Prejudice and Racism in Conrads Heart of Darkness :: Heart Darkness essays

Racism in Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad develops themes of personal power, individual responsibility, and complaisant justice in his book Heart of Darkness. His book contains all the furnishing of the conventional adventure tale mystery, exotic setting, escape, suspense, and unexpected attack. Chinua Achebe concluded, Conrad, on the otherwise hand, is undoubtedly 1 of the great stylists of modern fiction and a rock-steady story-teller into the bargain (Achebe 252). Yet, despite Conrads great story telling, he has also been viewed as a racist by near of his critics. Achebe, Singh, and Sarvan, although their criticisms differ, are a a couple of(prenominal) to name. Normally, readers are good at detecting racism in a book. Achebe acknowledges Conrad camouflaged racism remarks, saying, Conrad chose his subject well - one which was guaranteed not to vomit him in conflict with psychological pre-disposition... (Achebe, 253). ***CAN YOU TELL US specifically WHAT THIS MEANS? THE READER DOES NOT KNOW WHAT PSYCHOLOGICAL PRE-DISPOSITION IS*** Having gone bet on and rereading Heart of Darkness, this snip reading between the lines, I discovered some racism Conrad felt toward the natives that I had not discovered the first time I read the book. Racism is portrayed in Conrads book, however one must acknowledge that in the eighteen hundreds society conformed to it. Conrad probably would pass been criticized as being soft hearted rather than a racist in his time. Conrad constantly referred to the natives, in his book, as black savages, niggers, brutes, and them, displaying ignorance toward the African history and racism towards the African people. Conrad wrote, Black figures strolled out listlessly... the beaten nigger groaned somewhere (Conrad 28). They passed me with sextet inches, without a glance, with the complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages (Conrad 19). Achebe also detected Conrads shop at use of unorthodox name calling, Certainly Con rad had a problem with niggers. His undue love of that word itself should be of interest to psychoanalysts (Achebe 258). Conrad uses Marlow, the main character in the book, as a narrator so he himself can memorialize the story and tell it through his own philosophical mind. Conrad used replicate speak throughout his book. Upon arriving at the first station, Marlow commented what he observed. They were dying easily - it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation lying confusedly in the unripened gloom (Conrad 20).