Truth and Deception

Achebe has one main objection to Heart of darkness.  He argued that Conrad portrayed the African people based on a racist mindset. In today’s society, most would agree with Achebe that the description of Africans in HOD was inaccurate.  Conrad used words such as savages, and wild to depict the natives he saw.  In other words Conrad did not view the Africans as people with intellect, but as barbarians without a purpose.  This directly relates to Apocalypse now because the film also poorly illustrated the natives from Vietnam. It was mentioned in class that in the movie, none of the Vietnam characters played significant roles.  They did not talk and act in any way that showed their intellectual prowess.  It is often said that the losers in war never write the history books.   What this means is that the winners often believe their view of whom and what they come into contact with is accurate.  The way these authors and films portray foreign natives is almost form of propaganda, which is very deceiving.  Obviously not much is known about these foreign people so every form of information that is made means that much more.   It’s similar to people who use Wikipedia.  A lot of the time, the website happens to be the only source of info on a subject, but that does not make that info true.  This is what Achebe understood about the descriptions used in Heart of Darkness and is why he firmly disagreed.