Tribes: A Look At Racism in "Heart of Darkness" According to Chinua Achebe

We all belong to tribes. No, I don't mean dancing around a bonfire chanting sacrificial hymns. What I mean is we're all part of groups and communities that share customs and even superstitions, much like the stereotyped "tribes" we've seen in Native American and African history. This is important to keep in mind when we live in a society that laughs at a people, say the Native Americans, who believe that a special dance will bring rain, when most Americans believe wishing for something on social media will grant their every desire.

Much of this comes from the human desire to place ourselves above another group of people. European society is one of the most prominent examples of this mentality. During the scramble for Africa in the late nineteenth century, the advanced European society directly clashed with the still very dated African society. This greatly encouraged imperialists to put themselves above the Africans in both status and superiority. Here is where Joseph Conrad's novella, Heart of Darkness, takes place.

Many have accused Conrad's story of being racist and ignorant of African culture and history. The most well-known and credited of these accusers being Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. His belief is that Heart of Darkness, a story about a European ivory agent's journey up the Congo river in African society, attempts to show that "things being in their place is of the utmost importance". In other words, cannibals and savages belong in Africa while civilized white folk belong in Europe. That's a harsh message coming from a novel that is acclaimed as one of the greatest written English novels ever published. But in truth, what the novel does is show what happens when someone leaves their place, confirming Achebe's statement. The main protagonist, Marlow, journeys out of European civilization and throws himself into the harsh, hostile environment of the Congo, a decision he later regrets for obvious reasons. But does that mean all societies will try to kill you if they're not for "your kind"?

Chinua Achebe

Obviously not. Just because I'm a fan of theatre doesn't mean I'll get murdered if I go to a basketball game. You may say that's downsizing the overall picture, but really it's not. Even within our own nations we belong to different groups and societies. Within an area as small as a high school campus there are hundreds of clubs and cliches that separate students from one another. But that does not mean that the intermingling of those people is wrong or harmful in any way. In fact, it could be the answer to many of the problems faced both today and in history. Had Marlow's ivory company shared the technologies and knowledge of European society, perhaps they wouldn't have viewed them as "savage". The real savagery lies not in what makes us different, but in what makes us separate ourselves out of fear of being similar.

T'was a Dark and Stormy Night on Wuthering Heights

T'was a dark and stormy night. You're stranded in the chaos of swirling rain and wind, lost with no where to go. Just as you are about to abandon hope and give into death's cold grip, a light suddenly appears in the distance! You scramble towards the eery beacon, so desperate you fail to notice the sign reading: DO NOT ENTER. As you inch nearer, the source of the light comes into focus. A large, dark, gloomy, run-down house with boarded windows and rotting wood remains still as a mountain amidst the ongoing storm. For the first time you hesitate, but a large gust of bone chilling wind reminds you of your purpose. You run up the creaky porch with a fist already raised, prepared to knock for entry, when suddenly you realize the door is already ajar. A lone specter waits in the gaping mouth of the dark residence, as if anticipating your arrival. You say hello and ask for shelter. There is no response. Wiping the rain from your eyes you try once more to say hello, only to see an empty doorway to a house that no longer offers any light or hope of enduring the cruel weather.

What a bone-chilling scenario! The feeling of being stranded with no where to go amidst a violent storm is familiar for most people of this era. Not so much because we've actually experienced it through first hand situations, but because we've experienced it through novels, movies, and stories. Think for a second and try to remember every book or movie you've ever read or seen that opened with a stranded protagonist looking for shelter. Eventually, this protagonist ends up in an eery setting where chaos and paranoia ensue. The movie, The Woman in Black, which came out just a few years ago starring Daniel Radcliffe, was about a man who got trapped in a haunted estate due to a flood and had to survive encounter after encounter with the residence's notorious ghost. The Disney Channel movie properly titled A Haunted Mansion, starring Eddie Murphy, had almost the same scenario, just more kid friendly. But where did all of this start? Why is this story structure so popular when writers want to creep out their audiences?

