Hochschild's Ghost Analysis

In Barbara Kingsolver’s work, The Poisonwood Bible, Nathan Price is a character which responds to injustice in some significant way. Out of all the other characters, Nathan is the one who responds the most to an act of injustice by going on a campaign halfway around the world to somehow repay his obligation to God. He plans to do this by spreading Christianity, or at least his version of Christianity, to the native people of the Congo. The whole reason for him doing this is that he believes being wounded and leaving battle right before the rest of his company dies is an act of injustice and feels as if though he should have died there with his men. Nathan feels like he is a failure and is guilty for not dying with his brothers on the battlefield.

The nineteen-chapter, two part book starts off with a brief introduction. This introduction sets up the first part of the book, where the Hochschild describes the early life of Leopold and his main explorer: Henry Morton Stanley. From the first European-completed expedition of the Congo River and its basin to the Berlin Conference, Hochschild explains the story behind Leopold’s reception of the Congo - specifically how he gained power of the Congo with only the permission of

In Basil Davidson’s video, “Different but Equal”, Davidson examines ancient Africa, and how Africans were perceived in ancient and modern times. Davidson discusses pre-colonized Africa and its history, and how racism prevailed in the past and in modern day. By discussing early civilizations, as well as modern day perspectives, Davidson allows the viewer to have expansive information on how individuals view Africans and their culture.

In Chapter 1 and 2 of “Creating Black Americans,” author Nell Irvin Painter addresses an imperative issue in which African history and the lives of Africans are often dismissed (2) and continue to be perceived in a negative light (1). This book gives the author the chance to revive the history of Africa, being this a sacred place to provide readers with a “history of their own.” (Painter 4)

The Pitfalls of Liberalism was a document by Stokely Carmichael who is known as one of the most recognized exponents of the “Black Power.” Movement. Stokely Carmichaels main argument in this document is that the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King along with other civil rights activists had reached an endpoint since the use of “Widespread resistance within America” (238) was in effect. Throughout the semester, we have never seen a document where a leaders only solution to advance is by “calling for the mobilization of organized violence by African-Americans in order to seize political power” (238). The concept of calling upon one single race to take action is new. Carmichael’s intentions were to improve the pitfalls of the way liberals thought.

George Washington Williams, an African American legislator, and Kande Kamara, an African colonial subject, both experienced some of the most brutal products of European Imperialism. Williams, in the late nineteenth century, toured the Belgian controlled Congo and witnessed the harsh measures King Leopold implemented to maintain absolute control and bleed the country of its resources. Kamara, on the other hand, bore witness to the end result of overzealous imperial ambitions when he was forced to fight for the allies in the trenches of WWI. These two men’s experiences, although considerably different, both shed light on Europe’s colonial philosophy of racism and ethnic superiority and its position of immense power during this period.

In The Legacy, Basil Davidson discusses the legacies of colonialism in Africa and gives an insight on modern Africa and the successes and downfalls that it possesses. Moreover, he states that many of the issues seen in modern day Africa are not new and have their roots in the long years of European colonialism that profoundly shaped and continues to shape the continent. Throughout the documentary, various themes regarding postcolonial Africa are mentioned in depth. A few of the themes that Davidson highlights are modernization, ethnicism, corruption, inequality, dictatorship, and neocolonialism.

In the late-nineteen century, the term new imperialism became an element of politics implemented by many European powers to impose their supremacy around the globe. Between 1870 and 1914, as a result of the Great Depression (1873-1879), imperialistic powers such as Britain, France, Germany, and Belgium, constructed colonies and protectorates in Asia and Africa in order to exploit their resources and their labor . In 1880, France and Britain led European nations in the “scramble of Africa,” which divided the continent from 1880 to 1914. After the king of Belgium Leopold II conquered most of the Congo River with the excuse of promoting Christianity and civilization, other European nations caught “African fever.” As a result of the Berlin Conference (1884-1885), to which Africans were not invited, the imperialist competition in sub-Saharan Africa began . Consequently, violence became an element implemented by all European nations to retain control and subdue the population. However, in Leopold II’s Congo Free State the levels of violence and brutality were excessively high. As a protest against the cruelty and abuses conducted by the Belgian troops, Edward Morel, a British journalist and socialist, wrote “The Black Man’s Burden” in 1903. In this document, the author condemned the conditions of African people in Belgian Congo, reconnecting them to the presence of European

Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa is a historical fiction published in 1998 (Hochschild, 1998). It comprises a myriad of evidence to testify the Belgian King Leopold II’s atrocities in Congo between 1885 and 1908 for the sake of capturing the attention of various readers towards the Belgian imperialist delinquencies through a detailed narration of a number of main characters’, including George Washington Williams and William Henry Sheppard, experiences in Belgian Congo (Hochschild, 1998). In this excerpt, it illustrates William’s peaceful exploration in Congo as the first American-Black missionary. During his journey, not only did he explore the Congolese culture,

In the Novel “Cry the Beloved Country” by Alan Paton, two fathers are trying to put the pieces of there families back together while also keeping themselves together. Paton uses the racial tension in South Africa to illustrate many themes. The story is written before the apartheid in South Africa. There are many major themes in cry the beloved country but racism is definitely the biggest one it is used in political power, caused whites to fear blacks, and it destroys Kumalo’s family.

Sutter’s ghost could represent a lot of things in the play, but to me there is only one that stands out the most. The piano. Sutter’s ghost is haunting the Charles’ house throughout the play. We know that the Charles’ are not just imagining him because when Grace goes to the house, she senses him too. She says, “Something ain’t right here. I knew I shouldn’t have come back up in this house” p. (103). He could be haunting them because maybe it was Boy Willie who pushed him down his well and he is getting payback, but the one place where most of them hear him and see him is next to the piano. That’s why I believe that Sutter’s ghost represents the piano.

The New Imperialism in Africa was an expansion on Africa by Europe that was motivated by profit and prestige. One of the most famous Imperialists during the time was Cecil Rhodes. He said that “[Britain] must find new lands from which [it] can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit cheap slave labor that is available from the natives of the colonies.” (Document 3) Along with Rhodes, there were various other imperialists that strongly believed Britain and Europe as a whole was the most powerful force in the world and that therefore they alone had the right to “geopolitical dominance” (Document 5) “The White Man’s Burden” was what justified the European actions in Africa. The origin of this ideology came from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “The White Man’s Burden” (Document 6). The Europeans believed that it was their duty and burden to “civilize” the African natives.

Amadou Hampaté Bâ is extremely detailed throughout the book, The Fortunes of Wangrin, in explaining the colonial world in West African societies. He provides multiple examples in this work of fiction that precisely describe the factual aspects of African colonialism that we have discussed in class. I will point out a few of the examples that Bâ uses such as: limitations colonial governments set on Africans, the Métis relationships within colonies, and issues that arose, not only between Europeans and Africans, but within the native African communities as well. I will then point out certain details from the book that do not perfectly reflect the components of colonialism that we have studied in lecture.

The Congo in Africa was taken over and controlled by Belgium. Belgium 's ruler, King Leopold II, was the major influence of Congo being controlled by Belgium.

Although the nation has been fashioned very little by the human mind” (9515), Montaigne believes that “there is nothing barbarous and savage in that nation” (2515) and that French were so blinded by their own corrupted practices that they could not see how “whole noble and generous the nation’s practices were. The Europeans had a well-developed society that valued inventions, which was extremely different from the Nature that prevailed in the New World. Montaigne argues that “a man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice” (2515), which explains why the French saw that nation as inferior. To the French “there Is always the perfect religion, the perfect government, the perfect and accomplished manners in all things” (2515), but it was different for that nature as they remained in “wild’ life style with no stablished government or