The Fantasy of Out of Africa vs. the Reality of Ngugi's A Grain of Wheat
Both the film and the book versions of Out of Africa portray life in Africa as being a haven for European colonists. In these works, Africa was a beautiful land to move to where the Europeans could live like “royalty” in a sense. Their money went a lot further, and they could have African servants do all the work and chores for them. These African peoples adored the white settlers, and would peacefully work for them for very low wages. However, this view of Africa during colonial times is not accurate. The Africans did not always adore the Europeans; they were not happy to have their lands taken from them; and they did not usually accept the exploitation peacefully. This point is illustrated, for example, in Ngugi's A Grain of Wheat which reflects on the Mau Mau rebellion which led to the Kenyan independence in 1963.
The film Out of Africa creates an Africa where a white person, such as Karen Dinesen, could move to and live happily, for a while anyway. Granted this is a movie, but it is based on the autobiography of Karen Dinesen. The film shows Karen moving to Kenya in about 1913 where she was happily greeted by her many African servants who were awaiting her. With her she has all of her lovely, expensive possessions that go well in her beautiful farmhouse. Karen and the rest of the white colonists are shown to have lives that are all play and no work. They sit about while the servants wait on them hand and foot, or they go out on safaris to see the countryside and wild animals. The image that the audience receives creates a dream world for them. It does not have any indication of violence between the colonists and the Africans.
The book Out of ...
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...r, it is not entirely realistic in its portrayal of colonialism. Karen Dinesen wrote her story how she wanted to see it. I am sure her life was as she wrote it to be, but I do not think that she took in to account the treatment of the Africans. I do not think that she intended to write of those aspects of colonialism. In my opinion, she want to share with the world the greatness of Africa as she saw it. A Grain of Wheat was written to share with people the violence of the colonialism. The hardships endured by those colonized was meant to be brought out to the audience. These two pieces of literature were written for different reasons: one to show a wealthy white woman’s life in Africa as she saw it, and the other to show the violence brought about by the colonization of Africa.
Works Cited
Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. (New York: Grove Press)1963.
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"God helps those who help themselves, it is said, with fingers pointing at a self-made man who has attained wealth and position, forgetting that thousands of others labor and starve, day in and day out, without ever improving their material lot (57)."
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Any agency that uses children for marketing schemes spend hundreds of billions dollars each year world wide persuading and manipulating consumer’s lifestyles that lead to overindulgence and squandering. Three articles uncover a social problem that advertising companies need to report about. In his research piece “Kid Kustomers” Eric Schlosser considers the reasons for the number of parents that allow their children to consume such harmful foods such as ‘McDonalds’. McDonalds is food that is meant to be fast and not meant to be a regular diet. Advertising exploits children’s needs for the wealth of their enterprise, creating false solutions, covering facts about their food and deceiving children’s insecurities. It contains dissatisfaction that leads to over consumption. Children are particularly vulnerable to this sort of manipulation, American Psychological Association article, “Youth Oriented Advertising” reveals the facts upon the statics on consumers in the food industries. The relationship that encourages young children to adapt towards food marketing schemes, make them more vulnerable to other schemes, such as, advertising towards clothing, toys and cars. Article writer of “The relationship between cartoon trade character recognition and attitude toward product category in young children”, Richard Mizerski, discusses a sample that was given to children ages three to six years old, about how advertising incurs young children that are attracted too certain objects or products on the market.
When the Europeans arrived in Africa during the late eighteenth century the culture and the lives of the people of Africa are altered. Colonialism and Imperialism in Africa has adversely changed the way of life of the African people, and changed their culture, that had developed for so many years, unscathed by any distraction from the outside world. This dominant European influence has led to poverty in the African continent for the next 100 years, because of the institutions that were put into place by Europeans. In Things Fall Apart, it becomes clear that the Ibo culture responds in a distinct way to the European colonization; when compared to other villages and ethnic groups in Africa. These foreigners had such an enormous effect on the Ibo tribe that many of the clansmen decided to abandon the traditional ways or were too afraid to rise against the takeover of their tribe by the Europeans since the natives lacked the adequate technology to fight off the Europeans. The culture collision between Europe’s culture and the Ibo culture causes Nwoye’s sense of identity to be challenged and causes him to distance himself from his family and his tribe because of the introduction of Christianity and western ideals.
In many accounts of the Africans, the Africans were in disagreement with the European's Scramble for Africa. Ndansi Kumalo an African veteran wrote in 1896 if many of them to give or keep their land. In a distrustful and agony tone he spoke of how the poor treatment of the Africans in the Ndebele rebellion against the British advances in South America to convince many others not to stay because it has impacted many Africans and many died in the process of it. He says “So we surrendered to the White people and were told to go back to our homes and live our usual lives and attend to our crops. They came and were overbearing. We were ordered to carry their clothes and bundles (Doc.4).” A German military officer in 1896 wrote in a newspaper article about the reactions of the Africans about the white settlers. In an awed tone he wrote about the 1906 account of the Maji Maji Rebellion in German East Africa and to give an example of how the Africans believed in a magic medicine would help them defend themselves against the white settlers (Doc.8). Mojimba an African chief in 1907 described a battle in 1877 on the Congo River against British and African mercenaries to a German catholic missionary. In an appalled and hateful tone he used this description to show that these whi...
