Racism In Heart Of Darkness

Racism is a difficult trait to define, and to recognize. It is often hard to decipher what is actually racist, and what just comes across as such. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is the story of one man’s account of being an ivory transporter, down the Congo River. During the voyage, there are many encounters with African Natives, and many of those encounters reflect negatively on the natives. The white men who dominate the storyline are demeaning towards the natives, and paint them as being sub-human. The imagery and descriptions of the native’s actions and appearance also serves to portray them as savages. However, it is unclear whether the author actually believed this portrayal, or was merely trying to create an authentic representation …show more content…
Joseph Conrad himself was a captain of a steamer that went down the Congo River. This time spent as a captain served as his inspiration for writing Heart of Darkness. While this voyage educated him on the actual happenings in Africa, it also serves to make it harder to ignore the racism in the book. The fact that Conrad spent time in the Congo, and was led to write a book with as many instances of racism as he did, makes it appear as though Conrad was displaying his actual beliefs through Marlow, and not conjuring up fictitious beliefs made to fit the people of the time period. Conrad failed to distinguish his own views from Marlow’s, and a writer with as descriptive prose as Conrad would not do that unintentionally. He titled the book Heart of Darkness, which can be construed as racist on its own. The author is saying that Africa is the “Heart of Darkness”, meaning that the center of evil happens to be the place that is mainly inhabited by blacks. Conrad considered the African jungle to be the “Heart of Darkness” because of its untamed wilderness, and the savages that inhabit it. Conrad’s own journey through the Congo provided him with knowledge of Africa, and its people, and that knowledge spurred him to write a book that is littered with instances of racist and dehumanizing …show more content…
However it is hard to prove this contention as Conrad hardly provides a counter to the racism, instead portraying it as the accepted norm. As Chinua Achebe states in his essay of response to Heart of Darkness, Conrad never portrays “an African who is not just limbs or rolling eyes” (Achebe). Conrad repeatedly described the natives as sub-human beings, and provided no counter to that. It does not seem as though Conrad added the racial aspects of the book as a means for drumming up sympathy or compassion for the natives, but more as a backdrop of the main story. There is nothing to suggest that Conrad himself wasn’t a racist, or that he was trying to eradicate racism from society by depicting it so heinously. The book gives the impression that Conrad was a racist or had some racist tendencies, and he used the book as a means to broadcast his beliefs. Another contention in refute of Conrad’s racism is the use of a framed narrative in Heart of Darkness, as the story is told by a narrator who is reporting Marlow’s accounts of Africa. It can be said that Conrad used this technique to distance himself from the racism, and the characters of the book. This is difficult to accept however, because the narrator listening to Marlow’s story does not provide a buffer for the racism. There