical homiletic purpose of engaging the least sophisticated of minds. Though evil in the mysteries could be laughed at, it could not lightly be dismissed; even in its most grotesque or ludicrous manifestations, it remained a ubiquitous force in the earthly existence of man. Achebe questions: n understand our custom about land?” “How can he when he does not even speak our tongue? But he says that our customs are bad; our own brothers who have taken up his religion also say that our customs are bad. How do you think we can fight when our own brothers have turned against us?” (Achebe 43) Evil conventions were being firmly established: the discomfiture of the godless was consistently represented by two basic emotions–wrath and despair; the suffering of innocents, on the other hand, was dramatized in lyric lamentation, and consistently arose from established situations either as part of Christ’s passion or within a domestic context. And all the elements of suffering and evil were rendered endurable and intelligible in terms of the over-ruling, benevolent, and just scheme of Christian providence. Awareness of this scheme, both in its ideological and dramaturgical dimensions, was the key to the interpretation of suffering and evil on the medieval stage.
The Heart of Darkness can be seen as a greater literary achievement as it utilizes unique characters, plot, themes, symbols, and historical context. In contrast, Things Fall Apart pays more attention to characters and the plot but diminishes the role of historical events in narration. In the Heart of Darkness, “darkness” represents the evil that is rooted in man himself, and which poses a constant temptation to his worst inclinations, as well as a constant threat to his spiritual security. For the man who falls there await the punishments of physical affliction and spiritual desperation, from which he can be extracted only by grace and trust. The basic framework is simple and mechanical, designed to be understood by everyone; and like most simple mechanisms, it was destined to last a surprisingly long time.
In sum, both works deserve appreciation and appraisal but the Heart of Darkness is more realistic and trustworthy. The suffering of the human heroes, in either their physical or spiritual forms, is always retributive because of the homiletic nature of the novels Since the moral hero is essentially the man who falls victim to vice, there are no suffering innocents. In the rigidly defined structure of morality, both suffering and evil are non-problematic. If the dramatic context of the novel provided the essential clue for the interpretation of evil and suffering, the solidity and permanence of that context were responsible for the unshakeable conventions which governed the expression of suffering and evil.
References
- Achebe, Ch. Things Fall Apart: A Novel. Anchor, 1994.
- Conrad, J. Heart of Darkness. Prestwick House Inc, 2004.