Achebe's Objection

The  major downfall of Conrad’s writing according to Achebe is his prejudice against non-westerners. He believed that Conrad’s depicts Africa in a light that is opposite of Europe. In essence stating that Europe is superior. This is not uncommon for the era that Conrad’s writing is from.  Conrad’s writing speaks to the negative way of thinking that once plagued the West. Achebe also points out how Conrad limits the speech of Africans to grunts and snorts. While Conrad’s writing is from an older era than Achebe, Achebe is also criticizing the western view of Africa during the period of his writing 1974. It is his belief that the West operates on ignorance when viewing other places. In the movie Apocalypse Now, the Americans display this type of attitude towards the Vietnamese. They do not view them as humans, thus they see nothing wrong with bombing an entire village.