Critical Race Theory In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

1989 Words4 Pages

Literary theory gives people the opportunity to look at texts from different perspectives. It’s a tool that deepens personal understanding of texts. “Literary theory is the set of concepts and intellectual assumptions on which rests the work of interpreting literary texts.” (Brenton, Vice) It gives people the opportunity to look at texts from different perspectives. We all comprehend texts, art, etc. and literary theory helps us to understand literature a little better than we did before. You might read something and find a lot of details that you missed when you didn’t have literary theory to help you. For example, you can read something and feel like you have a complete and total understanding of everything you read and be wrong. Not to …show more content…

Seeing that this text shows how people react to and act towards people that are different from them this theory would be really good to use as a way to interpret this text. Critical race theory wants to challenge dominant contemporary understandings of race and the law, as well as other aspects of social structural inequalities and that is sort of what Kurtz was doing in “Heart of Darkness”. He took the side of the natives and when the company came for him he spoke out about it. The looked at him as if he were crazy and even talked about killing him, but he didn’t care, he knew what they were doing was wrong, just as Marlow did when he agreed with Kurtz and sided with the natives as well. (Bracey II, Glenn …show more content…

Tenets of this theory that can be acted upon in interpreting text are questioning the system of values that support imperialism, questioning how imperialist colonizing powers are expanding, and focusing on victims of racism, military expansion, and exploitation. (Bertens, Hans) The text “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad was placed back in colonial times. The text is about a man who learns the truth about colonization and what the colonizing powers were really up to. A man named Marlow goes on a journey from England to Africa to find another man named Kurt, whom the colonizing powers (also known as the company) assume is being held captive by the natives and/or probably dead. Marlow discovers that the company did not actually send him and the ship’s crew out there to look for Kurt, but to steal ivory. When he finally reaches Kurt he soon discovers that Kurt has sided with the natives and the more Marlow learns about the company, the more he agrees with Kurt. (Conrad,

Show More
Related

  • Heart Of Darkness

    1436 Words  | 3 Pages

    Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness uses character development and character analysis to really tell the story of European colonization. Within Conrad's characters one can find both racist and colonialist views, and it is the opinion, and the interpretation of the reader which decides what Conrad is really trying to say in his work.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

    647 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the book “Heart of Darkness”, Joseph Conrad wrote about the horrors that were committed by Leopold’s regime. As one of the first insider to witness these horrors, he wrote “Heart of Darkness”, with this book, he was able to spread the word about the atrocities he had seen in Leopold’s greedy pursuit of rubber and ivory in the congo. This book details closely how Leopold made his humongous profit. Leopold issued decrees on the Congo such as that the native people may only trade with his state agents or with his concessions. Leopold’s concessions were private companies that would sell the ivory and rubber, they would give Leopold 50% of their profits. The Abir Congo Company was one of these concessions that harvest the natural rubber of the Congo.They were granted a large portion of the land in the north and had the right to impose a rubber tax on its inhabitants. It was through concessions like these but also from his personal company (the Congo Free State) that Leopold created his personal wealth. This book brings us one step closer to answering our question since it tells us how Leopold got ahold of all of his profits. But this brings us to another question of, exactly how much money did the Congo bring to Leopold II?

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Colonialism In Joseph Conrad's Invisible Man

    2036 Words  | 5 Pages

    Often in human history, suppression of a deemed inferior group leads to a convoluted struggle with perspective playing a central part. In Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man, the unnamed character is a black man living in Jim Crow South. He has graduated from high school, but events transpire more and more chaotically as he is ignored and treated unfairly on his journey. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad incorporates a European narrator called Marlow who ventures deeper into the Congo River in Africa with a Belgian ivory-trading firm at the peak of imperialism. Marlow searches for a venerable man named Kurtz who is the face of the company, and discovers more and more about the nature of European colonialism along his way. Both Invisible Man

    Read More

  • Eurocentricism: An Invisible Ideology in Literature

    598 Words  | 2 Pages

    The novel gives rise to many questions. The first and important question is about Eurocentricism. How Joseph Conrad exposed Eurocentricism in Heart of Darkness? This Eurocentricism has different aspects. What are the Eurocentric aspects in the novel? The ideology is cruel and cause many problems. What is the real reason of colonization in the novel? The conditions of the colonized people are worse because of this ideology. What are conditions of colonized people in the novel? The nations have suffered badly due to this ideology. How Conrad exposed the exploitation of rights of the natives?

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

    949 Words  | 2 Pages

    Kurtz is introduced as a respectable and powerful man because he is known for his wisdom and his nobility. His mission in the Congo is to save the natives from their barbaric way of life and make it more similar to the European, through colonization. He believes that in order for his plan to work he must present himself as a confident god-like leader “…must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings – we approach them with the might as of a deity.” 1 In order to control the situation, the natives must relate to them, and trust them. However, as Kurtz gains more power over the natives he gets blinded by it, instead of civilizing the natives by stripping away their primitive ways, he dehumanizes them, and himself too. Kurtz does not understand how the natives live, and does not try to, therefore making him seem ignorant, which is ironic to the character he is known to be. He trusts in colonization, where the natives should mimic the European culture. His renowned success in the company; consequently convinces others that his actions are moral, however it creates a shadow that prevents...

