Darkness by Joseph Conrad. It pervades every corner of this world, casting a literal and metaphorical shadow over everything. Creeping into the hearts of human beings, floating in the night sky, under the bed, darkness is a terrifying concept, but at the same time essential in our human mentality. And, as such, it shows up in cultures and stories around the world to explain the unknown and the terrifying. Through the presentation of the struggle with internal and external “darkness,” both Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart draw on contrasting viewpoints and cultures, as well as an ironic play of “darkness” between Europeans and Africans, to interpret the tragedy taking place in colonial Africa. To begin comparing and contrasting these two pieces of literature, you must first examine the authors. Conrad was a white, educated European and was a sailor who sailed up the Congo during that time period. He understood what he was talking about as he described Marlow's battle along a river, fighting the wave of "darkness" resulting from the natives and the environment. Achebe, on the other hand, was African. He lived a little later than Conrad, seeing not the direct impact of colonization, but the side effects, removed from the actions themselves. Both authors criticized colonialism, but Conrad's testimony was much more direct. Heart of Darkness was the story of a man telling his story. The criticism of colonialism contained in it is pronounced, not only in feelings. In contrast, Things Fall Apart is the story of an African man whose homeland is slowly destroyed by the invasion of European culture. The criticism of colonization is less obvious and is inherent in the history itself. Another interesting note is that while Achebe didn't do... middle of the paper... incomparability. Neither side had anything the other could compare to. And, at the end of Things Fall Apart, Okonkwo kills a white man while trying to disrupt an important proceeding. He surrenders to his “inner darkness” and turns off the messenger. As he does so, Okonkwo succumbs to the final, eternal "darkness", and his body is found hanging from a tree, a total disgrace to his honor, rather than allow the white men to take it. Darkness. It pervades every corner of our human minds and souls, held by the fragile light of our beliefs, but completely invading the eyes of another. Darkness is ignorance and fear. It is the quintessence of imperfection, the corruption of pure and tragic irony that arises from misunderstanding. It explains and confuses, persuades and dissuades. It is the unknown and the unknowable. Darkness.