Analysis Of Chinua Achebe's Heart Of Darkness

The Heart of Darkness is seen as a classic that many say shouldn’t be taught and many of those who think it should thinks the reader need to be very critical of it. The debate of it being taught stems from the debate of whether Conrad and his narrative are racist. Many have addressed the idea of racism, and furthermore how he depicts Africans. In my opinion, it is clearly a racist story, whether intentionally or unintentionally, it has racist tones especially when read by a modern day reader. On the other hand his view of Africans is also interesting to analysis, as it is questioned, just with the racism, if his views of them are just mirroring the popular opinion of the time. Undoubtedly though any analysis I have with be quite different from those who have done analysis of it in
I agree with that fact that his use of offensive terms for the African, definitely shows, at least a more modern day reader, that the narrative is racist. I also agree with his view that the presence of what should be the main subject of the novella is very absent in many parts of the novella, the Africans. As Achebe states on page 346 of the Norton critical edition, “But more importantly by far is the abundant testimony about Conrad’s savages which we could gather if we were so inclined from other sources and which might lead us to think that these people must have had other occupations besides merging into the evil forest or materializing out of it simply to plague Marlow and his dispirited band”. Even with all this said I would not completely condemn this book as Achebe does because I don’t believe Conrad really intended it to be racist. It might be a very racist novella as Achebe states but, much of that racism can be contributed to the time period, and the novella it gives an interesting view in other aspects such as its depiction of