Comparing Cultures in Things Fall Apart and Heart of Darkness :: comparison compare contrast essays

Clashing Cultures in Things Fall Apart and Heart of wickedness A culture defines what its people perceive about plague, the place it gives to wo custody, and its family relationship with other cultures. The Ibo and European people in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, have two distinct cultures that begin to blend when the white men come as missionaries and try to communicate and live together with the Africans. European culture also differs from native culture on the Congo rivers in Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness. Only one man, Kurtz, really connects with the natives and then is taken forward dying by his fellow Europeans. Evil is defined by its culture, whether it be how the culture accepts another culture and condemns as villainy or identifying proper(postnominal) items as repulsiveness. In Things Fall Apart, the Ibo culture veiled the Africans as naif natives who held their own different, seen as demonic, ways and traditions. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow viewed the na tives with whom Kurtz is staying with as evil and feels their evil when he met them after traveling down the river. Once he heard that Kurtz ordered the natives to attack his ship, his views changed a little. Marlow experienced the evil that Kurtz did, and the thus far had the sickness that Kurtz died from. In both of these novels, specific places represent evil things in different cultures. Europeans treat a church as holy demonstrate only if to the Ibo culture who didnt know Jesus, it was just a building embossed by the white invaders who settled among them. Europeans found the Congo River and a townspeople on its banks and it was thought of as evil because they hadnt experienced living in that respect or vines covering them as they traveled along the river added to their thinking of an evil atmosphere. In Things Fall Apart, the clan refers to a forest as an evil forest and they cast everything they deem into it. For example, twins were thought of as a curse when born so they were cast into the forest and left to die. The evil forest didnt seem so evil to the European missionaries who came because they hadnt adopted this particular belief of evil into their culture. In fact, the clan purposely granted get down in the evil forest to missionaries for their church, believing evil would destroy them, but the missionaries did last until the church was burnt down by members of the clan.