Heart Of Darkness And Things Fall Apart Essay

Throughout the books Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, and Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, both of the authors have been giving the readers a constant reminder about the topic of othering. Whether the topic of othering was clear or hidden in the words, both Conrad and Achebe stress the fact that humans tend to alienate when they are faced with something different. How the authors introduced this topic came in various different ways, including how certain people were characterized, how symbolism was used, and how the book’s structure was composed.

Throughout the books, different people were eventually introduced, but they were usually looked upon differently by the people of whom the main characters are a part of. As in Things Fall

In Things Fall Apart, it was written from the Africans’ perspective for the first half of the book, then white men show up in the second half of the book (Achebe). This enables the reader to feel more comfortable with the tribe’s life and once the white men enter, the reader will feel uncomfortable enough to other the white men. In Achebe's book, not only is he writing about othering, he is also implementing the concept of othering with his readers. In Heart of Darkness, it was written from a white man’s perspective and during this time, the Africans were treated horribly as they were slaves, but then the white man meets the Africans in their home in the second half (Conrad). Here, the author also uses a similar structure of his book in order to settle the reader’s perspective as the white man’s and uses this to make the reader feel insecure once they meet the African tribes in the second half, which was way different from slaves, making them want to other. Even though there were Africans during the first part of the book, the representation of the Africans changed from the first half of the book during the second half of the book, allowing readers to feel insecure and other