An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness by Chinua Achebe

In An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, by Chinua Achebe, Conrad is characterized as a “thoroughgoing racist”(343). In the last fifty years Conrad’s novella, The Heart of Darkness, has been dissected and evaluated multiple times, “his obvious racism has, however, not been addressed. And it is high time it was!”(Achebe 344). Although Achebe’s anachronistic view on Conrad’s novella is unfair and hinders the judgment of future readers he opens a new door to the audience in acknowledging the fact that racism is a problem.

Achebe, who is of African decent, reads The Heart of Darkness and interprets it differently than someone of another culture would, mainly because he takes offense to the language used by Conrad. One of Achebe’s strengths is when he discusses the fact that a persons interpretation and view on a book ultimately depends upon the culture in which they were raised: “It took different forms in the minds of different people but almost always managed to sidestep the ultimate question of equality between white people and black people.”(342-43). This proves that although two people may be reading the same passage they could still get different interpretations depending on where they come from.

A weakness in An Image of Africa is how Achebe is so emotional in defending Africa in the present time when The Heart of Darkness was written over fifty years ago. During which time “white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go completely unremarked”(343). Achebe knows and acknowledges that fact that it was not Conrad's “ fault that he lived his life at a time when the reputation of the black man was at a particularly low level”(344). Yet, Achebe still feels the need to call him a bloody racist even though in his time it was “normal” to act towards Africans in such a manner.

Achebe’s main point in his passage is the fact that Conrad is a “thoroughgoing racist”(343), however; the interesting point that he makes is when he says “And the question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the human race can be called a great work of art. My answer is: No, it cannot”(344). Despite the fact that this novel was written in the past and it was in a sense “normal” to be racist Achebe continues to believe that it is a book of ignorance and insulting to the African race.