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January 22, 2004
Chinua Achebe: Hatin' On Heart of Darkness
Well, I did some semi-serious lit crit on Monday night and, wonder of wonders, actually enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I enjoyed it at the most inopportune time - say, around 2 am. I was sittin' out in the commons, poring over my sources and I just found some quotes that glistened like pearls. So now I'm going to cast them before swine.
Just kidding. I love you. And if you love me, love literature, hate Conrad, love Achebe, or some combination of those four, you'll keep reading.
So, anyway, I was researching Chinua Achebe, one of Africa's most prominent post-colonialist writers, and in the course of my studies I found an essay he wrote called "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Now this was particularly interesting to me, since, like many of you, I was required to read Conrad's novel for English in HS. And, also like many of you, perhaps, I didn't like it.
Now, why I didn't like it was basically aesthetics: I didn't think Conrad's little book developed any original ideas on human nature or paint an accurate picture of the African continent. Rather, what we have here is a good writer blinded by his own prejudices. He basically says, whites are bad because whites can become like Kurtz, who was bad because he became bad like blacks are bad. So, there's original sin here, but not really any depth of insight into here. If I want to see original sin, I can get a better grasp upon it from reading the daily paper than from reading Conrad's book. And I don't have to get racism along with it.
Now, Conrad's book was anti-colonialist. But he goes about it ass-backwards, in my opinion. Achebe's writing is also anti-colonialist, but as he is one of the colonized, it actually works. It's not all adjectival theatrics and "The horror! The horror!"
And Achebe is completely aware of this. In fact, one of the main reasons he wrote his novels was as a response to such studies in bigotry as Heart of Darkness. His hatred of the work and, one might say, of Conrad himself, is awesome to behold. Try these quotes on for size:
In the final consideration, [Conrad's] method [of evoking the African environment] amounts to no more than a steady, ponderous, fake-ritualistic repetition of two antithetical sentences, one about silence and the other about frenzy..."It was the stillness of an inplacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention"..."The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy." Of course, there is a judicious change of adjective from time to time, so that instead of "inscrutable," we might have "unspeakable," even plain "mysterious," etc., etc. (Hopes and Impediments, 4)
Herein lies the meaning of Heart of Darkness and the fasincation it holds over the Western mind: "What thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity - like yours...Ugly." (6)
As everybody knows, Conrad is a romantic on the side. He might not exactly admire savages clapping their hands and stamping their feet but they have at least the merit of being in their place, unlike this dog in a parody of breeches [the boilerman on the ship]. (7)
But wait! there's more! Here's Achebe summing up: "The point of my observations should be quite clear by now, namely that Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist" (11). And the knives really come out on this one: "Certainly Conrad had a problem with niggers" (13). Finally, on page 14, he submits Conrad as a candidate for psychoanalysis. For a writer with pretensions to seriousness, I can hardly imagine a worse indignity.
Conrad, however, deserves it.
Posted by donovan at 8:14 PM | Category: Literature
I hated the book because it was unreadable and boring...he kind of lost me after the whole silent, still, churning frenzy crap.
Posted by: Josh S at January 23, 2004 4:11 PM
As you said about Rick Warren, there's a kind of well-rounded badness to Heart of Darkness.
Posted by: Evan Donovan at January 23, 2004 5:22 PM
I've never read Heart of Darkness, but I'm surprised to see that you hate it so much. Wasn't it the inspiration for Apocalypse Now?
Posted by: nougatmachine at January 24, 2004 2:21 PM
Inspiration can be a very loose thing. Apocalypse Now takes little from the book except the name Kurtz, the idea of paralleling one's psychological disintegration to a journey into the wilderness, and a desire to explore the roots of evil. Changing the setting from the Belgian Congo to 1970s Vietnam really changes everything. For one thing, all the colonialist baggage and the racism that it originates is gone. If I remember my Apocalypse Now correctly, the Vietnamese are not made to seem particularly evil in comparison to the Americans. The focus is much more on American evil than on native wildness. In Heart of Darkness, that is reversed.
Posted by: Evan Donovan at January 24, 2004 2:27 PM
I just got done reading Heart of Darkness at my high school. We are also analyzing Achebe's writing against Conrad and I totally agree with Achebe. Conrad's writing was harsh against the Africans and I don't particularly agree that it was an accurate portrayal of Africans during that time period. Thanx 4 this page.
Posted by: Gina at February 29, 2004 5:47 PM
well i too had to read this novel for a Lit class at college and we're using Achebe's essay vs. the novel and whether Conrad was a racist afterall. Just thought your post was interesting and if you don't mind I may kinda paraphrase your summing up of the book.
