Things Fall Apart & Heart of Darkness Paper (:

Hidden Evils

By: Ana Jimenez

In the novels “Things Fall Apart” and “Heart of Darkness,” readers can see that colonization flourishes at the native peoples expense, close-minded European views perpetuate and ultimately condone racism in these nations, and that evil is a driving and yet, sometimes ignored force. When reading, individuals can infer what is truly going on in these books; the author’s point of view in both books state that everything began to go downhill since the Europeans decided to settle in Africa.

Throughout the novel “Things Fall Apart,” the reader can infer that there is a sense of evil. Evil is a hard concept to define. The dictionary defines it as, “morally bad; wicked.” But is the definition of evil really that simple to be defined in just a few words? One would say that there is more to defining evil that just a few words. Evil can be defined by a culture. If a person were to study different cultures around the world, they would discover that each culture has their own way of defining evil. But one’s personal definition seems to have the most impact on what someone thinks is evil.

Different cultures have their own way of defining evil for their own residents. Europeans who visited the Igbo tribe viewed most of their customs that they practiced as “evil” or “primitive.” One of concepts of the Igbo tribe was the “Evil Forest.”  It was something the village had and “in it were buried all those who died of the really evil diseases, like leprosy and smallpox.” (pg. 148) Another custom that the tribe had was that if a woman has children, and each dies under “evil circumstances,” then she is under attack by evil spirits. To solve this problem, they “let her not sleep in her hut. Let her go and stay with her people. In that way she will elude her wicked tormentor and break its evil cycle of birth and death.” (pg. 77) A custom practiced by the clan is the killing of twin babies after they are born. The Europeans that came to Africa viewed all these customs as being evil.

The natives saw the European culture and their religion as invasive. Some of the natives converted to Christianity, but “there were still many who saw these new institutions as evil.” (pg. 183) The people of the Igbo tribe found many of the European customs to be the complete opposite of their own, and viewed their customs as evil as well. In some more recent times, there were many nations that viewed each other as evil. For a long time, the United States and the Soviet Union viewed each other as evil. The United States saw the Soviet Union as a nation without freedom; the people were not free. They saw that as them being evil. On the other hand, the Soviet Union saw the U.S as a capitalist nation where greed consumed them. The American’s view on the Soviet Union reached its highpoint when President Reagan called them the “Evil Empire.” Both of their views were valid, but are they really evil? What the Africans and Europeans doing evil as well? Or is the concept of evil defined only by a single individual?

The most influential definition of evil is the one a person creates for him or her self. What really makes the word “evil” an indefinable concept is that I can be defined is so many different ways. Most people’s definitions of evil comes from the religion they practice and the values they hold.

            Although “Things Fall Apart” made the reader realize all the evils that flourish in different cultures, Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” also gives a clear description of different evils. In Conrad’s book, it says, “that everyone has within oneself vulnerability, fragility, weakness, and strong fear of being deviated from the essentials norms and values.” (pg. 102) Individuals go through their day-to-day lives with evils that they face, but they are hidden. These evils become threatening and they can claim a person’s life in a way. For example, greed, the lust for power, and prosperity is invisibly hidden in the innermost part of someone’s life. In the moment, an individual is not aware of how threatening it could be to their life, but once they enter the atmosphere of temptation, a person surrenders to the temptations of evil if they have no intentions of preventing it. In the novel, there is a unique and genius European named Kurtz. 

            Kurtz is a civilized European, as described in the novel. He is well mannered and a very respected man. Once he lands on the soil of the Congo, the “evils” within him start to show themselves. Hiss civilized self becomes barbaric and he starts to say, “Exterminate all the brutes.” (pg. 108) Kurtz evils cropped up on him and thrived through the whole book. He became so sexual that he forgot about his girlfriend and began doing things with African women. It seems the Kurtz evils started to reveal themselves by leaps and bounds as he became in touch with the “evil atmosphere” of the Congo. Like Kurtz, Marlow also portrayed signs of his own “evils.” In the novel, Marlow says, "He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination - you know, imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate." He is describing man’s hate of the unknown and the incomprehensible. However, this unknown world has a certain dark attraction, the “fascination of the abomination" as Marlow calls it. Man, Marlow claims, is drawn like a magnet to that what he does not understand and may grow to hate. The novel declares that by exploring the outer world of evil, the explorer happens to explore his own inner world of evil. Therefore, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is an exploration of evil.

            With all the ways that evil can be defined, what is the real definition of evil? Culture, politics, and individuals all offer their own different definitions. It seems like the only way for a person to understand and define evil is to take the cultural/religious definitions and create their own definition that fits their own unique perspective of the world. If you take the word evil, and spell it backwards, you get the word “live.” The debate on the definition of evil seems to boil down to one simple thing. It’s just a matter of perspective and to really experience “evil,” you must first live through it.