Jeff Kyle
English 3 Honors
Mr. Horner
12/3/07
Joseph Conrad: Adventurer, Writer, and Racist
Towards the end of the 15th century, the African people had created vast empires throughout their continent. As time went on, European sailors saw that these African people could be a threat, and were quick to take action against them due to their superior technology. Slavery took place, and for the next three hundred and fifty years, Africans would be considered by almost everyone to be inferior. This concept became widely accepted, and became part of peoples’ way of thinking. In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad unconsciously created a novel that included a great deal of racism towards blacks. While this may have been unintentional on his part, it offended a great majority of African people, leading them to label Conrad as a racist. As a writer, Conrad could have easily seen the connections he made in the story were racist. He had the potential to fix them, making them appropriate for all races, but he did not. For his time period, his work was perfectly fine; presently, it is not. If readers interpret the text in a racist way, it does not necessarily matter if the writer meant it or not. As Conrad’s novel gained popularity, people felt the need to criticize him on what he said, and what he included in his novel. The people against Conrad’s novel were not just Africans, but many other groups of people that felt that what he said was wrong. Morally, they believe that many things in his novel should be changed, and continuously disprove of his use of racism.
Conrad had a specific approach when writing his novel that he went back to continuously, but led to disputes about him being a racist. He had a negative approach towards political criticism, pertaining to Africa. Political criticism judges everything that is directly relevant to the conditions of possibility and the forces of generation, and the regulation and adjudication of conflict and struggle. This kind of criticism tries to understand why certain groups of society or cultures are what they are. It not only asks what made it the way it is, but tries to understand the conditions as well (Nowlan 1). Having a positive attitude in political criticism understands why certain things turn out the way they do and accept them. A negative attitude would simply point out all the ways a civilization or culture is different and worse than another culture, looking at all the bad aspects of it. When Conrad wrote his novel, he had an idea of what the situation in Africa was like, and described it in the most negative way he could. He constantly brought up how the setting was hellish and the people were less than human. This may be due to either his perception on the subject from personal experience or what he believes the situation to be like. The reason racism was so widely accepted goes back to imperialism and colonialism in Africa. The term imperialism in this sense refers to the rush for control of parts of Africa that numerous countries took part in. Everyone wanted to, in a way, steal a little bit of Africa away from its settlers, and have some for themselves (1 Lloyd). The African people were simply in the way, and in most cases forcefully put out of the picture. Being disregarded like this slowly moved them towards being discriminated against, and later led to slavery. Soon after this, the European countries that were imperializing Africa began to colonize there as well, setting up sovereignty over certain territories. These colonies would completely dominate any resources that are available in the area, making life for the Africans incredibly difficult (1 Colonialism). By now, the stance of an African person is incredibly low, the whole race of people being marked as a slave. In Conrad’s time, their position was not necessarily any different, still being in a somewhat low position. It can be argued that it is hard not to remark about the low status of blacks when dealing with Africa in specific, but Conrad went out of his way to make them evident. Politically, Africa was a mess during the time Conrad wrote his novel. Certain viewpoints may have been going around concerning the stature of Africans, seeing as in addition to being behind the rest of the world technologically, they are mostly enslaved. He may not have realized that his ideas about Africans and their state would offend others, but regardless of what Conrad thought at the time, people responded to what he wrote in a somewhat unfriendly way.
A number of Africans have shown their feelings towards Conrad’s novel by criticizing just about all the racist aspects of it. One of the most popular critics was Chinua Achebe who published his essay “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”. In his essay, he wrote about how Conrad was a racist, pointing out the many things wrong in his novel. He explains how Conrad portrays Africa as a whole ‘other’ world, where the men are constantly mocked (2 Achebe). Achebe is also disgusted in the way that Conrad portrays the average African person.
As everybody knows, Conrad is a romantic on the side. He might not exactly admire savages clapping their hands and stamping their feet but they have at least the merit of being in their place, unlike this dog in a parody of breeches. For Conrad things being in their place is of the utmost importance. ‘Fine fellows -- cannibals --in their place,’ he tells us pointedly. Tragedy begins when things leave their accustomed place, like Europe leaving its safe stronghold between the policeman and the baker to like a peep into the heart of darkness (4 Achebe).
