Heart Of Darkness Racism Quotes

Comparing the natives to animals continues when Conrad introduces Marlow to a worker in charge of making sure the boiler doesn’t run out of water. He states "to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind-legs" (Conrad 42). This man illustrates the possibility that the savages might be tamable because, "He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet In February 1977, Chinua Achebe claimed that Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness was proof that Conrad was a “bloody racist”. This claim, challenged by many over the years, has proven to be less than accurate. Truly, though it is a matter of opinion, Conrad’s use of stark diction, dark imagery and use of the em-dash convey the thoughts of someone who is merely a victim of what was believed in at the time. Meanwhile, Achebe’s attempts at civilizing an African tribe in Things Fall Apart were made unsuccessful by his own protagonist and were not helped by his repeated use of long sentences, straightforward imagery, and …show more content…
Prejudice is prominent, most noticeably so in the way, Marlow, describes the “savages” in his journey through the Congo. At one point, Marlow notices a hole dug into the slope of a hill and, in order to avoid falling in, he finds himself in a grove where most of the native workers go to die. “Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair …they were nothing earthly now, --nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation lying confusedly in the greenish gloom…one of these creatures rose to his hands and knees, and went off on all-fours towards the river to drink.” (Conrad