Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, and Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, are two of the most famous novels written in the 20th century. Both novelists are from two different countries, in two different continents. Things Fall Apart was written by a novelist who was originally African. Therefore, we can say that he seems to be realistic in most of what he mentioned in his novel, because of his knowledge of his own country. Joseph Conrad, born in Ukraine in 1857, is the author of Heart of Darkness. He wrote it following a six-month trip to Congo. This allows us to suspect what he mentioned in his novel regarding Africa and Africans. Many critics say that Achebe composed his novel Things Fall Apart in response to the bad image presented by Conrad about Africa in his novel Heart of Darkness. On the whole, we can extract some similarities and differences between the two novels. These similarities and differences are related to the different environments of the two authors, the image of Africa from their point of view, and the themes of colonialism, gender, darkness and culture.
The two different environments in which the both novelists grew up affected their description of Africa in their two novels. Conrad, born in Ukraine in 1857, grew up in the time of the European Imperialism. Therefore, his novel is about the ability of one to control the other. This exempts us from asking why he presented Africa in such an image of distortion in his novel. On the other hand, Chinua Achebe, borne in Nigeria in 1930, wrote and published his novel in the late 1950s. In his novel, he conveys the Nigerians' need for independence. In addition, his novel declares the Africans' total rejection of colonialism, brought to Africa under the wings of Christianity and civilization.
In Heart of Darkness, the author presents Africa in a very distorted image. He conveys the colonial view by describing Africans as savages.