29 pages • 58 minutes read
An Image of Africa
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Key Figures
Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe (1930-2013) was a renowned Nigerian author, professor, and literary critic. A pivotal figure in African literature, Achebe is best known for his 1950 novel, Things Fall Apart, which precedes No Longer at Ease (1960) and Arrow of God (1964) in his African Trilogy. As a subject of British colonization, Achebe’s literary and critical works are concerned with the impact of colonization on Igbo culture, making him one of the foremost celebrated West African postcolonial writers.
Achebe was born to evangelical Christian parents who nonetheless valued and upheld their traditional Igbo culture. The confluence of these two cultural influences would deeply impact Achebe’s writing: the rich tradition of Igbo storytelling augmented by a British literary education. An accomplished student, Achebe attended University College, an offshoot of the University of London, which was founded in preparation of Nigeria’s eventual independence from British rule. After graduating, Achebe became a teacher, then a script writer for the Nigerian Broadcast Service. During this time, he began work on Things Fall Apart, which was nearly ignored by the manuscript transcription company to which he sent it.
Achebe became a writer in response to reading such novels as Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness due to their dehumanized, stereotypical portrayal of Africans. Specifically, Achebe was inspired to write “An Image of Africa,” his scathing critique of Joseph Conrad and Heart of Darkness, by the dismissive and condescending attitude the West tends to take toward African literature and culture—an attitude, he argues, that extends to African people as well. Prior to Achebe, there were very few works of literature written in English by African writers. Achebe was acutely aware of the intersection of representation and power; his works, including “An Image of Africa,” aim to claim an authentic perspective of Africa.
Joseph Conrad
Born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in present-day Ukraine, Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was a highly influential Polish British writer, best known for works such as Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, and Nostromo. Conrad experienced exile and displacement early in life due to his family's political opposition to Russian imperialism. He eventually became a sailor, a career which brought him into contact with diverse cultures and colonial territories, particularly in Africa and Asia. Africa would have a particularly deep impact on his writing career. Despite not learning English until his 20s, Conrad is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English literary canon.
Conrad’s most famous work, Heart of Darkness (1899), explores the psychological and moral unraveling of its protagonist, Charles Marlow, during a journey up the Congo River under Belgian colonial rule. Conrad is often praised for his ability to depict the moral ambiguity and complexity of human psychology; however, as initiated by Chinua Achebe’s essay “An Image of Africa,” modern examinations of his work tend to criticize his problematic, stereotypical, and even racist depictions of people of color. In his essay, Achebe argues that Conrad’s portrayal of Africa as the dark antithesis of Europe and Africans as “savages” dehumanizes the continent and its people, reducing them to mere props for exploring European characters’ moral dilemmas. Achebe critiques Conrad’s apparent unwillingness to imagine Africa and its people as possessing complexity, agency, or humanity. Some scholars contend that his portrayal of imperialism in Heart of Darkness reflects a critique, if not a total disavowal, of imperial exploitation. However, “An Image of Africa” argues that this cannot excuse the racial essentialism and dehumanization present in his work. Conrad’s attitude is reflective of the broader attitude of Western liberalism. The solution, then, is to cease to elevate problematic texts as an essential part of the Western canon and to listen to the voices of the colonized people, who know the horrors of imperialism more intimately than Conrad ever could.
Unlock all 29 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Chinua Achebe
