Criticism In China Achebe's Heart Of Darkness

As far as china Achebe's article of Heart of Darkness is considered, I disagree with his narrow approach towards Joseph Conrad's novel. Achebe does not take into account that Heart of Darkness is narrated from the perspective of the main characters Marlow who has never been exposed to the African culture before. As a result, Marlow does not aware of the African's way of living and also their traditions. The book contains several racist thoughts towards the Africans, but it also provides a deep sharp criticism towards the Europeans as well. Although the discrimination towards the Africana is obvious in the novel, but the readers must be aware of the historical text in which the novel was written. Conrad states several times

In fact Conrad referees to the Africans as uncivilized people in some points in the novel, but he also proves that they are primitive people. For example, when one of the natives says to Marlow pointing to a man "catch 'im , Give 'im to us" so that he could "eat 'im" and he get surprised when he knows that Europeans kill thousands of people without eating them and asked Marlow "then why do they kill 'im". Marlow distances himself from the Europeans who are pretending to be civilized and kill thousands of innocents for the sake of killing while the natives kill people for their basic

Kurtz" and he also says that Africa was just used as a "metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognizable humanity". Hence Africa was described in the novel as only the setting of a complex events happen on it. It was quite the opposite of what Achebe says and turns into a criticism towards what the Europeans did in the African land. The depiction of Africa also highlights what the Europeans did in order to achieve their purpose and contain the ivory of Africa under the mask of enlighten the