110
The Ideas Of Naivety And Delusion In Stranger In The Village And Heart Of Darkness
Despite how open, peaceful, and giving one attempts to be, people can only meet others as deeply as they have met themselves. Through the point of view of a white man and his company intruding on african way of life and the point of view of a black man’s experience in a remote Swiss village composed of people who had never seen a Black man before, we, of course, see different perspectives. James Baldwin’s “A Stranger in the Village” and “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad share common ideas about naivety and delusion which, together, encompass a clash of race and culture.
In Baldwin’s story, we see Baldwin himself feeling alienated from those around him because of his race, no matter how long he is there or how close he gets with the villagers. From the very beginning we see that the villagers are engulfed in a European (or more generally a white) delusion that prejudice is necessary. From the villagers, Baldwin perceives that black people are a) only from Africa b) don’t deserve the compassion and respect any other human deserves and c) finds that the villagers are ignorant of the fact that Baldwin is a person at all. Where a white person would likely find the village a close-knit, charming, and peaceful place, Baldwin feels a profound sense of judgement and isolation from those around him. He notes the cruel naivety of the village children assuming that they couldn’t possibly know any better but at the same time, how do they know to be rude to the black man? Baldwin finds that prejudice is etched into even the most unreachable of places due to the history of injustice. Later, Baldwin mentions the differences in his physique and how mesmerizing it is for the villagers. For example, they are surprised when the color on his skin doesn’t rub off when touching him (Baldwin 2), as if his skin color is just mud that can easily come off. Reiterated, the ignorance Baldwin is surrounded by is astonishing. Baldwin chalks up the rudeness to pure ignorance and naivety but still they don’t see him as human, thus a type of naive racism is brought up. The children who yell racial slurs at him are unaware of the more sinister past of hate and intolerance he experienced in America. Another example is the local Catholics in the village. A woman tells Baldwin (with pride) that they donate money to ‘buy’ Africans so that missionaries can convert those Africans to Catholicism, again, nativity seeps in and she doesn’t realize the dark undertones of that practice for a man who is a descendant of slaves.
In this passage, Baldwin conveniently answers the question of how the two perspectives (a white man vs. a black man) differ. What he says about a white man coming into an African village seems very truthful after reading Marlow’s account in “Heart of Darkness.” Baldwin claims that the white man will come in as a god, tribute, or savior who arrives to conquer or convert, and that their inferiority is not questioned (not by themselves or those they are overtaking). As we see in Marlow’s story, Kurtz as a member of an ivory company, came into contact with a tribe of Africans and essentially became their leader to cheat them out of their ivory and confidence in being equal humans. The groundless idea of white supremacy seems like a universal concept (and another inescapable delusion) that transcends color, creed, gender, and most importantly, time. Centuries have passed and black people are still excluded, oppressed, and terrorized which Baldwin comments on in his conclusion.
The white man’s primary motivation is the protection of his superiority and the spreading of that control. In contrast, the black man’s motivation is to establish his identify as an equal. Baldwin claims that the black man’s motivation has been achieved through almost infinite hardships but has been achieved nonetheless and will continue to achieve. Taking the two texts together gives us a more complete picture of a clash between ignorance, false-hoods, prejudice, and identity-seeking.
