The Sacrificial Egg by Chinua Achebe is a story about fear of change. The natives are afraid of what the western world is going to do to Umuru by moving in and taking over their territory. The narrator tells us, "There is good growth and there is bad growth," meaning the village has uninvited visitors who outnumber them and they are not happy about it. Will it help them to get new resources or will it hurt the resources they already have? Did the newcomers come for "trade and money," or did they come to pillage and cause genocide?
The way the story is told, it seems like there is a virus called Kitikpa sweeping the towns and there is no escape, which a good metaphor for big chains forcing the mom and pop stores to close. Julius Obi steps on an egg of "someone oppressed by misfortune," which is a metaphor for the western world stepping on the way of life the locals have been living and are used to doing business. Julius seems to worry about the youth who "had never yet experienced the power of Kitikpa themselves," wondering if the young generation will grow up never knowing the dangers of the western world and will feel it is perfectly normal to outsiders taking over their land.
In Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Achebe states that he believes Conrad is a "thoroughgoing racist" based on the themes and his description of the African people in his novel Heart of Darkness. It is Achebe's opinion is that Heart of Darkness "cannot" be called "a great work of art." I read Heart of Darkness for my Critical Approaches class and thought it was a great novel. At the time I believed the novel was very psychological draining, which worked well for it, and the title referred to the area of grey people have in bad surroundings.
Achebe believes Conrad, like Western psychology, views "Africa as a foil to Europe" and Africa is "the other world, the antithesis of Europe and therefore, of civilization." I think people believe Africa is has people who act like savages and are uncivilized based on reading books like Heart of Darkness and the films that are based on stereotypes. The same civilization theory could be said for how the Europeans viewed America right before they came over to "tame" it. It makes it seem like Europeans believe they are more civilized and more educated than any other continent. I think Achebe's argument is to say they are people everywhere who are good and bad and it doesn't matter what continent they are in.
Achebe also notes the dialogue of the characters when they speak during the story as being uneducated and inferior, which he believes in Conrad's "best assault" on Africa. Couldn't the same be said for other novels like Huckleberry Finn which uses a similar style of dialogue for slaves? Is Achebe trying to point out that we should not read books which have hints of racism? I think we should be able to decide for ourselves, if we can view them critically.
Achebe points outs that it could be "contended, of course, that the attitude to the African in Heart of Darkness is not Conrad's but that of his fictional narrator, Marlow and that far from endorsing it Conrad might indeed by holding it up to irony and criticism." Since Achebe didn't include an interview with Conrad saying he believed Africans were uncivilized and uneducated, I have to give him the benefit of doubt, storytelling wise.
I agree with Achebe when he says Africa plays a bigger part in the story than the destruction of the mind of Krutz and the adventures of Marlow. I think if this story was set in some other place, like a deserted island, it wouldn't have had the same controversial effect on the readers.
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