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The analysis of heart of darkness by joseph conrad
Short analysis of heart of darkness
Racism in Heart of Darkness essay
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Conrad's Heart of Darkness is Not a Racist Work
Since the publication of Heart of Darkness in 1899, the text has invited both praise and criticism. While some have claimed it is a work ahead of it’s time in it’s criticism of European colonialist practices, others have criticized the text in it’s portrayal of the native African’s. Achebe, Singh, and Sarvan are just a few to name, and although their criticisms differ, they have labeled many aspects of Conrad’s work racist. Conrad certainly was ahead of his time, as his work criticized the colonialism practices by the Europeans by both making readers aware of the issues, and moving the readership to empathize with the natives. The work therefore cannot be seen as racist, however it is a ‘text of it’s time’ (Conrad expresses a dominant view through Marlow ) in the social classification, with the black natives essentially being the ‘other’, seen through the portrayal of the native Africans.
The racial construction of the natives in Heart of Darkness is one of which the dominant society would have conformed to. Conrad constantly referred to the natives, in his book, as black savages, niggers, brutes, and "them", displaying perhaps 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). The language expressed was common in the context of it’s publication, and it may be reflective of the greater society’s ignorance to the native African’s, with Marlow too, being constructed as a product of his society, therefore his views and opin...
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...the character of Marlow who is a product of his time. Although Achebe, among many others may be correct in saying that Conrad portrays the natives as the ‘other’, it’s the manifestation of Conrad, and the society of the time which leads to this portrayal.
Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua [An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness.]
Heart of Darkness. By Joseph Conrad 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical 1988.
Conrad, Joseph Heart of Darkness 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.
Sarvan, C. P. [Racism and the Heart of Darkness.] Heart of Darkness. By Joseph Conrad 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical 1988.
Singh, Frances B. [The Colonialistic Bias of Heart of Darkness.] Heart of Darkness. By Joseph Conrad 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical 1988.
Watts, Cedric. 'Heart of Darkness.' The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Ed. J.H. Stape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 45-62.
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Achebe, Chinua. An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. New York: Wylie Agency, 2006. 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.”
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Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness 3rd Ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.
* Watts, Cedric. “‘A Bloody Racist’: About Achebe’s View of Conrad” in Joseph Conrad; Critical Assessments, Keith Carabine, ed., Volume II: ‘The Critical Response: Almayer’s Folly to The Mirror of the Sea’ (Mountfield: Helm Information Ltd., 1992)
Racism in Joseph Conrad’s Literary Work. In the article "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," Chinua Achebe criticizes Joseph Conrad for his racist stereotypes towards the people of Africa. He claims that Conrad broadcasted the "dominant image of Africa in the Western imagination" rather than portraying the continent in its true form (Achebe 13). Africans were portrayed in Conrad's novel as inhuman savages with no language other than sound and with no "other occupations besides merging into the evil forest or materializing out of it simply to plague Marlow" (Achebe 7).
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.
Heart of Darkness is a story in which racism presents itself so deliberately that, for many, the dilemma of race must be tackled before anything else in the book may be dealt with. Conrad used derogatory, outdated and offensive terminology to devaluate people’s color as savages. This use of language disturbs many readers who read this book. Although Conrad uses racist language in this book, it doesn’t mean that he is really racist. When we look at the language, we are just looking at the very surface of the story.
Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness portrays an image of Africa that is dark and inhuman. Not only does he describe the actual, physical continent of Africa as "so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness" (Conrad 94), as though the continent could neither breed nor support any true human life, but he also manages to depict Africans as though they are not worthy of the respect commonly due to the white man. At one point the main character, Marlow, describes one of the paths he follows: "Can't say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles farther on, may be considered as a permanent improvement" (48). Conrad's description of Africa and Africans served to misinform the Western world, and went uncontested for many years.