Was Joseph Conrad a Racist?
Is it fair to call Joseph Conrad a Thoroughgoing Racist?
To call someone a thoroughgoing racist is to say that they are a person who completely and knowingly considers one race of humans superior to others. This is precisely what Chinua Achebe is accusing Joseph Conrad of. It is Achebe’s opinion that Conrad wrote his ‘Heart of Darkness’ from a racist point of view intentionally to belittle Africa and its people and to raise up Europe and its people. While I agree that Joseph Conrad may have been a racist and that ‘Heart of Darkness’ certainly has racism in it, I believe it unfair to call Conrad a thoroughgoing racist. Conrad is simply a victim of his time, having lived from 1857-1924 when the racism against Africans was widespread, even considered normal. He was not intentionally trying to be racist. “It is the desire- one might even say the need- of Western psychology to set up Africa as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe’s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest” (Achebe, 1). In other words, Europeans want to directly compare Africa to Europe in a way that the ‘darkness’ of Africa makes Europe seem lighter. This shows that Conrad may even not have been racist at all. He could be simply writing a novel that the people wanted at that time. Achebe even briefly states this as a possibility: “It might be contended… that the attitude to the African in ‘Heart of Darkness’ is not Conrad’s but that of his fictional narrator, Marlow, and that far from endorsing it Conrad might indeed be holding it up to irony and criticism” (Achebe, 4). This is my opinion of Conrad. He was not actually a racist. He was a brilliant storyteller of fiction that knew the people who would be reading the book. In that time period, most readers were racist against Africans. That was OK back then. Conrad didn’t agree with it but he wrote a short novel highlighting it to appease the masses, while subtlety
To call someone a thoroughgoing racist is to say that they are a person who completely and knowingly considers one race of humans superior to others. This is precisely what Chinua Achebe is accusing Joseph Conrad of. It is Achebe’s opinion that Conrad wrote his ‘Heart of Darkness’ from a racist point of view intentionally to belittle Africa and its people and to raise up Europe and its people. While I agree that Joseph Conrad may have been a racist and that ‘Heart of Darkness’ certainly has racism in it, I believe it unfair to call Conrad a thoroughgoing racist. Conrad is simply a victim of his time, having lived from 1857-1924 when the racism against Africans was widespread, even considered normal. He was not intentionally trying to be racist. “It is the desire- one might even say the need- of Western psychology to set up Africa as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe’s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest” (Achebe, 1). In other words, Europeans want to directly compare Africa to Europe in a way that the ‘darkness’ of Africa makes Europe seem lighter. This shows that Conrad may even not have been racist at all. He could be simply writing a novel that the people wanted at that time. Achebe even briefly states this as a possibility: “It might be contended… that the attitude to the African in ‘Heart of Darkness’ is not Conrad’s but that of his fictional narrator, Marlow, and that far from endorsing it Conrad might indeed be holding it up to irony and criticism” (Achebe, 4). This is my opinion of Conrad. He was not actually a racist. He was a brilliant storyteller of fiction that knew the people who would be reading the book. In that time period, most readers were racist against Africans. That was OK back then. Conrad didn’t agree with it but he wrote a short novel highlighting it to appease the masses, while subtlety
Cited: Achebe, Chinua. “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’” Massachusetts Review. 18. 1977. Clooney, George, Perf. “Three Kings” Warner Bros Pictures. 1999. Film. Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness” 1902. Phillips, Caryl and Chinua Achebe. Personal Interview. 21 February 2003.