Achebe’s Inability to Understand Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
A fierce Achebe radically condemns Conrad as "a thoroughgoing racist" in his article, arguing that Heart of Darkness is not a piece of great literature, but "an offensive and deplorable book" (Achebe 1791). He structures his argument around a few central ideas, such as the grotesque perception of the Africans by the protagonist, the antinomy between the Thames and Congo River, the lack of historical fact, and the parallel between the African and the European women, among others.
Achebe misinterprets Conrad's work, and exhibits opacity to the narrative's message. He seems to purport, as any reader, a subjective interpretative reading of Conrad's book, with the peculiarity of continuously taking fragments out of their contexts, and creating an entire ideology behind them.
His main argument is that the European Conrad presents Africa as "the other world," "the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant bestiality" (Achebe 1785). He misreads, and disregards the fact that many other readers see Conrad's Africa as a place where the white man brings and meets his own darkness and bestiality. Having no real emotional availability of exploring this continent whatsoever, Conrad's European responds to it either by exploiting what he can (as the manager, the Company, and its representatives do), destroying what he cannot (e.g. killing the locals and blowing up hills unnecessarily), or displaying occasional prejudice, indifference and confusion (as Marlow does). Everything the reader knows about Africa is through Marlow's subjective perception of what he sees or does not see, ...
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... the English language" (Norton) or just as good as any other book still worth reading hundreds of years after first seen in print. Unless the political-correctness winds of change get the best of it, and of us, too.
Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001. 1783-1794.
Coelho, Paulo. Alchimistul. Trad. Gabriela Banu. Bucuresti: Humanitas, 2002. 13-14
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Knopf, 1993. Toronto: Random House, 1993.
Popescu, C. M. Trans. "Satire III". "Discovering Eminescu" Project. Coord. Petru Dumitru. 12
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Wellek, Rene. A History of Modern Criticism. Vol. 3. New York: Vail-Ballou Press, Inc., 1965. 237.
Mikesell, J. L. (2010). Fiscal administration: Analysis and applications for the public sector (8th ed.: 2010 custom edition). Mason, OH: Cengage Learning
Achebe’s claim that the Thames is used as a civilized world that mocks Africa and its supposed “triumphant beastiality” is strong, but the setting itself may be seen as nothing special, causing confusion (338). Stuart Oliver, writer of “Navigability and Improvement of the River Thames,” writes that “the Thames has traditionally been used to provide consumable products, water power, and transport” (166). Any citizen of Britain could have used the Thames, including Conrad. His selection of this specific river may not be an attack on Africa but a logical choice in what was available. Conrad could have used the Thames when visiting the Congo, an idea only leading some to question their own knowledge and ideas of Conrad’s work. Caryl Phillips, a member of Yale University’s English department, states in “Was Joseph Conrad Really a Racist?” that she disagrees with Achebe, for she has “never viewed Conrad—as Achebe states in his lecture—as a thorough going racist” (60). “Conrad uses colonialization,” she writes, “...to explore [the novel’s] universal questions about man’s capacity for evil...I constantly ask myself, was Conrad really a racist? If so, how did I miss this?” (62). The themes Conrad uses are true to the world that surrounds his character Marlow. For Phillips, this is not an act of racism but a
Chinua Achebe challenges Joseph Conrad's novella depicting the looting of Africa, Heart of Darkness (1902) in his essay "An Image of Africa" (1975). Achebe's is an indignant yet solidly rooted argument that brings the perspective of a celebrated African writer who chips away at the almost universal acceptance of the work as "classic," and proclaims that Conrad had written "a bloody racist book" (Achebe 319). In her introduction in the Signet 1997 edition, Joyce Carol Oates writes, "[Conrad's] African natives are "dusty niggers," cannibals." Conrad [...] painfully reveals himself in such passages, and numerous others, as an unquestioning heir of centuries of Caucasian bigotry" (Oates 10). The argument seems to lie within a larger question; is the main character Charlie Marlow racist, and is Marlow an extension of Conrad's opinion?
