Lect 6.

Joseph Conrad

Berline Conference 1884

  • the scramble for Africa

  • done strategically by European power for its minerals and resources and not be in competition against each other

  • justified as being theropthropic taking responsibility over Africa

Congo Free State

  • King Leopold of Belgium

  • treated it as his private park

  • 1898 - known as one of the most brutal conolialism

  • ivory piano key, rubber tires

Ivory trade the main idea of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

  • Going into the darkness

  • merchants described as pilgrims

    • seeking ivories

Blackwood magazine

Romance and the Fur Trade: The Mountain Men 1899

  • Describe brutal non european areas

  • the balance stood on the credit side of their account

Chinua Achebe “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”

  • West always end on the credit sid of the balance

Achebe “An Image of Africa”

  • Conrad neglects to hint, clearly and adequately, at an alternative frame of reference by which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters

  • Conrad saw and condemned the evil of imperial exploitation but was strangely unaware of the racism on which it sharpens its iron tooth.

Our Sister Kill Joy

  • born in 1942 in Ghana known as the Gold Coast, was born in royal family, father was chief

  • 1962, university of ghana, was invited into prestigious writer workshop

    • met all the authors we went other like hughes

  • was a playwriter first

    • the dilemma of a ghost

  • our sister killjoy, ama ata aidoo

    • published 10 yrs later, was negatively received, called un African

Changes a Love Story

  • Ama Ata Aidoo

  • engaged in a lot of activism post-independence

  • advocate for women rights

  • talks about western interpretation of women’s rights

  • critical of post-colonial ghana independence, which was not welcome at the time

Ashantiland

  • ashanti kingdom, Kumasi

  • stature and wealth established on trade of gold

Ghana independence from colonialism

  • March 6th 1957

  • inspired by indian independence

  • scientific independence

Our sister killjoy (or reflections from a black-eyed squint)

  • It is a long way from home to Europe. Acruel past, a funny present, a major desert or two, a sea, an ocean, several different languages apart, aeroplanes bridge the skies. Her journey must have something to do with a peoples efforts: to make good again

  • European trying to atone for their colonialism in the past.

  • trip from Europe to Africa

  • colonial days

  • offers black female perspective on white male europe

  • white skin like pig parts, which makes her nauseauos

  • Sissi is immediately self-conscious of the dehumanizing nature she took part of

    • for rest of life, she regret this moment when she made to notice differences in human colouring

Power, Child, Power. For this is all anything is about. Power to decide. Who is to live, who is to die,

where,

when,

how.