Things Fall Apart and Heart of Darkness: Similar Settings and Superficially Similar Issues?

Similarities between Things Fall Apart and Heart of Darkness.Much literary criticism find similarities between two books, merely because they have similar settings or address superficially similar issues. Such is the case with Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Achebe's Things Fall Apart.Although these two books do have much incommon, and focus on similar topics, they still have fundamentally different purposes. ThingsFall Apart tries to show that Africanculture was valuable, not primitive, while Heart of Darkness strives to ridicule European activityin Africa, not because it was badfor the Africans, but because in many ways it was bad for the Europeans. These differences canbe found by examining the various themesthat the two books propose, and also are particularly clear after a discussion of the two books'treatment of race. I will address thetwo books separately before comparing them side-by-side. Things Fall Apart tries to show that African culture, despite its weaknesses, was worthwhile. Thestrongest evidence of this is merenumbers - over three quarters of the book is dedicated to character development, plot, anddescription of village life, before thewhite men even enter the story. When the narrator refers to the Europeans as ``strange men,'' itis clear that he does so from thepoint of view of an African. But the rub is in the narrator's treatment of the Africans. The entirebook is filled with quotes such as``among these people, a man is judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father,'' which serve to tell aboutthe Umuofia people. Certainly the village is not a safe place to live, as is shown by Ezeudu'sson's death. Still, Okwonkwo's resultingexile allows Achebe to describe another African village, as well as the principle of ``Mother issupreme.'' In this way is Okwonkwo'sexile consistent with the purpose of the book - to show that Umuofian, and, by extension,African, culture was worthwhile. Another, similar, facet is the fashion in which justice is dispatched in the village. Thetextit{egwugwu} do more than just dispatchjustice; they serve as the spiritual guides for the village. It is possible that some of the villagersrecognize that although theworldly manifestations of the textit{egwugwu} are people, their godly representations isnecessary to spiritual and civil maintainanceof the village. This is expressed by Achebe himself when he writes begin{quote} Okwonkwo'swives, and perhaps other women as well,might have noticed the second textit{egwugwu} had the springy walk of Okwonkwo. And theymight have noticed that Okwonkwo was notamong the titled men and elders who sat behind the row of textit{egwugwu}. But if they thought