The definition of ‘Negro’ in the Encyclopaedia Britannia just 100 years ago, calls them mentally and intellectually inferior as well as childish and lazy. Any ‘sophisticated’ skills they had must have been taught to them by Westerners. Other sources are even more damning, for instance the forced conversion to Christianity was justified by attitudes such as Georgr Crabb in his Mythology of all Nations (1847) ‘It must be borne in mind that the fictions of mythology were not invented in the ignorance of divine truths, but with a wilful intention to pervert it.’ Based on this any artefacts acquired, mostly by force, could only be of inferior quality and artistic value compared to the sophisticated and civilised West and, if associated with African religion, morally tainted. They were mostly seen as having a purely anthropological value.
...nters many of the degrading stereotypes that colonial literature has placed on Africa. In his lecture, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," Achebe documents the ways that Conrad dehumanizes Africans by reducing their religious practices to superstition, saying that they should remain in their place, taking away their ability of speech, and depreciating their complex geography to just a single mass of jungle. Achebe carefully crafts Things Fall Apart to counter these stereotypes and show that Africa is in fact a rich land full of intelligent people who are, in fact, very human.
Achebe, Chinua. An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. New York: Wylie Agency, 2006. Print.
First off, Achebe believes that Conrad dehumanizes the African people, making them into objects rather than thinking and living human beings. He pointed out that Conrad depicts the Africans as “savages,” for example when Conrad says, “...and going up this river.. Sand banks, marshes, forests, savages, - precious little to eat fit for a civilized man,” it might seem as though Conrad is suggesting that these “savages” are far inferior...
As electronic commerce, online business-to-business operations, and global connectivity have become vital components of a successful business strategy, enterprises have adopted security processes and practices to protect information assets. But if you look at today's computing environments, system security is a horrible game of numbers: there are currently over 9,223 publicly released vulnerabilities covering known security holes in a massive range of applications from popular Operating Systems through to obscure and relatively unknown web applications. [01] Over 300 new vulnerabilities are being discovered and released each month. Most companies work diligently to maintain an efficient, effective security policy, implementing the latest products and services to prevent fraud, vandalism, sabotage, and denial of service attacks. But the fact is you have to patch every hole of your system, but an attacker need find only one to get into your environment. Whilst many organisations subscribe to major vendor's security alerts, these are just the tip of the security iceberg and even these are often ignored. For example, the patch for the Code Red worm was available some weeks before the worm was released. [02]
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.
Gay people want to formalize their relationship and gain some of the legal standing and support that is given to heterosexual couples on a daily basis. Sadly, in most of this country, gay people are denied this right and not allowed to participate in what is a natural right for most other Americans. Efforts by NYS legislatures or Executive Orders by Governors to grant gay and lesbian people rights (i.e. non discrimination in hiring, housing or public accommodations) have been challenged by the right using public referendums. Putting the rights of gays and lesbians, or any minority, up to a vote by the majority places any minority at a disadvantage, and gay rights have usually come up short.
In “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," Achebe takes notes the ways that Conrad degrades Africans by reducing their religious practices to misconception, belittling their complex geography to just a single mass of jungle, telling them to remain in their place, and taking away their capability of speaking. Achebe criticizes Joseph Conrad for his racist stereotypes towards the people of Africa. Achebe also sensibly labels these stereotypes and shows that Africa is in fact a rich land full of intelligent people who are, in fact, very human.
Lagemaat, Richard Van De. Theory of Knowledge for the IB Diploma. UK: Cambridge UP, 2005. Print.
Achebe argues that the racist observed in the Heart of Darkness is expressed due to the western psychology or as Achebe states “desire,” this being to show Africa as an antithesis to Europe. He first states Conrad as “one of the great stylists of modern fiction.” [pg.1] He praises Conrad’s talents in writing but believes Conrad’s obvious racism has not been addressed. He later describes in more detail that Conrad’s “methods amount to no more than a steady, ponderous, fake-ritualistic repetition of two antithetical sentences.”
Achebe, Chinua. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Heart of Darkness: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Essays in Criticism. 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: W.W. Norton, 1988. 251-262.
...onclude by saying that there are no absolute distinctions between what is true and what is false. It depends upon perception, emotions, reasoning and language. And therefore we cannot prove anyone wrong by saying that this is the perfect or right way of looking at things as every individual has different perceptions based on reasoning, emotions and language. So one should learn to accept other people’s opinions and perceptions as nobody is likely to have a same perception like others. The distinctions would be relative in various areas of knowledge like the ones discussed above.