Heart Of Darkness Critical Analysis

Heart of Darkness was based on Conrad’s personal experience in the Congo in 1890, during this time King Leopold of Belgium colonizes Central Africa and forms the Congo Free State. Leopold 's original purpose for colonizing Congo was to harvest Ivory. As a consequence, King Leopold, who was a tyrant used his powers and weapons to force the Congolese’s to work to death. In the same way, that the Hearth of Darkness unfolds; it shares the similarity in which the people of Congo were treated under the authority of Leopold. “The work as going on. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die: “They were dying slowly—it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,

Moreover, if they cannot work efficiently they luck in value. In the Heart of Darkness, the Congolese 's are simultaneously described as a black item failing to recognize their humanity: “I miss him even while his body was a steel lying pilothouse. Perhaps you would think it passing strange this is regret for a savage who was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara. Well, don’t you see, he had done something, he had steered; four months I had him in my back–– a help––an instrument.’

When the topic like racism is left untouched in the Heart of Darkness, it indicates that there was never a problem nor the case. However, there is so much room to analyze the racialism that is embedded throughout in the novel: "They are called criminals, and they outraged law, like in the bursting shells, had come to them, an insoluble mystery from the sea. All their meagre breasts panted together, the violently dilated nostrils quivered. The eyes stared stonily uphill. They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with that complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages.” (46). The natives were enslaved and chained yet, Marlow manages to describe then as dangerous savages who are about to rebel. It is impossible to overlook the stereotypes and ruthless language that are used to depict the Congolese people. Hence, by leaving the racism topic away shows how oblivious the critics are to racialism; Therefore, failing to acknowledge the inferiorities that are used to describe black people. In An Image of Africa, Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic, who focus on traditional African values during and after the colonial era, challenged the prestige of The Heart of Darkness: “And the question is whether in the novel which celebrates this