Achebe and Harris

I really saw the stark contrast between Part 1 and Parts 2 and 3 of “Things Fall Apart.” In Parts 2 and 3 Okonkwo had to ‘pay’ for his actions, but I felt that he did not do as much damage a he had to pay for. The end of the book really caught me off guard, and then the way the European guy reacted to it with such indifference made me sort of angry. I felt the same basic sort of anger in Achebe’s essay. He was disgusted that Conrad would believe an African to be inhuman, but also that schools, universities, and scholars consider Conrad’s book to be a classic. Achebe states that Europeans like to use Africans as a foil to make themselves look better. I found a strange connection between this and Harris using himself as an example in “Taking an Approach.” The Europeans believed that they were right in colonizing the more ‘primitive’ Africans, and Harris felt entitled enough to use his own work as an example. That made me wonder if it is acceptable for people to use their own previous work as an example. It also does not seem to add any more validity to their argument in doing so.