Joseph Conrad’s Novel Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness uses character development and character analysis to really tell the story of European colonization. Within Conrad’s characters one can find both racist and colonialist views, and it is the opinion, and the interpretation of the reader which decides what Conrad is really trying to say in his work.

Chinua Achebe, a well known writer, once gave a lecture at the University of Massachusetts about Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, entitled “An image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” Throughout his essay, Achebe notes how Conrad used Africa as a background only, and how he “set Africa up as a foil to Europe,” (Achebe, p.251) while he also “projects the image of Africa as the ‘other world,’ the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilizations” (Achebe, p.252). By his own interpretations of the text, Achebe shows that Conrad eliminates “The African as a human factor,” thereby “reducing Africa to the role of props” (Achebe, p.257).

In supporting these accusations against Conrad, Achebe cites specific examples from the text, while also, pointing out that there is a lack of certain characteristics among the characters. Achebe then compares the descriptions of the Intended and the native woman. Explaining that the savage “fulfills a structural requirement of the story: a savage counterpart to the refined European woman,” and also that the biggest “difference is the one implied in that author’s bestowal of human expression to the one and the withholding of it from the other” (Achebe p.255). This lack of human expression and human characteristics is what Achebe says contributes to the overflowing amount of racism within Conrad’s novel. Human expression, is one of few things that make us different from animals, along with such things as communication and reason. This of course, being that without human expression, the native woman is considered more of a “savage…wild-eyed and magnificent,” (Achebe quoting Conrad, p.255), possible even “bestial.”

In an attempt to refute Achebe’s proposed difference between the two women, C.P. Saravan said that Conrad perceived that native woman as a “gorgeous, proud, superb, magnificent, terrific, [and] fierce” person whose “human feelings [were] not denied” (Saravan, p.284). In comparing the two views, one must step back and consider that both views are only interpretations on what Conrad may have intended. Since no one can ever really know what his actual meanings were for these two women being so similar (in their movements), and yet so different (in their character), only individual explanation can be brought up. This in particular, is what brings me to question both Achebe and Saravan’s points. By reorganizing Conrad’s descriptive words, Saravan was able to propose that Conrad did not intend for the mistress to be perceived as the “savage counterpart” (Achebe, p.255). Yet, at the same time, both Saravan and Achebe each write about what they think to be the right thing. It seems to me that Achebe was looking for racism in this short novel, and that Saravan was so taken back by Achebe’s accusations, the he himself, went and looked for ways to defend Conrad.

However, this particular shortcoming of the native woman, is not the only one that Achebe finds. As stated earlier, communication is very important in our society and to “civilization” (as known by the Europeans of the time). While reading Heart of Darkness, I noticed a significant difference in the levels of communication that were allotted between the Europeans and the Africans. This drastic difference in speech was that the core of Achebe’s argument that Conrad deprived the Africans of human qualities. Achebe pointed out that “in place of speech they made ‘a violent babble of uncouth sounds,’” also saying that “it is clearly not Conrad’s purpose to confer language on the ‘rudimentary souls’ of Africa” (Achebe, p. 255). Here lies the problem that I have with Achebe’s article. Assuming that the lack of speech (in Conrad’s eyes) is a racist factor-which is a valid assumption-Achebe still did not support his comment that “Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist” (Achebe, p.257). Without outside knowledge (beyond the book), Achebe had no basis to charge Conrad with this rather harsh statement.

Another interpretation of Conrad’s novel is that it has a canonistic point of view, which I would also have to agree with. "Heart of Darkness was written, consciously or unconsciously, from a colonialist point of view" (Singh 278). Singh believes that Conrad didn't write his book to the extreme of racism. Overall, the natives appeared better humans than the Europeans in