He presents them as people who have no names or language. He shows them as "shadows" and unearthly "creatures" with no humanizing characteristics to distinguish one man from the other. Marlow also compares the natives to animals; in describing one of the workers on the ship, he says that "to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat walking on his hind legs." He calls it as a "prehistoric earth," peopled by a "prehistoric man." The word "niggers" is repeated in the novel, referring to the Africans. In contrast to what came in Conrad's novel about Africa and Africans, Achebe presents Africa in Things Fall Apart as a primitive civilized community; he rebuts the claims of Conrad by saying that Africans have families, religions, honors and titles, music, economy, laws and a court system, a tradition of wise saying and the art of conversation. On top of that, they practice a system of ruling that is based on consultation for which Europeans long. .
Achebe's point of view of colonialism comes from the villagers, whereas Conrad's comes from the white men themselves. "He (Mr. Brown) told them (the villagers) that they worshipped false gods, gods of wood and stone," Achebe wrote in his novel. As we understand from the novel, Christianity and civilization are the two pretexts of imperialism to occupy Nigeria. As a result, the Nigerian society is infected by the new ways of life brought by colonialism, as if the traditions of the Nigerian tribes were deficient. Christianity has its tremendous effects on the Umuofians; it shakes their beliefs, under which they had lived peacefully for many years before the coming of colonialism. Achebe is criticizing Christianity as something that destroys communities. In contrast, Heart of Darkness falls heavily on the white man's opinion on colonialism. In the novel, natives are chained together, working as slaves.