The village of Umuofia in the late 19th century to the turn of the 20th century was the setting for Achebe’s book, Things fall apart. The Igbo people were a superstitious people who centered a good portion of their lives harvesting yams. In fact, Ondo, Kevers, & Dommes (2013) stated that “yams (Dioscorea spp.) are tuber crops used as staple food in Africa because of their nutritional value and that the genus Dioscorea belongs to the Dioscoreaceae family and comprises approximately 600 species, mainly distributed in subtropical and temperate areas of Africa” (p. 653). Underdeveloped countries such as Africa rely heavily on nutritional crops to feed their people. Without these tropical growing yams, alternate food sources would have to be found.
The main reason for colonization of Africa by Europeans is for profit. In the novel Heart of Darkness, profit comes from the ivory that the Europeans receive from trade agreements with the Africans. This desire is evident as suggested in this quote: “The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages” (Conrad 42). This statement shows that all the Europeans want from Africa is ivory. Therefore, it can be assumed that one of the main reasons that colonization to...
Commercials make the viewer think about the product being advertised. Because of the amount of television children watch throughout the week, it allows the children to be exposed to the information over and over again. Per year, children are known to view thousands of fast food commercials. On a daily basis, a teen will usually view five advertisements and a child aged six to eleven will see around four advertisements (Burger Battles 4). Businesses use this strategy to “speak directly to children” (Ruskin 3). Although the big businesses in the fast ...
Chinua Achebe was an influential Nigerian author during the 1900’s who was credited with his three essays which have been fused together into the book “Home and Exile”. In his stories he discusses things such as his own Igbo people, the problems with colonialization, the strength that stories can have and many more topics. A big part of his essays are on his thoughts of colonialism, the impact it has had on his home of Nigeria, and how stories written by others either helped justify colonialism or rejected it. Chinua argues that stories have their own power to fight, and while stories themselves do not have the ability to directly fight colonialism; they do, however with their power of words, stories can motivate and encourage people to stand up against colonialism. In proving this thesis to be a true statement, I will be providing evidence of the how, why and the extent to which stories can fight colonialism.
The book was made into a movie starring James Earl Jones and Richard Harris. The book takes you to South Africa, where the land itself is the essence of a man. It as if the mountains, soaring high above the clouds, are the high moments in life, and the valleys are those low and suffering times. Next, you will take a journey to a place called Johannesburg. While reading the pages, the reader begins to envision Johannesburg being a polluted, very unkind, and rushed city. The setting is more of an emotional setting than a physical setting. As I stated, it takes place in South Africa, 1946. This is a time where racial discrimination is at an all time high. The black community of this land is trying to break free from the white people, but having little success. It is this so called racism that is essential to the setting of the story. Without it, the book would not have as much of an impact as it does. This film, the second adaptation of the book, has little room for hatred or anger. Instead, its underlying tone is one of a profound grief that the title hints at. Taken as a whole, Paton's novel promotes healing and understanding, and it speaks as powerfully to audiences today as it did when it was first published, fifty years ago. The book ends with a tone of ...
The path to relativism is an easy one to tread, and the rise of such pseudodisciplines as extreme Afrocentrism is a warning of the distance we have already traveled along it. Fortunately, there are those scholars (such as Lefkowitz) who are prepared to (in the words of William F. Buckley) “stand athwart history yelling stop.” As John Adams noted, “facts are stubborn things,” and they are useful tools to block what appears to be a headlong rush into relativism for esteem’s sake. For that reason, Not Out of Africa is both a cautionary tale and a reminder of the value of genuine, fact-based scholarship.
By altering the perspectives of West Africans, it created two major problems. The indigenous man believes he is behind the rest of the world and must assimilate, and the colonizer becomes the ultimate goal of the colonized man. This is an imagined state of inferiority. Europeans have to power to influence one another and the one’s they colonize. Europeans provided a “need” for industrialization that was not relevant to African life. In order to legitimize industrialization, Europeans played on the ego’s of the ambitious. Marketing an ideal that Africans could be just as successful as the Europeans. Aimé Cesaire says, “No human contact, but relations of domination and submission which turn the colonizing man into a classroom monitor, an army sergeant, a prison guard, a slave driver, and the indigenous man into an instrument of production”. (Cesaire, 50) The colonized man no longer needs the colonizer, he must perpetrate their principles. Some West Africans will now take on the role as exploiters in order to gain approval. This type of Laborer becomes the sub-oppressor. West African citizens are split into bourgeoisie and impoverished. The bourgeoisie believe that they have reach success by becoming educated in Europe and must come back and help their homeland, when in actuality they begin to harm their home rather than help. By believing that the colonizer has better schooling, opportunity or knowledge, they devalue those
Now a days children watch more television programs where they become the target for some advertisements. The use of computers and electronic devices also influence children when advertisements appear while they play their favorite games on those electronics. Advertisements are the merchant’s media to sell a product to the public. Almost everyone in the United States watches a lot of advertisements while they are watching their favorite television program every day. Most of this viewers are children, therefore children become the main target because they are easier to influence.