The article titled “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” written by Chinua Achebe criticizes the acclaimed novel written by Joseph Conrad for being a racist novel. From the point of view of an African Literature professor and native Nigerian, there are many examples from the text that cite said racism, some that might not normally be picked up by the untrained eye.
From the very beginning of the novel, Conrad portrays the continent of Africa and its inhabitants as prehistoric, inhuman, barbaric, and even ugly. He writes, singling out the natives, exclaiming that “the whites of their eyes can be seen glistening in the darkness”. Continuing the same description, Conrad describes their faces being “like grotesque masks” and “streaming with perspiration”. Dialogue is also a choice way for Conrad to subliminally and possibly subconsciously incorporate some discrimination against the Africans into the novel. Their speech is described as “incoherent babbles” and “short grunting phrases”.
I use the term subconsciously for a few reasons. The time period in which Conrad was born, and that which he lived through as well, was not aware of the rudeness and disrespect that came about when being racists and discriminatory. This raises the question as to whether or not Conrad can be considered a racist, when he can’t really be blamed for the views of the time period in which he was raised.
On that note, a similar subject was addressed in our Socratic on Tuesday. It was brought up that a person can’t really be criticized or attacked based on their opinions and views, because they were most likely raised to believe those things. Had Conrad been born at a later time, and raised in a different country or family, would the subject of his novel even be under criticism? Likewise, it was brought up in the Socratic that racism, particularly white on black, was essentially a part of human nature at the time that the novel was written. That is one of the reasons that Heart of Darkness hasn’t gotten many criticisms from this aspect.