An illustration from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights

Well, all of these stories are rich with elements of the gothic. Gothic novels were becoming increasingly popular during the early nineteenth century. Novels such as Dracula and Frankenstein shocked their audiences with themes of death and activity of the paranormal that had never been explored before. However, the most interesting of these dark gothic tales came in 1847 when Emily Brontë wrote her one and only novel Wuthering Heights. Brontë used the stuck-in-a-storm scenario along with many gothic elements in much more passive, yet effective, ways than anyone before or after her. It starts off her plot as one of her narrators, a certain Mr. Lockwood, must stay the night at Wuthering Heights, a large decrepit old house, during a violent storm. That very night, Lockwood finds himself in the clutch of a ghosty hand belonging to a mysterious woman! The rest I'll leave for you to discover on your own.

How to Read Poetry 101: Looking at the Fine Print

Poems, in my opinion, are often like foggy pieces of glass. They’re put in front of us and, all too often, we don’t quite understand what we’re looking at. At times, the fog is a light mist that can be easily scrubbed away with a little bit of effort. However, it is often the case with myself that the glass is so grimy I need twenty bottles of Windex and a Sham-wow to comprehend what’s on the other side. Such was the case when I first looked at “Base Details” by Siegfried Sassoon. Like any good reader of poetry, my initial instinct was to read this out loud. It sounded like nonsense at first, but after evaluating every minute detail, as infinitesimal as they seemed, a light bulb finally began to flicker in my head! 

"Base Details" by Siegfried Sassoon

IF I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,	5
Reading the Roll of Honour. ‘Poor young chap,’
I’d say—‘I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.’
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die—in bed.	10

The poem starts out with some dazzling visual imagery as the speaker puts him/herself into the shoes of someone who is “fierce, and bald, and short of breath” (Sassoon 1). Who could this revolting person be? The next line left me scratching my head for a while as I learned that this mystery person had “scarlet Majors and the Base” (Sassoon 2). Just the fact that the words “majors” and “base” were capitalized led me to believe they were significant. After reading the entire piece over and over again, I began to pick up on a war/militaristic theme. This led me to infer that “scarlet Majors at the Base” was some sort of declaration of authority. Alright, well what does this speaker have against authority figures in the military? Based off of his/her negative visual imagery, we can infer as an audience that he/she is trying to get some sort of critical message across. In line five, we’re given the impression that these authority figures are pretty well off as they’re “Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel” (Sassoon 5). So, offensive number one is that this person is well off and the description of his/her “puffy petulant face” suggests that it’s in a state of gluttony (Sassoon 4). We also learn that this figure of authority “speed[s] glum heroes up the line to death” (Sassoon 3). Isn’t that a pretty picture? At this point, the author has already painted in our heads the picture of a presumably fat man/woman of power living comfortably in a fancy hotel whilst sending off brave men to fight their wars. That’s quite a statement to fit within five lines of poetry! All that’s needed now is the cherry on top, the icing on the cake. Looking at the last five lines of the poem, it is clear that the speaker is highlighting the ignorance and incompetence of this figure of power as he/she casually reads of a soldier’s death in the “Roll of Honour” as if the milkman down the street had just passed away (Sassoon 6). He/she states “‘I used to know his father well…’” and uses that as they’re only feeling of remorse towards this man’s death (Sassoon 7). To top it all off, at the end of the day, this revolting figure of power and authority would “toddle safely home and die—in bed” (Sassoon 10). As if it hadn’t already been enough, the speaker punches out that final pos t that while this man/woman hides idly behind his/her power, soldiers are dying on the front.

The title, of course, cannot be forgotten either. "Base" can be another word for dull or unimportant. Perhaps the speaker was trying to convey how leaders of the military view their thousands of soldiers. If one life was lost, is it really that much of a loss to them? Perhaps to these figures of power, it's nothing but fine print that they can easily afford to ignore.

Danger Ahead: George Orwell's Ominous Warning

The world holds many different signs of warning. We often see several of them on our daily commute to school or work. They appear on our television screens when a winter storm is approaching and light up our phones if a tornado is near. But some warning signs are not so straightforward.

George Orwell acts as the messenger for a haunting warning of what the future of our world may hold in his satirical novel, 1984. In his world of probable reality, the government controls everything and society is in a state of absolute conformity. No one is free, and most believe that's a good thing. War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. That is....most believe it's a good thing. Winston Smith hasn't allowed the shadow of his government to extinguish his flame just yet. In fact, he could just be the match to burn his world's corruption to the ground.

