Achebe

Question 1

4 schools of thought in response to Achebe’s essay

Answer 1

1) Historicists: believe that there is nothing wrong with Heart of Darkness, as given the socio-political atmosphere, Conrad’s work is fairly progressive/ anti colonial (by comparison to Kipling, Haggard etc). Criticism is unfair based on anachronistic criteria
2) Believe that Hof D cannot be racist due to its critical position towards the colonial mission, and its sympathetic view of the Congolese people
3) Post- colonialists: agree with Achebe, believe that Hof D is a highly flawed and derogatory image of Africa, which is only seen through the eyes of Europe
4) Psychoanalysist’s Africa/ the Congo is just a metaphor for a space in which Kurtz/ Marlow can lose their mind. Africa is allegorical for a psychological decent / the battle between good and evil/ the id an the superego

Question 2

Achebe on the social/ moral value of Art

Answer 2

• he dismisses the aestheticist view that art should be art for art’s sake
• believes that art has deep social and moral implications as it reflects and propagates social views/ values; IT MUST be didactic

Question 3

traditionalists vs progressive critics

Answer 3

• traditionalist critics: believe that canonical works which exhibit a highly aesthetic value should be excused for containing racist/ sexist/ homophobic values, due to their aritstic value
• progressive critics: contest a literary canon that carries racist sexist homophobic etc values
• this debate is ultimately based on differing theories of art and whether its core value should be formal aesthetics, or social/ pedagogic

Question 4

What did Achebe promote in regards of imperial/ colonial literature alongside Ngugi wa thiong’o

Answer 4

• the importance of depicting the COLONISED in colonial literature NOT just the coloniser
• to re-write colonial narrative and give voice to the often highly othered and dehumanised African subject

Question 5

Style of opening paragraph

Answer 5

• appears to be a breezy anecdote, but has a dark message: this demonstrates how deeply integrated racism is in European culture- it is normalised
• the normalisation of racist values/ the impact of Conrad’s art on societal values foregrounded through the Professors use of Conradian language (fellow)
• demonstrates all the micro-agressions that people of colour are forced to deal with

Question 6

what is the role of Africa for the European

Answer 6

• links into structuralism: European logo-centrism depicts Africa as the foil of Europe- its binary opposite
• Europe projects all its physical and moral depravity upon Africa: this makes Africa dangerous/ a place to be feared BUT it allows Europe to maintain a facade of wellness
• Used as a backdrop: the entire continent of Africa and ALL its inhabitants are rendered useless/ insignificant

Question 7

similarity between the extract from the magazine at the end and conrad

Answer 7

• Magazine: talks of the Languages of children of African and Indian origin as being ‘dialects’: connotations of ignorance, not REAL language, just unofficial variations
• Conrad: says that the Africans grunt/ howl/ make noises
• in BOTH cases these people re denied a voice

Question 8

Achebe on English liberalism

Answer 8

• ironic tone ‘deeply shocked’, ‘atrocities
• suggests it is feigned interest: ‘the Belgians of wherever else’
• obligation, not something they ACTUALLY care about: ‘ all Englishmen of decency- their attitudes are completely self beneficial: they exist SOLELY to increase their credibility as an English gentleman

Question 9

How do Achebe’s accusations of racism change throughout his essay?

Answer 9

orally: Conrad is a bloody racist
pg. 1618: Conrad is a thoroughgoing racist
pg. 1619: his obvious racism has, however, never been addressed (shifts the blame onto the reader)
pg. 1619: there remains still in Conrad’s attitude a residue of antipathy to black people

Question 10

conrad’s use of dashes

Answer 10

he uses dashes at the start of his essay to describe the both the success of The Heart of Darkness and its permanence within the literary canon, as well as the fragility of his own novel, things fall apart to be even included within school curriculum

Question 11

what are the two meanings that Achebe draws out from the anecdote at the beginning?

Answer 11

• Adult man is more blameworth: has the duty to educate himself
• The didactic impact of books: children rely on books to find out about the past/ different countries

Question 12

Achebe’s use of punctuation:

Answer 12

frequent use of exclaimation mark: a typical of a formal, written essay (may reflect that the essay was a lecture)
- demostrates Achebe’s sense of exaspheration/ shock

Question 13

what is the danger of Africa being dehumanised and used as a backdrop?

Answer 13

• it has real life consequences for African people
• this is reflected by the structure: begins with a real life impact of dehumanisation, which remains fresh in the memory of the reader/ listeners liekm a bitter taste
• because of the real life impacts of heart of darknesss it should be excluded from the canon

Question 14

how does achebe dispose of counter agruments?

Answer 14

• uses the antiphonal voice and then explains why they are wrong
• uses extracts from the text as explicit evidence to support his points (one must be cautious of this, however because it is easy to contextualise quotes)

Question 15

what reason does Achebe give for why use cant use historicism as an argument?

Answer 15

• despite Conrad being born into the height of colonial rule/ power, his racism appears worse than the average person of his time

Question 16

what reason does Achebe give for why use cant use aestheticism as an argument?

Answer 16

• the net positive of the aesthetics of Conrad’s style do not override the net damage of the social implications of the text

Question 17

what reason does Achebe give for why use cant use fiction as an argument?

Answer 17

• Believes that Marlow and Conrad are very similar (this is reinforced STYLISTICALLY by calling the narrator Marlow/Conrad- which merges visually the two figures
• in his other fiction, when using an unrealiable narrator, Conrad distances himself from it explicitially, this doesn toccur in HofD

Question 18

What was the first wave of Post-colonial criticism

Answer 18

• dispelling the widespread view that 1) africa had no culture, was a place full of savages. 2) was the ‘other’ to Europe 3) fetishization of Africa/ Africans. 4) combat the historical exclusion of African that arose due to colonialism
• this was often influenced by marxist thought, however Achebe’s essay is more humanist than marxist

Question 19

second wave of post-colonial criticism

Answer 19

• Post-colonial theory became more theoretical: it used structuralism/ post/deconstructionism, as well as feminist, psychoanalytic etc criticism to try to understand HOW representation is created
• this coincided with the rise of intersectionality: what does it mean to be of colour and a woman? or a queer person?

Question 20

Cedric Watt’s response to Achebe’s essay “A bloody racist”

Answer 20

• also begins with a personal anecdote
• he writes with a sense of unease, but ultimately, his argument is that since he has a black friend/ listens to black music he cant be racist
• suggests that Achebe uses unreliable quotes/ takes them out of context and omits all the quotes where Conrad is highly critical of colonisation