Cultural Cacophony: Conrad and Sembène on African Culture Anonymous 12th Grade

Cultural Cacophony: Conrad and Sembène on African Culture

Literature has always served as a window into the souls of cultures. However, the perspective from which one looks through that window can substantially shift one’s view of the culture in question. No where is this comparison better seen in literature than with the African culture, depicted in 1899 by Joseph Conrad in his novel, Heart of Darkness, and again by Ousmane Sembène seventy-five years later in his 1974 novel, Xala. Given the two wildly different upbringings and cultures of the two authors, their works beautifully showcase two opposing perspectives of African culture, the former from an outsider and the latter from an insider.

To properly understand the works of these authors, it is imperative to understand their diametrically opposed lives. Heart of Darkness author Joseph Conrad, a Polish-British writer born in the nineteenth century Russian Empire, worked in both the French and British merchant navies. During these seminal years of his life, the British Empire was at its pinnacle, dominating every corner of the globe as a result of centuries of colonialism and imperialism. The imperialist ideology, of British exceptionalism and superiority, went on to greatly...