Myth of Savage Africa

The Myth of Savage Africa is enforced with books like, Heart of Darkness, which led to the abstract view that it is difficult to understand the world around us beyond what we know for ourselves, and the ability of one man to judge another; usually about events, tradition, and society that is different from his own.

In this novel it shows, Marlow and Kurtz being confronted and in conflict with all that they know. It shows that their images of themselves as being “civilized” Europeans, and the temptations they face to abandon morality completely once they leave the complex European society.

One of the best examples, I can use to show the Myth of Savage Africa is in what was founded in the Heart of Darkness, when you have Europeans exploring Africa with Ideas of their own civilization and what that meant; to be exposed to a different type of civilization where he catches occasional glimpse of native villages along the river backs.

In these villages he can hear things, like drums, chants, and howl. The behavior and actions of these sounds cause him to suggest the kinship about these men in the villages is far what he knows, considers and can classify as being human. The Heart of Darkness book that we explored shows how critical colonialism and the ironic stereotypes that it engenders.

It saddens when you see humans, but because of the ideals that you were brought up in teach you that these humans have different beliefs, traditions, actions and behaviors that are different than yours to they couldn’t have a colonial society with structure, but the they are primitive humans that need to be taught how to fit their version of colonial society and until they do so they are not considered potential equals. This is one of many examples that we have explored in class that teaches us that stereotypes engenders is far from what the reality of these villages along the river banks are.

Another, which leaves us with the underlying assumptions about African and Africans, is in another part of our reading;

“On Sept. 8, a hundred years ago, the Bronx Zoo in New York unveiled a new exhibit that would attract legions of visitors — and spark a furor.

Inside a cage, in the zoo's Monkey House, was a man named Ota Benga. He was 22 years old, a member of the Batwa people, pygmies who lived in what was then the Belgian Congo.

Ota Benga first came to the United States in 1904. The St. Louis World's Fair had hired Samuel Phillips Verner, an American explorer and missionary, to bring African pygmies to the exposition”

This picture is one of the reason why people has such an misconception of people; and it very sad when this young man was put on display at the Bronx Zoo; Ota Benga was displayed in a cage, and I am very thankful for those that put an end to this display. As, it shows a human being treated as an animal in a cage.

Another, it because of images, videos, and comment made by people of influence and power, Condrad, Hegel, and even the President of France it shows how the misconception of Africans have been protruded to others.

When you ask people to describe a person from African, you think of those commercial asking for financial support that reinforce the negative stereotypes that all Africans look the same, and usually describe a child not fully clothed, malnourished, and around garbage or dirty water. There are also portrayed of Africans in fur, face painted, and in tribal war like fashions with bones sticking out parts of their bodies. It is almost identical to that of how Hegel described the people of Africa; 'The Negro... exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state (The Philosophy of History)