Postcolonial Narrative: Whose Story Is Told?

"Heart of Darkness" and Its Critique

Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (1902) is a classic of European literature about the Congo, about the brutality of colonialism. But Chinua Achebe, in the essay "An Image of Africa" (1977), challenged this canon: "Heart of Darkness" uses Africa and Africans as "background," as "darkness," against which the European spirit is revealed. Africans are not subjects—they are part of the landscape.

This is not simply literary criticism—it is narrative political analysis. Who tells the story? Whose perspective is "normal," and whose is "other"? In colonial literature, "I" is the European, "they" are the natives. This is narrative power.

Decolonization of Narrative: Achebe, Wa Thiong'o

Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart" (1958) is a response to "Heart of Darkness": the story of an Ibo village on the eve and during colonization from the viewpoint of Nigerians themselves. The main character Okonkwo is not a "savage," not the "other"—he is a complex person with his own inner life, values, and tragedy. This is a change of perspective: not Africa as a background for European drama, but Africa as the subject of its own history.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o (Kenya) took a radical step: in 1978, he decided to write only in Kikuyu, not in English. The use of the colonizer's language is already acceptance of his narrative frames. The decolonization of literature is the decolonization of language.

Gayatri Spivak ("Can the Subaltern Speak?", 1988): even when we "give voice" to the oppressed, we often translate their experience into dominant narrative frames. "Can the subaltern speak?" is a rhetorical question: in the dominant system—no, because their speech is not heard as speech, but is perceived as noise.

Multiple Narratives and Decolonial Thinking

Postcolonial theory insists: there is not one "grand narrative" of history—there are multiple narratives competing for the right to be heard. Decolonial thinking (Dussel, Maldonado-Torres, Quijano) proposes: begin with the "colonial difference"—the gap between those who produce knowledge (Western universities) and those about whom it is produced.

This is not a rejection of Western knowledge—it is a demand for the inclusion of other epistemologies. "Pluriversality" versus universality: not one reason, one method, one history—but a multitude of rationalities, meeting and disputing.

Question for Reflection: In your professional environment—whose narratives are considered authoritative "by default"? Which voices are systematically unheard? How does this influence the quality of decisions made?