Racism In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness '

Heart of Darkness Essay The history of dominance by the white civilians over darker-skinned individuals spans hundreds of years. The biggest attempt to “civilize” these “barbaric” humans was through Imperialism by European countries. It became such a social norm that the country that was able to “civilize” the most people was considered the most powerful country. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is a story in which characters follow a path of self-discovery to find the true nature of their hearts. However, the book has been called a racist book by many critics but it was Chinua Achebe who believed that the book was racist and so was the author. Achebe calls Conrad a racist because of his use of description and language throughout the book. However, Conrad himself cannot be claimed a racist because of the book because he was just merely using descriptions and language to bring attention to the world of racism and suppression during the 1890’s. Achebe further contradicts himself when he proclaims that fiction is “another way of looking at reality” which only further shows why Conrad was not a racist. All throughout Achebe’s criticism, he analyzed the book literally without considering the symbolic or ironic connotation. Achebe begins his criticism from the very beginning of the book. Conrad, according to Achebe, was …show more content…
Because Achebe firmly believed that fiction cannot be just imagination but it is a way of looking at reality, he declared Joseph Conrad to be racist. This is self-contradicting because Conrad indeed does show what the reality of that time was through his book but he does not have to be racist to write about racism during that time period. Rather, Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness to bring light upon the true nature of Imperialism as well as highlighting the social norms and prejudice of the