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SECRET RACIST
A CRITICISM OF VIEWING JOSEPH CONRAD'S HEART OF DARKNESS
AS WRITINGS OF A RACIST
B. A. VARGHESE
COPYRIGHT 2014. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
1,587 WORDS
JULY 24, 2014
ABSTRACT: A short cricism of Chinua Achebe’s view that Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
perpetuates racism of the African people and that his work should not be considered great
literature.
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Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is among the greatest short novels in the English
language, a belief of serious academics. Post-colonial criques of the novel have called into
queson whether the novel reproduces the racist assumpons about Africa and Africans that
underlie and empower the imperialism Conrad’s novel aempts to call into queson. Some
have cricized the novel and its author of being racist and perpetuang the idea of Africa
being the foil of European countries. Others have defended the novel for being an eecve
cricism of colonizaon and of imperialisc behavior during the period. Either way, the
author’s perspecve and intent may shed light on the debated subject.
Chinua Achebe, a professor and novelist who wrote “An Image of Africa: Racism in
Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’” as a crique of Conrad’s short novel, believes that Conrad is “a
thoroughgoing racist” (5). He believes that even though Conrad had the ulmate purpose of
denouncing the European imperial exploitaons of its colonies, Conrad used "Africa as seng
and backdrop which eliminates the African as human factor. Africa as a metaphysical
baleeld devoid of all recognizable humanity, into which the wandering European enters at
his peril" (5). Achebe states that Conrad had “set Africa up as a foil to Europe” and as “the
other world” or “the anthesis of Europe and therefore of civilizaon, a place where man's
vaunted intelligence and renement are nally mocked by triumphant beasality” (1-2). Many
writers and supporters of Achebe’s stance believe that Conrad may have been a great stylists
of modern con who "saw and condemned the evil of imperial exploitaon but was strangely
unaware of the racism on which it sharpened its iron tooth" (9). In fact, Conrad’s use of
destrucve stereotypical language toward the African people may have undermined his
aempt to condemn imperialism. Achebe feels that Conrad’s novel should not be exalted as a
work of great literature because it perpetuates the negaon of African people.
Then, there are writers and crics who have disagreed with the negave perspecve of
Conrad’s novel and hold that it is one of the greatest short novels in the English language.
“Those crics who disagree with Achebe…(and it may be noted that among their number are
many African writers) recognize the value that Achebe’s perspecve brings to analysis of the
text; the book is in important ways about imperialism and racism” (Goonelleke, 18).
Defenders of the novel also cite that Conrad had an an-colonial purpose and his aempt “to
examine what happens when Europeans come into contact with this parcular form of
economic and social exploitaon” (Phillips, 61). They also state that the perspecve in Heart of
Darkness “is not Conrad's but that of his conal narrator, Marlow” (Achebe, 4) who is merely
retelling a story and that “Africa is ‘merely a seng for the disintegraon of the mind of Mr
Kurtz’” (Achebe, 5). The novel does reect “the dominant image of Africa in the Western
imaginaon” (Phillips, 63) and Conrad only used language and images that were the norm at
the me (Conrad cannot be blamed for originang these negave images of Africa and its
people). Frances B. Singh, a writer and professor from India, states that Heart of Darkness
“was progressive in its saric account of the colonialists” and “the story should remain in ‘the
canon of works indicng colonialism’” (The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad, 55).
There is a perspecve that can be taken that may shed beer light on the debated
subject. Ficon can never be fully conal. When an author writes a story or when an arst
creates a great work of art, he somemes draws from his own experiences, even if these
experiences are from his ight of imaginaon. If what the author\arst creates is pure
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imaginaon, he sll must draw from the world around him to make the audience experience
his imaginaon in a tacle form. This makes it important to analyze great works of art from the
author's perspecve and his original intent.
