Joseph Conrad’s novella is an encapsulation of the experience of colonialism from the point of view of Europeans. Based on his own seafaring voyages across the colonies, Conrad attempts to picture the dichotomy of civility and barbarity. Through the characters of Kurtz, Marlow, the Russian and the natives, a composite picture of colonial Africa is presented.
Chinua Achebe’s controversial critique of Heart of Darkness condemns Conrad as a blatant racist. This is most evident in the fact that the steamboat’s crew is comprised of a native helmsman and twenty ‘cannibals’. There are also sightings of disembodied heads of natives intended to scare trouble-makers. Further depictions of barbarism come in the form of sudden attacks with arrows and spears that the sailors on the boat encounter. Achebe takes particular objection to the manner in which Conrad compares river Thames with river Congo. He remarks sardonically in his essay, “But if it [Thames] were to visit its primordial relative, the Congo, it would run the terrible risk of hearing grotesque echoes of its own forgotten darkness, and falling victim to an avenging recrudescence of the mindless frenzy of the first beginnings.” Achebe’s view of Conrad, all things considered, is that, “even after due allowances have been made for all the influences of contemporary prejudice on his sensibility there remains still in Conrad’s attitude a residue of antipathy to black people which his peculiar psychology alone can explain.”
Cedric Watts, on the other hand, offers a rather sympathetic assessment of Conrad’s work. He finds racist elements in the work as a matter of reality. In other words, being a white man and a being a member of the ruling class, Conrad himself is not privy to an enlightened view of Africans. Watts rebukes Achebe for expecting Conrad to think, feel and write like an African. Moreover, in disagreement with Achebe’s condemnation of the novella, Watts claims that the opposite is true. He says, far from being a promoter of racist attitude, “I have long regarded Heart of Darkness as one of the greatest works of fiction, and have felt that part of its greatness lies in the power of its criticisms of racial prejudice.” Likewise, Watts rebuts Achebe’s view of Conrad as ‘a purveyor of comforting myths’ about Africa and its peoples. Watts counters that “Conrad most deliberately and incisively debunks such myths. The myth of inevitable progress, for example, the myth what white civilization is necessarily morally superior to ‘savagery’; the myth that imperialism is the altruistic matter…: all these are mocked by the tale.”
In conclusion, it is too simplistic to believe that the authorial view point is skewered in favour of one race. In my opinion, Heart of Darkness is far more nuanced and complex than one of assigning civilian qualities to Europeans and barbaric characteristics to the natives. It is quite true that Conrad’s view of native Africans is aligned to the colonial mindset. But one has to remember that Conrad’s perspectives on race were not any worse than the prevailing social mores of the time. Achebe’s sharp indictment is somewhat erroneous, for it reads the text of the novella under contemporary conditions of racial equality accorded by law. To be fair to Conrad, while suggesting the wildness of Africans in general, he also highlights the quirks of wanton white men, most prominently that of Kurtz.
Achebe, Chinua. ‘An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness’, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays 1965 – 1987 (Oxford: 1988), pp.196-203
Watts, Cedric. ‘A Bloody Racist’: About Achebe’s View of Conrad, The Yearbook of English Studies, (University of Sussex Press: 1983), pp.1-8.