I have decided to write my essay looking through the lens of the colonization theory. Throughout history we have learned about the colonization of tribes throughout America. In the passage we received in class, the author discusses many ideas that can be connected to the novel, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. One idea that I plan to analyze in my essay is the idea of colonizers taking advantage of the ‘Others.’ The author of this passage quotes, “In effect, the colonizers were revealing their unconscious desires for power, wealth, and domination, not the nature of the colonized subjects.” Said believes that the colonizers put their own interest above the tribal people. I plan on using this idea to connect it to some examples in Things Fall Apart. For example, when the messenger takes extra cowries for himself when the six tribal men where in jail shows how they did not care so much about the well being of the tribe, but more about what they will get out of the situation.
Another idea I plan to discuss in my essay is how the Europeans saw themselves as being better and their religion being the 'right one'. The theoretical text states “These subhumans or “savages” quickly became the inferior and equally “evil” Others.” I plan on tying this quote into how the Europeans saw the tribal people as lesser to them. Also, they told them that the gods they believed in were not real, and there was only one true God. It is ironic to me that they barged in and told them this when they had no proof of there being one god or a billion gods.
I plan on uses more ideas to develop my essay. I am thinking about talking about how they wanted to turn as many people as they could to Christianity, not just because its what they believed in, but because they wanted the numbers to insure domination. Overall, my main topic for my essay will be on the idea of the colonizers seeing themselves as being the superior race.
