Heart of Darkness - Blog 2

    In Chinua Achebe’s “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” Achebe converses his views towards this novella. Achebe gives an overview of Heart of Darkness and the events that took place. There are points in this critical essay that are good. He is coming from a different point of view than Conrad so it makes it easier for him to understand what actually took place. There are also some bad points throughout this essay as well such as the fact that Achebe only discusses the negative things that Conrad wrote and only looks at this novella with a pessimistic opinion.

    Achebe clearly states, “in Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe’s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest” (337 Achebe). Africa is doing all of the work and not getting credit for the majority of it. Achebe doesn’t agree with this. He doesn’t agree with Africa being the foil to Europe and he makes it clear in his essay.

    This book is racist no matter who is reading it. Although, depending on who is reading it may determine the level of racism you think the book actually has. Achebe and Conrad are of different ethnicity which takes a toile on the opinions you may take while reading this book.  A positive thing about this critical essay is that because Achebe is an African American he understands more clearly about the racism. I feel as if you can only truly feel the darkness if you understand where the Africans are coming from in this book.

    Some problems that Achebe has in this piece is that he only writes about what he wants you to know. He talks about all of the negative things and gives his thoughts and opinions towards Heart of Darkness, but what he doesn’t do is talk about are the positive things Conrad does. “The point of my observations should be quite clear by now, namely that Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist” (343 Achebe).  Conrad and Achebe are writing from different perspectives and they are writing from different time periods. I don’t think it’s fair that Achebe criticizes Conrad so much throughout this essay because when all of this was taking place racism was viewed differently than it is now. This book seems much harsher now. With Achebe only pointing out the negative things that Conrad has done in Heart of Darkness it may sway others opinions who may want to read this novella.

    Throughout the duration of this critical essay Achebe makes it out as if he could have wrote Heart of Darkness himself, and much better than Conrad did. You can tell that Achebe cares about what he is writing about and doesn’t agree with a lot of the racist interpretations that take place in Heart of Darkness. Because he cares so much, he vents through his essay about all of the negative things Conrad did in the novella.

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua. “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” Armstrong 336- 49.