The Subject of Race in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness
In 1899 Joseph Conrad published a short work of fiction called Heart of Darkness. This novella is often read, discussed, criticized in literature programs throughout the world. It is a work that allows us to tackle a variety of topics, and is therefore responded to in a variety of ways. The work itself as one critic puts it “might most usefully be considered hyper-canonized” (Padmini “Why” 104). The work is taught beyond the realm of a normal work in the literature program. Many forms of criticism have taken on the subject matter within the book. Feminism, psycho-analytic, Marxism have all had things to say about the novella. They’ve discussed things such as imperialism, the psychology of Marlow and Kurtz, the role of women in the novella (both literally and symbolically), all these issues are important topics in the novella. For a long time, however one crucial issue in the work was not addressed, that of race.
It was not until 1975 when Chinua Achebe gave his famous lecture, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” that the issue of race was tackled head on in Conrad’s work. It is this lecture that has become the cornerstone of writing and criticism of Heart of Darkness. It would be hard to find an essay since then that doesn’t in some way discuss or acknowledge Achebe’s essay. Even critic’s who do not use take into account historical or auto-biographical details of a work, such as Miller, have written responses to Achebe. In Miller’s essay “Should we read Heart of Darkness” he discusses, in his own way, the essence of Achebe’s argument that the novella should not be read because of it’s racist undertones. On critic has even gone on to say that Achebe’s essay has become a work included in the literature canon.
The lecture given at the University of Massachusetts in early 1975 was published as an essay in The Massachusetts Review, and later republished in The Norton Critical Edition Heart of Darkness. Achebe’s main theme within the essay is “the need—in Western psychology to set up Africa as a foil to Europe” (“Image” 252). Within the context of this theme he goes on to criticize what he considers a work of “permanent literature”, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness uses character development and character analysis to really tell the story of European colonization. Within Conrad's characters one can find both racist and colonialist views, and it is the opinion, and the interpretation of the reader which decides what Conrad is really trying to say in his work.
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The novella Heart of Darkness has, since it's publication in 1899, caused much controversy and invited much criticism. While some have hailed it's author, Joseph Conrad as producing a work ahead of it's time in it's treatment and criticism of colonialist practices in the Congo, others, most notably Chinua Achebe, have criticized it for it's racist and sexist construction of cultural identity. Heart of Darkness can therefore be described as a text of it's time, as the cultural identity of the dominant society, that is, the European male is constructed in opposition to "the other", "the other" in Heart of Darkness being defined as black and/or female. Notions of cultural identity are largely constructed through language and setting and are essential to the reader's understanding of the text.
In the nineteenth century there are several schools of thought that are emerging, struggling to be recognized. Of these schools there are transcendentalists. A transcendentalist that can be pointed out as a great author is named Ralph Waldo Emerson. In the time period of the 1840’s Emerson is accredited with the Transcendental movement. Emerson is acknowledged as “one of the most influential figures of the nineteenth century” (274). Emerson is an American essayist and poet. He published numerous pieces of work which portions of them were at a moment in time when he was going through a great deal of pain. Most critics refer to Ralph Waldo Emerson as one of the most significant American writers of the nineteenth century, but are having difficulty deciphering which one of his creations earn the most interest. As time goes by, he continues to write incredible literary collections that are well recognized by his contemporaries. All of these conceptions have exposed an intellect of great uniqueness. They were critiqued by several authors that provided insight to the meaning behind the words. Emerson’s most talked about and most critiqued works include Nature, The American Scholar and The Divinity School of Address.
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The Heart of Darkness, a complex text was written by Joseph Conrad around the 19th century, when Europeans were colonizing Africa for wealth and power and were attempting to spread their culture and religion in Africa. It was also a period in which women were not allowed to participate in worldly affairs. Therefore, the text deals with issues such as racism, European imperialism, and misogyny. This essay will look at the different themes in the novel and argue whether or not The Heart of Darkness is a work of art.
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad has been depicted as “among the half-dozen greatest short novels in the English language.” [pg.1] Chinua Achebe believes otherwise. In Chinua Achebe’s An Image of Africa: Racism is Conrad’s Heart of Darkness he simply states that, “Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist” [pg.5]
In his essay "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness" Chinua Achebe argues that Joseph Conrad 's novel Heart of Darkness is a racist piece of art. Achebe believes that Africa and Africans are represented in the novel through Conrad 's eyes, not the way they really are, which gives the reader the wrong impression about the continent and the people as a whole. He also assures that the racism found in the novel is because Conrad 's own racist ideas and beliefs. Conrad 's intentions, whether he is a racist or not, are not clear, as the novel is written from the perspective of a foreign white man in a strange country. Conrad does not intend to be a racist, but his novel Heart of Darkness may look like
Achebe, Chinua. “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness.” Massachusetts Review. W.M. Norton and Co. n.d. Web. 9 Dec.2010. .
Chinua Achebe states in his essay, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”, that, “Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray--a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical and moral deformities so that he may go forward, erect and immaculate. Consequently Africa is something to be avoided just as the picture has to be hidden away to safeguard the man’s jeopardous integrity” (Achebe, p. 259-260). Achebe is essentially arguing that Conrad’s portrayal of civilization uses Africa as a scapegoat so that it can hide the hypocrisy of European imperialism. It is not Africa that is responsible for their madness, but it is their own delusion. Additionally, this doubles as a driving force in regards to the creation of Things Fall Apart where Achebe contrasts this theme through the explanation of the Igbo tribe’s structure and order that was in place before the arrival of the
Our world has been plagued by racism before biblical times. Two of the most inhumane outgrowths of racism are detribalization and slavery. During the nineteenth-century European Imperialism, racism led to many acts of inhumanity by Europeans, particularly in Africa. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness presents us with a fictional account of these inhumane acts in Africa illustrating that racism and its outgrowths are the most cruel examples of man's inhumanity to man.