Heart Of Darkness By Joseph Conrad Racist Quotes

In Joseph Conrad’s novella, Heart of Darkness racism presents itself. But was Conrad a racist, or was he against racism? Chinua Achebe, Cedric Watts, and C. P. Sarvan seem to all have a different opinion about Conrad’s views on racism..
“An Image of Africa” by Chinua Achebe takes a different view of the story of Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” and read it as a racist story about Africa. “The point of my observations should be quite clear by now, namely that Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist.” (257) Achebe believes that Conrad likes to have everything and everyone in its place. “Fine fellows-cannibals-in their place.” (254). The blacks in Africa, he believes are definitely of a lower standing than whites, and especially European

“Africa as setting and backdrop which eliminates the African as human factor.” (257) These instances are hurtful and offending comments about all African people. He says that Conrad considers these people barbarian and therefore are below the whites. He believes that Conrad did not say straight out that blacks are lower than whites, but he infers this by using Marlow as the narrator and second shadowy narrator that is speaking to Marlow. This way Conrad can hide his bigotry behind the face of his narrators and he does not have to defend his story to anyone. No one will think Conrad is a racist and if they do, he can hide behind Marlow and say that he, the narrator, was the racist, not Conrad. Achebe uses the fact that Conrad does not have the natives speak - except in two instances - and the rest of the time they ¨exchanged short grunting phrases” (255) or utter unintelligible sounds that could mean anything - happy, sad, angry, etc. By having the natives not have a language, Conrade further portrays them as beneath the white European people. Achebe says that Conrad thinks that language is too grand for the natives and this is one more way for Conrad to elevate the whites over the

Africa represents an uncivilized world where Europeans entered at their own risk. Conrad comments and uses terms to describe the Africans that offended some people, such as Achebe. From comments and observations like “his brother phantom rested its forehead” (21) and “one of these creatures rose to his hands and knees” (21) one could gather that Conrad did not view the natives as civilized, or even as people. He did not even view them as human beings, but more creatures than anything. The reader can see how the Europeans act differently towards blacks not just because they were turned into slaves. I can see how the European people seem to think that African Americans are not equal to