But what does it all mean? The best satire has the habit of giving its audience the uneasy feeling that their story has a larger meaning than it seems. Of course, 1984 is no exception. Orwell asks us the simple question: in what direction are we all headed? Where will our society end up if we don't change our ways? In many ways, his prediction became true. While there aren't any colossal "Big Brother" posters staring at us with brooding eyes, we are being watched. On most street corners, there are surveillance cameras being used to keep stores safe from robbers. On every cell phone there's an HD lens that can capture any moment at any time. Satellites in space are capable of taking photos of the entire Earth in incredible detail. Now I'
m not trying to create some illuminati conspiracy theory, but there's no way of knowing where all this data goes...or how it's really being used. Companies are able to figure out your interests by viewing your internet history and place ads for their company in places online that you're most likely to see them. It's scary!

Then there's the infamous year to consider: 1984. It's obvious that Orwell's fortune telling skills may be a little off as far as dates go, but that doesn't mean they should be disregarded. The apostles thought Jesus was going to return to end the world just two days after he left! Here we are, two thousand years later, and Judgement Day is yet to come. In truth, it's rather impossible to set a date to any of these things. Perhaps that's why Orwell picked a date so soon to his book's publication. He knew that date would be wrong. I personally don't believe he ever considered himself a master at fortune telling, and that modestly drove him away from pretending he did. Surely people laughed when the year 1984 came and left, much like people today laugh at the seemingly ridiculous predictions of Back to the Future Part II. What's important to keep in mind is that dates mean nothing. What matters is the inevitability of what Orwell believes to be our world's destined path.

"1984" by George Orwell - Half Time Report

Middle School was truly a magical time for me and many of my peers. It was when we finally began to grasp the world and what it meant to be alive. It was also when we first began to read books of a more complex level. During those four years I conquered the Harry Potter series, the Chronicles of Narnia, the Percy Jackson series, and (most importantly) the Hunger Games. Yes, Suzanne Collins' best-selling trilogy introduced me and my peers to the wonderful world of dystopia, and the genre has captivated me ever since. They are the ultimate "what if" novels that force us to reflect on the world we live in. One of my favorite books of all time is Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, who's eery predictions of the future are ever so slowly coming true. The same has been said about 1984 by George Orwell. Intrigued, I decided to pick it up and give it a whirl.

In my opinion, the most essential aspect of a dystopian story is the world it takes place in. After all, that's what puts the book in that genre. The world of 1984 is straight up NUTS (and after years of reading books about a society that forces children to kill each other in a televised arena of death, that's saying something).Sure, we've seen those stories with the "all eyes on you" concept, but Orwell takes that scenario to the extreme. First let's meet our main character, Winston Smith (no, not Churchill), who's live is a daily routine of get up, go to work, come home, sleep, rinse, and repeat. Like the typical main character of a dystopian, Winston wants to rebel. He hates the world he lives in, where your every move is monitored by the ever watchful "Big Brother". Every breath you take, every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, he'll be watching you. Creepy, right? Oh we're just getting started. Sure, they can see what you do and hear what you say, but what is they could also know what you THINK? That's right, in this world there are such thing as the "Thought Police", an elite group of spies hidden among the people looking for any sign of rebellion. Not just actions, but any sign that may reveal a person has been thinking of it is illegal. This place is crazy and I'm only half way through with the book.

Othello: A TBT to Middle School Drama

We've all been there. A supposed friend lies to another friend and that other friend ends up doing something that they regret based on that lie. In situations like this, we're either that "friend", the other "friend", or one of those bystanders sitting on the side lines with a bag of popcorn enjoying the show. Anyone who's ever attended Middle School has been through this scenario one way or another. Even though I'm now a senior in High School, I still witness this cycle of treachery, though not in the same way. My latest read was Shakespeare's Othello, which I'll admit sounds strange since it's a play. But I've always found it very surprising how plays can be so entertaining even if your receiving it through paper. So much is left to your imagination! If you haven't read Othello, give it a go! I understand Shakespeare may not be for everyone due to his elaborate use of the english language. If you've had trouble in the past with old Willy, I highly recommend Spark Notes' No Fear Shakespeare version, which places the original text side-by-side with a plain english translation. For those who haven't read it yet, beware of spoilers ahead!

