Heart Of Darkness: Ignorance And Racism
...themes of personal power, individual
responsibility, and social justice in his book Heart of Darkness. His book has
all the trappings of the conventional adventure tale - mystery, exotic setting,
escape, suspense, unexpected attack. Chinua Achebe concluded, "Conrad, on the
other hand, is undoubtedly one of the great stylists of modern fiction and a
good story-teller into the bargain" (Achebe 252). Yet, despite Conrad's great
story telling, he has also been viewed as a racist by some of his critics.
Achebe, Singh, and Sarvan, although their criticisim differ, are a few to name.
Normal readers usually are good at detecting racism in a book. Achebe
acknowledges Conrad camouflaged racism remarks, saying, "But Conrad chose his
subject well - one which was guaranteed not to put him in conflict with
psychological pre-disposition..." (Achebe, 253). Having gone back and
rereading Heart of Darkness, but this time reading between the lines, I have
discovered some racism Conrad felt toward the natives that I had not discovered
the first time I read the book. Racism is portrayed in Conrad's book, but one
must acknowledge that back in the eighteen hundreds society conformed to it.
Conrad probably would have been criticized as being soft hearted rather than a
racist back in his time.
Conrad constantly referred to the natives, in his book, as black savages,
niggers, brutes, and "them", displaying ignorance toward the African history
and racism towards the African people. Conrad wrote, "Black figures strolled
out listlessly... the beaten nigger groaned somewhere" (Conrad 28). "They
passed me with six inches, without a glance, with the complete, deathlike
indifference of unhappy savages" (Conrad 19). Achebe, also, detected Conrad's...
View Full Essay