    Read More

  • Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

    1271 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the present era of decolonization, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness presents one of fictions strongest accounts of British imperialism. Conrad’s attitude towards imperialism and race has been the subject of much literary and historical debate. Many literary critics view Conrad as accepting blindly the arrogant attitude of the white male European and condemn Conrad to be a racist and imperialists. The other side vehemently defends Conrad, perceiving the novel to be an attack on imperialism and the colonial experience. Understanding the two viewpoints side by side provides a unique understanding that leads to a commonality that both share; the novel simply presents a criticism of colonialists in Africa. The novel merely portrays a fictional account of British imperialism in the African jungle, where fiction offers maximum entertainment it lacks in focus. The novel is not a critique of European colonialism and imperialism, but rather a presentation of colonialism and the theme of darkness throughout the novel sheds a negative light on the selfishness of humanity and the system that was taking advantage of the native peoples. In Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, Conrad presents a criticism of British imperial colonization not for the purpose of taking sides, but with aims of bettering the system that was in place during Conrad’s experience in the African Congo. Conrad uses the character of Marlow and his original justification of imperialism so long as it was efficient and unselfish that was later transformed when the reality of colonialism displayed the selfishness of man, to show that colonialism throughout history displaces the needs of the mother country over the colonized peoples and is thus always selfish.

    Read More

  • Racism in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

    445 Words  | 1 Pages

    In recent years, the debate over the merits versus the racial shortcomings of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness has raged hot. Many, notably David Denby and Chinua Achebe, have come down on one side or another of the issue. I contend, with the help of the written opinions of Denby and Achebe, that Heart of Darkness, while racist in its views, is nonetheless a valuable and commendable work of art.

    Read More

  • Savagery in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now

    809 Words  | 2 Pages

    Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness shows the disparity between the European ideal of civilization and the reality of it, displayed by the domination, torture, exploitation and dehumanization of the African people.  Conrad often emphasizes the idea of what is civilized versus what is primitive or savage.  While reading the novel, the reader can picture how savage the Europeans seem.  They are cruel and devious towards the very people they are supposed to be helping.

    Read More

  • The Conquest in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

    476 Words  | 1 Pages

    “ The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.” (Conrad 65)  So stated Marlow as though this was his justification for ravaging the Congo in his search for ivory.  Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness shows the disparity between the European ideal of civilization and the reality of it as is evidenced by the domination, torture, exploitation and dehumanization of the African population.  Heart of Darkness is indicative of the evil and greed in humanity as personified by Kurtz and Marlow.

    Read More

  • Prejudice and Racism in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

    558 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the novel, Heart of Darkness, the author Joseph Conrad makes some comments, and he uses different terms to describe people of color that may offend some people. Also the readers can see how racist the Europeans were toward blacks not only because they were turned into slaves. We can see how the European people seem to think the Africans are not equal to them. There are many examples of discrimination towards woman in this story. Women were looked down and they were considered to be worth less then men, or even not as important. Racism and discrimination are all over in this novel.

    Read More

  • The Changing Personality of Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

    881 Words  | 2 Pages

    Heart of Darkness is a novel based on European imperialism in the late nineteenth-early twentieth century. During the turn of the century in 1900, the more significant countries in Europe (i.e. England, France, Germany, et al.) had gotten to a point where expansion within Europe was no longer foreseeable, so for financial, political, and egotistical reasons, these countries looked south to their neighbor Africa, the "black continent." "God-forsaken wilderness." Marlow says of Africa. (Page 73) Trade routes were established and the home countries found reliable executive willing to travel and develop relations in the country. In Conrad's novel, Kurtz was this man. He started out with a noble goal, i.e. to modernize Africa, but suffered the effects of a deadly disease, greed. "It was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage." Said Marlow (of what Kurtz and the ivory company had done to Africa.) (Page 102.)

    Read More

  • Heart of Darkness and Wide Sargasso Sea: Depiction and Effect Due to Colonization

    1988 Words  | 4 Pages

    Throughout Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad points to the hypocrisy and horrors associated with colonialism. The half-English, half-French Kurtz is the main vehicle used to convey his theme of European colonialism, as “all [of] Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz” (Conrad 164). It was Kurtz who goes to Africa for the "sake of loot, and thus becomes a great literary symbol for the decadence of colonialism" (Zins 63). With his help, Marlow dissects the reasoning behind colonialism, eventually seeing its evil nature.

    Read More

  • Racism in Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness

    715 Words  | 2 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • Modernist Style in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

    393 Words  | 1 Pages

    Heart of Darkness describes a voyage to Africa, common for the British still, despite the horrific treatment which was apparent of colonization.  The chaotic, stream-of-consciousness style Conrad took on helped to display the confusion, and made the reader have to interpret for themselves what they thought the writer meant.  Conrad experiments with this style, leaving some sentences without ending: "not a sentimental pretense but an idea;…something you can set up…and offer a sacrifice to…." (Conrad, Longman p. 2195), a very choppy form of literature and causes the reader to fill in the holes and interpret themselves, alone.  Conrad skips about from talking of the "two women knitted black wool feverishly" at the gate of the city (of hell), to his aunt which he feels women are "out of touch with truth," to how the British are as "weak-eyed devil(s) of a rapacious and pitiless folly" (Conrad, Longman pp. 2198, 2199, & 2202).  Conrad's mind moves about as ours do along a large duration of literary monologue to convey to the reader the author's ideas, as interpreted by the reader.

    Read More

  • Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness - A Modernist Novel

    505 Words  | 2 Pages

    Modernism began as a movement in that late 19th, early 20th centuries. Artists started to feel restricted by the styles and conventions of the Renaissance period. Thusly came the dawn of Modernism in many different forms, ranging from Impressionism to Cubism.

    Read More

More about Critical Race Theory In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

Open Document