The
Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe has claimed that Heart of Darkness is
an "offensive and deplorable book" saying that Conrad does not
provide enough of an outside frame of reference to enable the book to be
read as an ironic or critical statement against imperialism. Write an
essay for or against Achebe's assertion based on the evidence of Conrad’s
literary text. Make sure you do use quotes from Heart of Darkness
to support your argument.
Not only the Nigerian writer
Chinua Achebe claimed “Heart of Darkness” is an “offensive and
deplorable book” he also deemed Joseph Conrad as “bloody racist”,
remarks against which I am about to defend as you might discover.
On no account can I understand
how this novella is such a classic book. Notwithstanding all its fame, I
utterly believe it does help the idea of colonialism regardless, with words
that describe Africans as it follows: “a whirl of black limbs”, “the
prehistoric man was cursing us”, “unhappy savages”, “footsore
sulky niggers”, “the savagery, the utter savagery”, “the
messenger, a lone negro”, “Exterminate all the brutes”, “What a
row the brute makes”. In accordance with such harsh statements, we have the
notion imperialism is right insofar as we perceive Africans to be primitive.
Likewise, when this story
begins, it looks as if Europeans were embracing a romantic enterprise: “The
dreams of men, the seed of commonwealth, the germs of empires”. However, we
know imperialism brought far too much suffering.
Furthermore, when the story is
finishing hence one suspects a development this is what is told of Kurtz: “The
wilderness had patted him on the head, and behold, it was like a ball”. Indeed,
what we perceive is not an attack on colonialism, yet a grim picture of Africa
by contrast.
In my humble opinion, if this
book was really critical of colonialism the same language would be used to talk
about Europeans, nevertheless, this does not take place at all.