Achebe obviously does not like that Conrad portrays blacks so low in the sense that he is surprised that they are not clapping their hands instead of working. Achebe anticipates the argument that Conrad is not necessarily saying these things, but the character Marlow is. His response to this is that while this is true, Conrad goes through considerable trouble to make Marlow say the things that he did, thus proving that there is definitely a connection between what the two said (5 Achebe). In addition to this, Achebe anticipates the argument that racism was suitable for the time in which Conrad lived. He responds by saying that the fact Conrad used Africa over any other place and describing it the way he does is enough to see that he meant the things that he said and it was no coincidence.
Africa as setting and backdrop which eliminates the African as human factor. Africa as a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognizable humanity, into which the wandering European enters at his peril. Can nobody see the preposterous and perverse arrogance in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind? But that is not even the point. The real question is the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this age-long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the world. And the question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the human race, can be called a great work of art. My answer is: No, it cannot (7 Achebe).
By incorporating the ideas of Africa being such a horrific place, Achebe believes that Conrad absolutely does not deserve to have the stature that he has come to receive by publishing a novel that ridicules a race so strongly. Achebe was not the only one offended by this.
Amatoritsero Ede, an African poet and author, feels the same way Achebe does when it comes to Heart of Darkness. Like Achebe, Ede notes that the African characters do not necessarily act like normal human beings, simply communicating with a grumbling sound. They have the physical features of a human, but do not act like them in any way.
The Africans were the 'first men' - something baser than human, primordial; a sort of extinct human dinosaur, without a cultural space of their own, re-discovered, categorized and put in their place for their own good; a gelatinous mass of monstrous and senseless limbs, contorted bodies and rolling eyes living partly on trees ( in the foliage) and partly in crude lean-tos, which it was fair game to take port-shots at by the colonizing imperial power in order to instill a random discipline of hot lead when necessary (2 Ede).
It is almost impossible to see how the Africans are not portrayed as being less than human. In just about every sense, Conrad has shown how they are simply tools helping to get things done, never amounting to anything more, and Ede has picked up on this. These kinds of statements completely negate any kind of humanity that the Africans have (2 Ede). Another man who believes that what Conrad had to say was wrong is Even Mwangi, a writer for the magazine The Nation. He notes, “In the forests of Umuofia, there is a system of education, a rich philosophy, and sophisticated art, not to mention a complex religion and medical practice” (2 Mwangi). Judging by the descriptions Conrad gives of the setting he is in, Mwangi believes that the area in which the story takes place would be near the forests of Umuofia. Not only is Conrad making the Africans seem less than human, but he is exaggerating the setting so it seems like a bad place when in reality, it is not. Most people believe that him putting down the stature of Africans is enough, let alone exaggerating the setting. Koranteng Ofosu-Amaah, a writer and omnivorous reader as he calls himself, also has something to say about the subject. He notices Conrad’s exaggerations saying, “He tended to mix personal meditations and psychological portraits with a broad brush of metaphors” (1 Ofosu-Amaah). Ofosu-Amaah sees that Conrad was constantly exaggerating situations as well as events that happened, and while certain things may have taken place that Conrad included in his novel, there is a good chance that personal ideas are getting in the way of his thoughts. Conrad’s choice of setting, characters, and fine details all contributed to the uproar from the African community. Not only blacks, however, felt that his decision in writing his work was a bad one.
As Conrad’s novel gained popularity, Europeans as well as Americans both took part in explaining what they felt was wrong with his story. Writer Brian Shaffer believes that Conrad’s writing had very much to do with his personal trip to Africa. Had it not been for these trips, Shaffer believes that Conrad would not feel the same as he did when he wrote his book.
