Is the Colonization of Africa

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Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe both involve the colonization on Africa. In Heart of Darkness, the author talks about how savage the natives were and how much there was a need to update the living conditions of the natives and to help them become better people. In Things Fall Apart, the author talks about how the white people came in with their bicycles and their new religion. He talks about how they turned some of their own people against them. In his eyes, the white people came in to destroy the natives beliefs, traditions and gods. They tried to convince the natives that there was only one God and not a group of lesser Gods. Achebe and Conrad do not have the same perception of the effects of colonization on Africa.

In Things Fall Apart, the author views the colonization of the white people as an invasion on the natives' living conditions.

When the white people first begin to move into the natives' land the natives thought that it was a joke, but they soon realize that the white people are beginning to take over. Many of the native people begin to join the white people and worship their God, including Okonkwo's son Nwoye. "One morning Okonkwo's cousin, Amikwu, was passing by the church on his way from the neighbouring village, when he saw Nwoye among the Christians."( Achebe, 151) Amikwu tells Okonkwo this and upon Nwoye's return home, he beats him and kicks him out of his house. Nwoye eventually becomes happy about leaving his father and is given a new name Isaac. This does not help the way some of the natives feel about the colonization. They are beginning to lose the members of there own faith...