What was the most meaningful takeaway from today’s discussion relating to the cultural or literary context of Achebe’s work?
Yesterdays discussion proved to be very fruitful and interesting as I discovered a lot of additional opinions and information that I hadn't thought of before. The idea of how the western world (colonisers) may not identify with unfamiliar cultures and lifestyles, thus end up degrading them and misinterpreting them seemed to be the core. We also learned that throughout the media, there has been a lot of bias in terms of how the african nation is being represented. As they don't have access to the technology as much as the western world does, the success of Chinua Achebe's book did have a great impact on their reputation, especially the comprehension and appreciation of their culture. He stayed completely honest throughout the entire book , as he claims that knowing just one side of the story means you don't know the story at all. He managed to have other far away countries and cultures read his book and actually relate to it. This showed that the western population never really had the opportunity to view the africans as anything but needy and dependant as well as primitive. Achebe also stated that they were shown in this light to justify the concept of slavery and colonialism, the taking advantage of them and inflicting a new religion and lifestyle on them, as people were beginning to worry about the ethical considerations of those actions.
Yesterdays discussion proved to be very fruitful and interesting as I discovered a lot of additional opinions and information that I hadn't thought of before. The idea of how the western world (colonisers) may not identify with unfamiliar cultures and lifestyles, thus end up degrading them and misinterpreting them seemed to be the core. We also learned that throughout the media, there has been a lot of bias in terms of how the african nation is being represented. As they don't have access to the technology as much as the western world does, the success of Chinua Achebe's book did have a great impact on their reputation, especially the comprehension and appreciation of their culture. He stayed completely honest throughout the entire book , as he claims that knowing just one side of the story means you don't know the story at all. He managed to have other far away countries and cultures read his book and actually relate to it. This showed that the western population never really had the opportunity to view the africans as anything but needy and dependant as well as primitive. Achebe also stated that they were shown in this light to justify the concept of slavery and colonialism, the taking advantage of them and inflicting a new religion and lifestyle on them, as people were beginning to worry about the ethical considerations of those actions.
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