Posted by: Michelle at June 28, 2004 12:21 AM
After reading these responses to The Heart of Darkness by Conrad, I am almost brought to tears, because my mind is so baffled on how Conrad could be viewed as a racist. Conrad condems the European colonization of Africa in H of D over and over again and has a sympathetic view towards Africans, not racist. Right at the beginning of the novel Brussels is desgribed as "whited Sepulchre." According to St Mark's Gospel (23: 27-8) Jesus said: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." Don't you see that Conrad ironcially used Christian imagry to condem European Culture! Whiteness throughout the whole book is associated with hypocrisy, ivory, bones, death, fog, and the unmapped. Conrad's comment on human nature is that we are inherently "evil" and it is our culture and government that make us "good." He was merely pointing out that people back in England lived happy lives and thought colonolism was good and just, but in reality it was dark and destroyed all notions of European civilization.
Posted by: Laura at March 2, 2005 5:19 PM
After reading these responses to The Heart of Darkness by Conrad, I am almost brought to tears, because my mind is so baffled on how Conrad could be viewed as a racist. Conrad condems the European colonization of Africa in H of D over and over again and has a sympathetic view towards Africans, not racist. Right at the beginning of the novel Brussels is desgribed as "whited Sepulchre." According to St Mark's Gospel (23: 27-8) Jesus said: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." Don't you see that Conrad ironcially used Christian imagry to condem European Culture! Whiteness throughout the whole book is associated with hypocrisy, ivory, bones, death, fog, and the unmapped. Conrad's comment on human nature is that we are inherently "evil" and it is our culture and government that make us "good." He was merely pointing out that people back in England lived happy lives and thought colonolism was good and just, but in reality it was dark and destroyed all notions of European civilization.
Posted by: Laura at March 2, 2005 8:36 PM
It is impossible to consider Conrad a racist. First of all, he is a product of his times, which had that kind of racism built into its very language. And you must remember the savage woman, the one with a helmat made of hair. Conrad represented the blacks much more favourably than the whites; remeber the scene where black laborers are dying in the grove quietly and yet nobly. Conrad was predjudiced against whites if anything.
Posted by: Evan Fallon at April 11, 2005 10:57 PM
Evan, reread a section of your comment.
"Conrad represented the blacks much more favourably than the whites"
You are saying Conrad is not a racist, yes? Look at your summary of his views. Referring to people and blacks and whites. Why not Africans and Europeans? Why is there this insatiable need to simplify everything down until we have good vs. bad, right vs. wrong? We must understand that no matter how radically thinking Conrad appeared at the time, or appears now because of the time period he wrote HoD in, we cannot excuse his racial prejudices. Admittedly, Marlow was a part of the colonial machine, he was sent there by racism and "white mans" desire to conquer and overcome. Yet the fact that he seemingly acknowledges colonial racism, does not excuse him from indulging in it.
It is true that Conrad was a product of his times, but that does not disclude that his book is indeed very racist in the fact that it continues the biased Western discourse on the "Other". The point of the story is to ridicule Europe's imperial exploitation, but does not shy away from continuing in a legacy of using the "savage" and "dark" Africa as a foil to the "civilized" and bright England. This book does no justice in alleviating racial tension whatsoever, although it does serve to criticize white behaviors. The Africans are dehumanized elicitly in this text, often referred to as animalistic. Note - they do not have a voice in this text. They are only portrayed through the Western imagination.
Just because the "blacks are portrayed more favorably than the whites" does not mean that there does not exist an underlying tone of racism. After all, this tactic is used for the purpose of critizing colonialism, not racism. Take a look at the play, The Octoroon. Even though the play romanticizes and sympathizes with a persecuted woman who is one eight black, this does not disclude that the play is about class, not race. The woman becomes a case for sympathy because she is beautiful and looks white, not because she is a persecuted African-American. Similarly, even though Conrad's view of the adverse effects of colonialism are praiseworthy, his racism is still apparent in his portrayal of African "savages" who are not quite equal to the civilized European.
It is true that Conrad was a product of his times, but that does not disclude that his book is indeed very racist in the fact that it continues the biased Western discourse on the "Other". The point of the story is to ridicule Europe's imperial exploitation, but does not shy away from continuing in a legacy of using the "savage" and "dark" Africa as a foil to the "civilized" and bright England. This book does no justice in alleviating racial tension whatsoever, although it does serve to criticize white behaviors. The Africans are dehumanized elicitly in this text, often referred to as animalistic. Note - they do not have a voice in this text. They are only portrayed through the Western imagination.
Just because the "blacks are portrayed more favorably than the whites" does not mean that there does not exist an underlying tone of racism. After all, this tactic is used for the purpose of critizing colonialism, not racism. Take a look at the play, The Octoroon. Even though the play romanticizes and sympathizes with a persecuted woman who is one eight black, this does not disclude that the play is about class, not race. The woman becomes a case for sympathy because she is beautiful and looks white, not because she is a persecuted African-American. Similarly, even though Conrad's view of the adverse effects of colonialism are praiseworthy, his racism is still apparent in his portrayal of African "savages" who are not quite equal to the civilized European.