In the play, Othello is lied to so much, he's convinced that his wife, Desdemona, is unfaithful. Dun dun duuuuuuuuun! Since this is Shakespeare, it's only natural that the wife in question is killed by none other than....pause for dramatic effect....her husband! A tragic violin theme begins to play and quality soap opera drama ensues. In the play, both the lier, Iago,  and the victim, Othello, face consequences. Iago is punished for his treachery and Othello is convicted for the murder. But who is truly to blame? Well it'd certainly be easy to say that both are to blame. But where's the fun in that?

Let's take a look at everyone's favorite "treacherous dog", Iago. It becomes clear very early in the play that Iago is the master puppeteer of this story. If it weren't for him cutting, tying, and pulling the strings of all the other character's, we'd have no plot other than Othello and Desdemona's elopement. Heck, if Iago hadn't brought the marriage to Brabantio's attention there wouldn't have even been that glorious scene in Act One where Othello testifies to the Duke. So it's very clear that Iago is responsible for....like....everything, right? Hmmmm, not quite.

Iago - "O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on" (III.iii.195-197)

Let me take this opportunity to alter the phrasing of the big question. Is the death of Desdemona the fault of Iago or the fault of Othello's jealousy? Even though Iago set his actions in motion, it is Othello's jealous nature that got him in the end. Othello could have easily trusted in his wife and approached the situation in a more reasonable manner rather than jump to conclusions like he did. His quickness to hate Cassio (Desdemona's supposed lover) over a mere accusation is solid proof of that very nature. If a dog scares a cat and that cat, in response, scratches the dog, should one blame the dog's foolish behavior or the cat's fearful and defensive nature?

Believe it or not, I side with the cat. While Iago is responsible for blaming Desdemona of adultery, thus sparking Othello's maddening jealousy, he is not responsible for the murder itself. Had it not been for Othello's jealousy, his wife could still be breathing and Iago behind bars. Likewise, even though that guy in Middle School told me my crush thought I was cute, I was naive enough to believe him. Therefore, I was responsible for my own embarrassment when the whole class laughed after I asked her out. Fortunately for me, I am not a Shakespeare character, so I survived the ordeal, learned my lesson, and lived to see another day!

Culture: Definition Not Found

How do you define a word such as culture? How do you take a cloud and pin it down? It's very tricky. Culture is such a complicated thing to define yet, ironically, everyone can easily say something about. I, for instance, think of spaghetti dinner night with my grandparents when I hear the word culture. However, one of my close friends has said that she thinks of culture when she hears a christmas carol on the radio. So what is it? Is culture about spaghetti dinner, or christmas carols? Actually, it's both! That's very cliche, I know, but it's true none the less. Culture can be anything or everything that has to do with traditions and/or habits which are inherited by one's nationality, ethnicity, and family. In addition, culture can be developed through the interactions between other peoples and traditions. Understand that that's a very rough definition that could be interpreted in many different ways. But isn't that culture is? Something that is seen in many different ways by many different people. Culture is all around us: it's in our homes, in our schools, in our food, in our music, and even on our book shelves.

Native Son by Richard Wright

One novel in particular that shows the effects of culture is Native Son by Richard Wright. The protagonist, Bigger Thomas (a.k.a. the "native son"), is the ultimate product of his surroundings. Allow me to set the scene. The place is Chicago, the time is somewhere in the 1930s, and the situation is far from comfortable for Bigger Thomas. After growing up as a "black boy" (see other works by Richard Wright) in a racist community, he is suddenly given an opportunity in a world that seems to be without such hope. His employer is a wealthy white man who claims that the wishes to help Bigger. Of course, this is all too good to be true and Bigger ends up brutally killing his boss's daughter. Typical. The rest of the novel is split between one big chase scene and a whole lot of brooding over why and how Bigger could have done something so awful.

Chicago, 1930

Well, conveniently enough, the title of the novel is the biggest hint of them all. It suggests that Bigger is "native" to his environment. In other words, he is a product of his surroundings. Being brought up in a community that saw black men as being violent and sinister animals made him believe that he couldn't be anything but that. He had hopes of being more, sure, but they were dashed away by a society that lent him nothing to hold on to. Culture tends to be seen as having a very positive connotation, but it is such a large word that one must also consider the other side of the spectrum.