Most Meaningful Takeaway: Chinua Achebe Interview

The other day, we had an in-class discussion on an interview with Chinua Achebe. I think the part of the discussion that I found most interesting was when we talked about the representation of Africa in the media. Achebe was inspired to write Things Fall Apart after reading all the western authors' portrayal of Africa and the many African cultures. Achebe believes that these authors portrayed Africa this way in order to justify the slave trade as some people were beginning to question the practice. However, we discussed that this negative portrayal of Africa might not have been completely on purpose. Instead we brought up the idea that these authors simply lacked an understanding of the African cultures and people and therefore could not see the true complexity. This may have lead to them simplifying things that they could not fully understand and in turn lead to their highly simplistic and negative portrayal of Africa. I found this part of the discussion interesting because in the interview Achebe was strongly opinionated on the matter that this portrayal of Africa was simply aimed to justify the slave trade so it was intriguing to explore a different way of seeing things that was not included in the interview.