Now, one can examine the art only and analyze it. This is similar to what James Joyce
menons in Portrait of the Arst as a Young Man. He states that truly the highest form of art is
the dramac form in which “the form wherein [the arst] presents his image in immediate
relaon to others” (NAEL v.2, 2446). This form is where the arst’s emoon/experience passes
into the narraon completely [impersonal] and the arst is invisible to others. This is where
characters are fully realized and detailed. Joyce writes that "the arst, like the God of creaon,
remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork, invisible, rened out of existence,
indierent, paring his ngernails" (NAEL v.2, 2447). In this case, some believe that great art
can stand and be examined alone. One can appreciate the art itself without even considering
the arsts. But over me, what was once the appreciaon of the art by itself may become the
hatred of it. One generaon may praise the art while the next might nd it oensive.
For instance, the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1852, was wrien by Harriet
Beecher Stowe, who was an abolionist. When the novel came out, it received praise from
abolionists while it received protest from defenders of slavery because it depicted the reality
of slavery in the south. Now about 100 years later, in 1960's and 1970's, the African American
movements aacked the book for its negave stereotypes (Rothstein). If the work is
considered alone, then by today's standards, the novel would be highly oensive and the
author a racists. But if we examine the author's perspecve and her original intent, then we
gain a layer of understanding that it was wrien before the Civil War where negave
stereotypes were common and that the author's intent was to inform others of the destrucve
reality of slavery.
Another example can be examined to explore this concept. I am an immigrant from
India who has become an American Cizen. When reading about Brish Imperialism during
the 19th century and reading the documents and leers that circulated at the me regarding
Britain’s colonizaon of India, I could be easily oended with the language and crude words
used to describe Indians and their culture. Apparently, we were savages and uneducated
masses, where our religion, culture, and way of life were wild and primive in comparison to
that of the common Englishman’s. Examining their leers and documents alone, I could
assume that all writers at the me were racists. Instead, I understand that what may seem to
be racism may in fact be a natural comfortability with their own countrymen as well as
an aempt to explain our dierences the best way they could. I also understand the me
period and that the technologies at the me were bringing a large world closer. I understand
that the leer and the documents must be examined under the light of the author's
perspecve and his original intent. This is also true when examining the Bible. Many churches
and followers have been misled or have misinterpreted scripture because of failing to
understand the original intent and perspecve of some of the writers in the Bible. Trying to
understand art in the absence of the arst is trying to understand the Bible in the absence of
God and its writers. It can be done, but you lose some of the many rich layers. Great works of
art and literature can only be understood in layers; rst the art itself, then in the context of the
arst's perspecve and intent.
Varghese, Secret Racist - 3
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In examining Heart of Darkness, one must consider Conrad's perspecve and his original
intent. His intent was not to stereotype the African people but to reveal the exploitaon of the
colonies. His aim was not at Africa but at Brish imperialism. Should he have soened the blow
and not address the African people in such a way that was common during that me? I believe
that would have made the imperialists seem a bit kinder and gentler than they actually were.
When we look at the work alone, we can be misled with what the author was trying to
accomplish. We can look at the work or art alone and come up with our own interpretaon, but
it may be in direct conict with the author's intent. When we examine the author's perspecve
and his original intent, then we gain a far richer layer of understanding. Conrad was an arst
trying to explain and understand his own experience in the Congo. He was a writer who did not
want to hide the ugly truth of what he witnessed. The racism in the novel, no maer how ugly,
helped with creang a realisc picture of the extent of the destrucon of imperialisc thinking.
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Works Cited
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2: The Romanc Period Through the
Tweneth Century. Edited by Stephen Greenbla. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.
Achebe, Chinua. “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's ‘Heart of Darkness’”. Massachuses
Review. Massachuses, 1977. Reprinted in An Image of Africa/The Trouble With
Nigeria. Penguin Books, 2010.
Goonelleke, D.C.R.A. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Canada & New York: Routledge,
2007.
Phillips, Caryl. “Was Joseph Conrad Really a Racist?”. Philosophia Africana. Volume 10, Number
1. March 2007. pp. 59-66(8).
The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Edited by J. H. Stape. Cambridge, UK: The Press
Syndicate of The University of Cambridge, 1996.
Rothstein, Edward. "Digging Through the Literary Anthropology of Stowe's Uncle Tom", The
New York Times, October 23, 2006.