Heart Of Darkness Controversy

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has been transformed from a novella that was highly praised by readers to a novella embroiled in critique and controversy. In recent decades, scholars have debated the extent to which Heart of Darkness is racist. Chinua Achebe, a novelist, was the first person to bring the controversy to attention. Fellow scholars followed in his steps, either agreeing or disagreeing on this sensitive subject. This essay will analyze Achebe’s opinion, as well as the opinion of Cedric Watts and Edward W. Said. The true question is: does Heart of Darkness have a heart of racism, or is the background of the critiqued novella a sign of the times for when it was created? Chinua Achebe was the man that brought “Heart of Darkness”

Instead of criticizing Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Watts decided to criticize Achebe’s “An Image of Africa.” Watts disagrees with the majority of Achebe’s viewpoints. Throughout his essay, he argues that Achebe contradicts himself many times throughout his own argument. When analyzing Watt’s rebuttal of Achebe, reader’s see Watts believes Achebe exaggerates conditions to make them better suit his argument. In his essay, Watts claims that it was not wrong how Conrad spoke of Kurtz two women, how Conrad spoke of cannibals, or even how Conrad spoke of African natives being “wild.” Watts believed Conrad was stating facts such as cannibals, and showing the difference between African culture in comparison to what Europeans were used to in their culture. It is crucial, Watts argues, to put yourself into the shoes of the colonizers that were going through these motions during the time they occurred -- much as Conrad seemed to do. The harsh language, crude stereotypes, and rough images all mirror what truly happened during the time. Watts easily views those truths from Heart of Darkness, however Achebe sees the racism

Edward W. Said chose to view the novella as a historically-based, personal story. He believed that Conrad was a man that liked to place his personal beliefs into the stories that he created. For the instance of Heart of Darkness, Conrad impresses his ideas of imperialism into the novella and into the character of Marlowe. Said writes about how Conrad conveyed his characters, how he contrasts the way they speak on the natives of Africa. For example, Kurtz comes across as brutal and controlling, but Marlowe shows signs of empathy. Said makes several points that lead readers to believe Heart of Darkness was a politically-based novella, rather than a novella to insult a specific race. He believes it to be a “complicated and rich narrative” that dives deep into the issues of imperialism, the effects it held, and just exactly the treatment both races in the novella received. Overall, Said is the common denominator between the viewpoints of Achebe and Watts. He acknowledges the wrongs of the story, however shows that they are not racism but simply a reflection of the world that Conrad inhabited while writing this