Conrad's actual experience of Africa, while it might have seemed interminable to him given all he saw there, lasted only about six months, in the second half of 1890. Clearly, Conrad brought baggage from his Western frame of reference to his "envisioning" of Africa, which led to his committing a series of misconceptions and misrepresentations of Africa and Africans. For Conrad, moreover, as for other Western authors, envisioning Africa in fiction also became an analogue for the exploration of the hidden, dark regions of their inner selves (2 Shaffer).
When he went to Africa, Conrad may have seen things or participated in things that would lead him to believe that it is a horrible place in which the people there are in fact less than human. Going back to political criticism, Conrad is judging the people in this place negatively, basing their way of life with his own. No doubt both lives would be very different from one another, seeing that Conrad lived in Europe and the people he encountered lived in Africa. In a sense, Shaffer believes that Heart of Darkness is not about Africa, but is about the specific fears of Conrad and what he went through when he visited the Congo. “With the obvious exception of Kurtz, not a single one of the Congo Belgians in Conrad's novel is anything more than a stereotype” (2 Shaffer). Seeing as the Africans in Conrad’s novel are simply stereotypes, it is easy to see how everything fits in. He took his own person idea of the African people in general, stereotypes and all, and put them in his story. Other European critics share the same ideas as Shaffer.
Dr. Peter Mwikisa, senior lecturer at the University of Sussex, agrees with most critics going against Conrad. Until the release of Achebe’s essay he says, there were not necessarily any African perspectives of the novel. Mwikisa sees, along with other critics, that the image Conrad portrays is highly exaggerated, and that he purposely did this in order to draw attention to the matter.
There is also an apocalyptic function in Conrad's image of Africa. Needless to say, it is an image of Africa that could not bear much resemblance to what the Africans themselves think, since they could hardly be expected to have participated in the construction of an image of themselves that dehumanized and depersonalized them 1 Mwikisa).
Mwikisa feels that although Conrad’s work could be interpreted as racist or misunderstood, the view of Africa that he showed helped greatly to dehumanize the African people. While this subject can be very powerful for some, African critics were reluctant to step forth and show their feelings until Achebe drew attention to the subject in his essay (2 Mwikisa). Mwikisa sees Achebe’s views and the views going against him, noting that the two can not be separated. Both views are right in his opinion, if looked at in different ways.
Conrad, Achebe pointedly declared, was a thoroughgoing racist, and this detracted from his novella's literary merit… Harris Wilson's conclusion [states] that precisely because he is an African, Achebe may have had difficulties appreciating the sophistication of Conrad's vision, which requires that Kurtz be seen as a symbolic expression of the danger of idealism being used to cover up and legitimate tyranny (3 Mwikisa).
In his lecture, Achebe states clearly that Conrad and Marlow are the same person, and Conrad is simply telling his own story through Marlow. While this may be the case if looking at it the way Achebe does, others believe that what he says is too bold a statement. The good thing about Mwikisa’s argument is that he views both arguments against Achebe and for him, and allows the reader to see both sides of the story, rather than sticking with one. This kind of approach is somewhat different than the others, and often leads to more complex discussions about the other side of the argument. One additional argument of the case comes from the point of view of another European woman named Jane Buckley.
As a critic for an online writer association, Jane Buckley has her own opinions about racism in Heart of Darkness. Like other critics who share her same belief that racism is frequent in Conrad’s novel, she believes that the disregard for the Africans’ intelligence is clearly racist. An interesting point that she brings up though, is idea that Conrad is, in an obscure way, trying to bring sympathy to the Africans (1 Buckley). In her article, she explains how Africans become immaterial entities that cause the reader to see how they are disregarded by people who were trying to colonize them.
Within the text the African people are rarely said to speak intelligibly. Their attempts at English are used to display them in patronizing light, such as the request for a fish made by a member of the steamboat crew. The denial by Conrad of the African people's humanity further serves to alienate them from the European ideal of what is a human: again a clever device to show the results of colonialisation (1 Buckley).
She believes that throughout the whole novel, there is a great amount of European superiority, regarding Africans. To her, Marlow is not necessarily an utter racist, but is a mechanism that Conrad uses to bring doubt to the idea of colonization (2 Buckley). More importantly, she recognizes that Conrad did not intend to use racism or offend people specifically, but felt the need to incorporate ideas of prejudice as well as the harsh conditions of the Africans.
