Conrad and Achebe

After reading Heart of Darkness for the second time, I stand by my original belief that Conrad was indeed racist, like Chinua Achebe said. I agree with Achebe when he stated that although the story is told through two narrators, Conrad is the same as the character Marlow. If Conrad was not a racist, he could have offered an opposing moral position that showed colonization in a different way. He could have showed another point of view, but he did not. The book dehumanizes Africans and divides humankind into two, the civilized and uncivilized. As Achebe describes, “Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as ‘the other world’, the antithesis of Europe, and therefore of civilization…” (Chinua Achebe, An Image of Africa). Conrad creates images of the African people as well as their world being the opposite of the Western civilization and characters. He uses character counterparts as well as descriptions to do this.
Conrad constantly dehumanizes the African people in the novel. He describes the Africans more like animals than people. He uses the word black non-stop as well as the word “nigger”. “A lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants…a horn tooted and I saw the black people run…six black men advanced in a file toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow…” (Conrad, Heart of Darkness, pg.15). Within two paragraphs, it seems like the only way Conrad wants to describe these people is black and not as people. He also says they are naked, further showing his thoughts of their uncivilized nature. He feels the need to tell the reader that they walked erect. Of course they walked erect, their human, there is no need for him to say they walked like humans unless he thinks otherwise. “Black rags were wound round their loins and the short ends behind waggled to and fro like tails.” (Conrad, Heart of Darkness, pg.15). Conrad uses the direct description of an animal characteristic to create more animal imagery. “Black shapes crouched, lay between the trees, leaning against trunks, clinging to the earth…They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation…These morbid shapes were free as air…Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles…” (Conrad, Heart of Darkness, pg.17). The use of the word black never escapes the reader’s sight. Also, Conrad describes the Africans as nothing earthly, black shadows, and acute angles…never coming close to saying there were people. Throughout the novel, the insistence of Conrad to not refer to the Africans as people, but as savages or animals, captured an underlying worry that Conrad felt which Achebe described in his essay. “It is not the differentness that worries Conrad, but the lurking hint of kinship, of places of the earth” (Achebe, An Image of Africa). The novel shows how Conrad was afraid of the idea of putting them in the same category as Marlow, or should I say as he himself, a human. Conrad expresses, through Marlow through another narrator, an idea of the “savages” being in their place and not being the same as the whites.
One could argue that Conrad was not a racist. Achebe describes instances where Conrad can be defended, all of which I believe are refuted with a more suitable answer. One can say that the novel is just fiction and fiction does not have to please who it is written about. This may be true, but there is no need to be so vulgar and insulting. Second, Achebe says his view of Conrad being racist “may be challenged on the grounds of actuality” (Achebe, An Image of Africa). This means that one can say that the story actually happened, Conrad did sail down the Congo and you cannot try to contradict him years later. Achebe's response is that he will not accept something until he has done it himself. I agree with this, just as I would say many people have an idea of “see it to believe it” in life. Also, Achebe talks about how it can also be said that Africa was just the setting for the story of Kurtz. This in itself creates an idea that Africa is lesser than Europe, creating a sense that all it can do is be a backdrop for the story of one white European whose mind was deteriorating. Lastly, one might argue that Conrad described some of the Africans in a good way, such as the African woman who was Kurtz’ lover. In reality, she is described this way because she is in her place, Like Conrad is comfortable with, and because she plays the uncivilized, savage counterpart that Conrad needs to compare to the European women in the end of the story.