Racism in Heart of Darkness Essay

The Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe views Conrad as a racist

In the novel, Heart of Darkness, the author Joseph Conrad uses different terms to describe people of color that may offend some people. Also in the novel, the readers can see how racist the Europeans were toward blacks not only because they were turned into slaves. But also how the European people seem to think the Africans are not equal to them. This is because they made the blacks be their slaves. The audience can see the people of color doing work for the white people and that just goes to show that they were racist.

Certainly Conrad is racist. The word nigger is such a discriminative racial slur that it is even eliminated from the modern dictionary. In the book, Conrad constantly refers to the Africans as niggers. This is an example from the novel when Marlow saw a black man for his first time, he said, "A certain enormous buck nigger encountered in Haiti fixed my conception of blind, furious, unreasoning rage, as manifested in the human animal to the end of my days. Of the nigger I used to dream for years afterwards" (Conrad). This remark Conrad made was disturbing and clearly racist because he described the black man as a "nigger" more then once.

Joseph Conrad thinks that Africans are not important. From the novel, if you read carefully, no Africans were given a name and no African appeared more than a full chapter. Joseph Conrad never goes into the mind of the Africans to see the situation from their point of view.

The contrast of the Thames and the Congo as more of Conrads blatant racism: Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as the other world, the total opposite of Europe and therefore of civilization. The book opens on the Thames, tranquil, resting peacefully at the decline of day after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks. But the actual story will take place on the River Congo, the very opposite of the Thames. We are told that going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginning of the world. The earliest beginning of the world is savageness, evil and cruelty. Conrad is indirectly referring to Africa as a place full of savageness, evil and cruelty.

Joseph Conrad makes some remarks about blacks that are very disturbing and racist. One example of this is when he says, "the thought of their humanity-like yoursUgly" (Conrad). This just goes to show how Conrad was a complete racist. Just because he is black doesnt mean he is ugly!