Heart of Darkness is a story of white imperialists traveling the Congo in Africa. It showcases Marlow, a progressive thinker for his time, struggling with the morality of witnessing African treatment. In a classroom talking about the story, one would think this novella gives clear insight into what Europeans were seeing in Africa and a better understanding of the situation happening in Africa from a conflicted narrator. However, according to Achebe, Heart of Darkness does no such thing. The novella might actually be a bit offensive. He writes about all of the words in the book that are offensive and wrong. So then, the question remains, is Achebe right in insinuating that this story is indeed racist?
Achebe makes many accusations in his essay. He states that Conrad's "obvious racism" needed to be addressed and that he has a "residue of antipathy to black people" (1790). The whole essay is based on the racism of the author in the novella. I think that if one analyzed the story word for word such as Achebe has, then that person would come to the conclusion that the story and author are racist. He analyzes passage by passage and picks up on certain words. But, I believe that one needs to look at the book as a whole. As a whole, Conrad let's the reader into the mind of someone who is viewing the horrible things around him. The reader is in the mind of a person who was raised to believe that Africans were not human and that the enslavement was normal. The reader is then introduced to this narrator struggling with the morality of his observations. As a whole, the novella serves a purpose to show the slow change of a white imperialist coming to terms with that blacks are not inhuman like he might have originally thought. Furthermore, one could analyze Achebe's essay the same way he analyzed Conrad and come to the conclusion that Achebe is racist as well. Achebe states without quotations, meaning they are his own words, that "Conrad had problem with ni**ers" (1790). Now from that sentence alone, it seems pretty inconsiderate to throw that word around, even racist. But as a whole essay, the reader knows that Achebe's writing is mostly sarcastic, cynical, and mocking of Conrad. Therefore, that makes it clear that Achebe is in fact not being racist.
Heart of Darkness was published in 1899, which means it was written years before that. To expect the novella to not reflect the time is unrealistic. The story serves a purpose to show students how people thought back then. If anything, Heart of Darkness solidifies to our generation how wrong everything imperialists did. It gives insight that the feelings of wrongness in correspondence with blacks happened long before the Civil War. Achebe's thoughts are justified, however, one needs to remember when the story was written and understand the novella's purpose.
While your point that there are aspects of Heart of Darkness that are valuable is valid, a large portion of this post is very confusing. The title doesn't seem to connect to the post, and many of your assertions lack solid support. Achebe didn't claim in his essay that Heart of Darkness isn't about the way that Europeans perceived Africans, he made the point that it portrays that all too accurately. Achebe took Conrad's writing into context as well. He analyzes Conrad's language word for word and backs up his claims that his language is racist with autobiographical writings by Conrad that are clearly racist. Towards the end of the post, the idea of Heart of Darkness still being valuable despite its flaws comes back and solidifies the post, but the body seems to focus mostly on criticizing Achebe's point of view. Later you claim that Achebe's thoughts are justified. I feel as if with a little more organization and clearer diction this post could be more effective, as the main thoughts are there, but it seems to me to be a bit muddled.
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