…One must look at why the novella is written as it is, and what are its effects? Racism is clearly employed within the novella. Prejudice towards the African people and their culture is a very useful technique that creates a sense of apartheid - them, the Africans and then us the Europeans. Although the techniques exploited are liable to cause offence to some people, harsh criticism of the usage of racism is altogether unwarranted. This criticism does not seem to grasp the usage of racism as a potent attack on colonialism, its ideal, the ethics behind it, the morals of European society and the social conditioning that causes them. The representation of the African people and their culture and society in the novella 'Heart of Darkness' is unequivocally racist, but this portrayal only serves to build the strength of the argument against colonialism (2 Buckley).
Through clever observation, Buckley realizes that while racism is a frequent thing in his novel, Conrad did not necessarily intend to offend people, but wanted to get the overall message of what colonialism does to people. If Buckley is correct in her theory, the racism helps to show the overall message of colonialism and how it has failed, turning people into monsters. It is understandable to see why people get offended at first look, but when digging into deeper meanings, it is not necessarily what was supposed to get across, as to the internal message that Conrad left.
All in all, Joseph Conrad, after going through unique personal experience, unintentionally included a great amount of racism in his novel Heart of Darkness. While it offended some people considerably, the overall intention was to inform the masses about colonialism and the things it can do to people. In her article, Jane Buckley notices this and explains how while he might not have meant it, he offended a whole race of people. Other people, like Chinua Achebe, have convincing arguments in their favor but might have their ideas clouded by personal views and opinions, as stated by Peter Mwikisa. Mwikisa was one of the few critics who believed that both Achebe and those opposing Achebe were right in their own sense, which is very true when looking at each person’s perception on the subject. It is very true that some parts of Conrad’s work can be offensive. It is understood that anyone from African decent is offended when Conrad says, “A black figure stood up, stride on long black legs, waving long black arms, across the glow. It had horns—antelope horns, I think—on its head” (148 Conrad). The over emphasis on ‘black’ or the ‘n-word’ gives parts of his novel a racist feel, but should not be the main focus. What should be the main focus is the idea of what colonialism and imperialism do to people, specifically Kurtz. People of today have a right and have reason to be offended by what Conrad had to say. What should matter is the fact that while the text can be morally and emotionally damaging, it is not necessarily what Conrad wanted his message to be. If it is interpreted as something created simply to ridicule Africans, Conrad has failed to get his true message across. Looking at the time period in which Conrad lived, he was not a racist, but when looking at it in present times, it is easy to see how he could be considered a racist. Therefore, presently, Conrad can be described as a racist, but not an intentional racist. In this sense, Joseph Conrad was a racist from today’s standards, but can not be blamed for something he did when it was okay during the time in which he lived.
Appendix
The idea of African Eco-criticism is a very important topic when looking at Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”. The rights of the Africans as well as women are overlooked, and should be taken into more consideration. People believe that Conrad’s choosing of setting the story in a forest helped to degrade the African people, putting them in a ‘site of death’. This source took the side of the Africans when discussing Conrad’s work, feeling that his work is a collection of racist details and comments.
“Koranteng’s Toli” mainly retold Conrad’s story, explaining what went on as well as the time period that he wrote it. Numerous offensive sections of his book were explained, noting why they were offensive to people through specific examples. The article goes on to talk about other writers who opposed Conrad, and what they believe as to the racism. This article, once again, takes on the view that Conrad had racist views in his work, and they should be recognized.
“Two Readings of Heart of Darkness” looked at both Conrad’s and Achebe’s work. It recognizes that Conrad viewed Africa as ‘the other world’ thus segregating it from the world as we know it. Another point that it covers is that the blacks and whites are incredibly different not only with looks, but with stature. They are constantly being depicted as almost deformed, and every different than the white men. It also depicts other examples of racism that are easily offensive to people. The article takes a stance opposite that of Conrad, thus going against him and his racist remarks towards the African people.
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