Best of Week: An Africans View

The best idea from class was the idea of putting an Africans view into Heart of Darkness. Throughout the book, we see white peoples views. We can pretty much assume the narrator is white, since he is sitting and listening to Marlow telling the story as an equal. Marlow is a white character, as are the Manager, Kurtz, and most of the characters. We see the story through white peoples eyes.

The reason we only get white people's views is because of the time period the book was written. The book probably wouldn't have been read by as many people, or even published, if a black mans view was written. A big concept of the book is savagery, and how the white people are bringing civilization to Africa. Unless Conrad was somehow not a racist, like most of the men in the 19th/18th centuries, he would not have portrayed the Africans any other way.

The idea of putting another characters view into a story suggests there is a side missing to a book. Heart of Darkness has black characters in it, but none of their opinions, views, or voices are heard. Where could we even put a black characters voice in? My suggestion would be the narrator. This would skew the whole entire story. Instead of respecting Marlow, this person might hate or resent him.

This idea of a side of the story missing applies to everything. Everything we read, listen to, or see has a second side. In Heart of Darkness, no one ever asked the black people how they felt about Kurtz, or the Company. No one cared. If they would have asked the Africans how they felt about white people taking over their homelands, they would not have gotten positive responses.

Including this second side of the story would have added another layer to Heart of Darkness. Not that their aren't enough layers already. But with every point of view you add, another level of complexity arises. The relationship between the white, European men and the African "savages" is an interesting one that we haven't learned too much about. It would be eye opening to see this side.

I could see myself using this idea of adding the second side to things in my writing and daily life. As I said earlier, when you add that extra layer to a story, it becomes that much greater. In daily life, looking at both sides of things helps us make decisions. When faced with a problem, if you look at both sides of it, you are bound to see the positives and the negatives of the situation.