Prejudice and Racism in Heart of Darkness? Essay -- HOD Joseph Conrad

Heart of repulsiveness Racist or not? many an(prenominal) critics, including Chinua Achebe in his essay An Image of Africa Racism in Conrads Heart of Darkness, have made the acquire that Joseph Conrads novel Heart of Darkness, despite the insights which it offers into the gentle condition, ought to be removed from the keepon of horse opera literature. This claim is based on the supposition that the novel is racist, more so than separate novels of its time. While it can be read in this way, it is possible to look under the resurrect and create an interpretation of Conrads novel that does not require the supposition of extremum racism on the part of Conrad. Furthermore, we must keep in forefront that Conrad was a product of a rather racist period in history, and it seems unfair to penalize him for not being able to transcend his generation in this respect. This novel, it seems, must be read in a emblematic manner. Objects and characters be not so simple as they seem. Ache be tells us preferably simply it is the desire... in Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at erstwhile remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europes own state of apparitional grace will be manifest (251-252). If Africa is a foil to Europe, as stated here, then perhaps Conrad only uses the continent of Africa symbolically, without regard to its pot - as Achebe himself states, descriptions of Africans as anything more than vague limbs in the darkness are few and far between in the novel. The opposition between joyous and darkness in the novel, far from being Conrads own, is traditional in Western literature. Conrad simply uses the most familiar of symbols for the dichotomy between good and abomination to enhance his novels psycho... .... One might also argue that while Marlow is racist, Conrad is not - something like the scenario in another famous river novel, Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. However, I rejec t this claim - Marlow does the vast majority of the speaking in this novel, and so the reader identifies him as the novels narrative voice even though there is, strictly speaking, a frame story outside of this. Finally, even if Conrad was more racist than other authors of his time, why is this so significant? The novel is still valuable as an object of art, for the psychological insights it offers both into the human condition at mammoth and into the motivations of European imperialism and colonization. A novel such as this should not be removed from the canon on the simple basis of its offensive authorisation. all told great literature must have at least the potential to offend.