Africa as setting and backdrop which eliminates the African as human factor. Africa as a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognizable humanity, into which the wandering European enters at his peril. Can nobody see the preposterous and perverse arrogance in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind? But that is not even the point. The real question is the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this age-long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the world. And the question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the human race, can be called a great work of art. My answer is: No, it cannot.
This upset a lot of liberal-minded people (who saw Conrad as critiquing the very imperialist perspective that Achebe suggested he was the product of). But my post does not really concern this debate. It just starts there.
Achebe himself was a novelist, writing Things Fall Apart in 1958, years before he famously criticized Conrad. The novel, written in English and set in what is now Nigeria in the last decade of the 1800s (maybe early 1900s...I don't remember if it ever says), is concerned with providing a fuller picture of African culture (specifically the Ibo tribe/people). The religion, law, ritual, values--the entire Ibo society, which is centered on orality--is presented for a good hundred pages before the white men first appear.
The passage I want to focus my attention on is the final two paragraphs of chapter 16, as Christianity is introduced to Umuofia and the surrounding villages (to mixed reviews). Okonkwo is the book's protagonist.
The missionary...went on to talk about the Holy Trinity. At the end of it Okonkwo was fully convinced that the man was mad. He shrugged his shoulders and went away to tap his afternoon palm-wine.
But there was a young lad who had been captivated. His name was Nwoye, Okonkwo's first son. It was not the mad logic of the Trinity that captivated him. He did not understand it. It was the poetry of the new religion, something felt in the marrow. The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul--the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. He felt a relief within as the hymn poured into his parched soul. The words of the hymn were like the drops of frozen rain melting on the dry palate of the panting earth. Nwoye's callow mind was greatly puzzled.
[NOTE: The question that haunts Nwoye regarding the "twins crying in the bush" refers to the Ibo custom of exposing twins in the forest outside of the village. Ikemefuna was a boy that came to live in Okonkwo's household. He was sent as part of a peace offering after a man from Ikemefuna's tribe killed a woman from Okonkwo's tribe. He became like a brother to Nwoye until it was decided by the village Oracle (three years after his arrival) that he should be killed by the men of the village.]
As the novel progresses, we see Christianity portrayed in both positive and negative light. It is there at its worst: just another facet in the imperialistic gem. Rev. James Smith is the character that illustrates this kind of Christianity: proud, rash, narrow-minded, and provocative (even destructive). On the other side is Mr. Brown, the first white missionary to Umuofia. He attempts (with mixed successes) to win converts by getting to know the people (and their way of life) rather than blindly imposing his religion on the tribe.
So, too, the native converts can be seen a couple of ways. It is the weak and powerless that are the most eager converts: the people excluded from taking titles in the tribe, and outcasts. In short, the people with the most to gain. (I Corinthians 1:26-31 is an interesting text to read against this.) Because of this, the arrival of Christianity is of no concern to the existing religion because it only attracts the undesirable elements of Ibo society. But with Nwoye's interest in the religion, Achebe gives Christianity a weight that cannot be easily overlooked, dismissed, or reduced. Something he recognized Conrad never gave to Africa.
In sum, Achebe's entire book can be seen as an attempt at redeeming Africa. Not redemption in the religious sense of gaining eternal salvation, but redemption in its original sense of re-valuing, buying back. Because he sees Africa as a thing (and a people) that have been misunderstood and misrepresented by colonial powers (even into the late-20th century), Achebe is in the envious position of showing these same powers the value that they missed. (This congenital misunderstanding continues to the very end of the book, which I won't ruin for you. However, I will say that the ending perfectly illustrates the cultural lacuna between the Ibo and English with the planned English retelling of Okonkwo's story.)
Finally, to tell this story of redemption, it is necessary that Achebe writes in the language of the Colonizer. I think this decision is at the heart of redemption. Redemption bridges gaps. It communicates what was not previously understood (or was misunderstood) in a perfectly understandable manner.
"You have heard that it was said..."
"But I tell you..."
"There is no story that is not true."
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