Arguments Against Chinua Acebes An Image of Africa Racism in Conrads Heart of Darkness free essay sample

Literature and Composition 6 March 2013 An Image of Africa: Not Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ People of dark skin have been wrongly discriminated against by racists for hundreds of years. From the first time Europeans stepped onto Africa and deemed black skin inferior till now, black people have been fighting for the right to be called equal. During the last century Africans have made great strides in fighting against racism. Many black leaders have risen up and confronted those racist against them. However, there are also times when people have gotten up in arms and have attacked others over misunderstandings. An example of this is Chinua Achebe’s essay â€Å"An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness,’† in which he attacks Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. In his essay, Achebe presents several reasons as to why Conrad is racist in his novel and why Conrad is a racist himself. Although Achebe is a celebrated author and is called the â€Å"father of African literature,† his reasons for calling Conrad and his book racist are unjust and flawed. Although his essay is titled, â€Å"Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness,’† Achebe sets out to prove that both Conrad and his book are full of racism. To do this he opens his essay by stating that Heart of Darkness creates an image of Africa as the opposite of civilization; the opposite of Europe. Afterward, he makes several points to prove Conrad’s racism. Achebe heavily criticizes Conrad’s diction and questions the use of certain words. He states that Conrad enjoyed things that stayed in their place, implying that Conrad wanted black people to â€Å"stay in their place† under the white man. He says that because the main character, Marlow, is racist, Conrad is racist. He chastises Conrad’s depiction of the continent even though he has been there himself. Achebe even brings in different sources to prove Conrad’s racism, managing to use quotes from the missionary Albert Schweitzer to support his argument. Although the amount of evidence Achebe has is plentiful, many of his assertions are exaggerated, extreme, and just incorrect. Many of his arguments have one of two things wrong about them; he either has faulty logic or fails to take into consideration crucial factors that happen to contradict his ideas. Throughout his essay, Achebe continually presents ideas that have numerous flaws and can be very easily argued against. One of Achebe’s main ideas behind his essay is the idea that Marlow’s and Conrad’s thoughts and racisms are one in the same. He believes that Conrad’s attempt to distance the ideologies of Marlow and himself through the use of two narrators is â€Å"totally wasted because he neglects to hint however subtly or tentatively at an alternative frame of reference by which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters† (Achebe 5). It is a good thing Achebe did not pursue a career in law because he has deemed a man guilty on the charge that he has not declared himself innocent. Simply put, Achebe believes that because Conrad has not given another source from where his character’s opinions could have come from, those opinions must have come from his frame of reference. Achebe is simply jumping to conclusions without proper evidence. He does this several more times while making a lengthy argument about how Conrad’s depiction of Africa is racist. When Conrad describes Africa Achebe argues that he makes it far too primordial than it should be. He supports this idea by presenting an event that happened shortly after Conrad wrote his book. An event in which a European man is given a mask by a native, who then shows the mask to Europe’s top artists. Achebe then says, â€Å"The event [†¦] marks the beginning of cubism and the infusion of new life into European art [†¦. ] The point of all this is to suggest that Conrad’s picture of the people of Congo seems grossly inadequate† (8). This is another example of Achebe jumping to conclusions. While fine art is a symbol of refinement and sophistication in Western countries, the same cannot be said about Africa. The art of one tribe does not make all of Africa more civilized and refined if other tribes continue to cannibalize each other. It makes no sense for Achebe to stretch his information so far to come to this conclusion. It also makes no sense for Achebe to question Conrad’s description of the continent while Conrad has made the trip into the country. Achebe says, â€Å"I will not accept just any traveler’s tales solely on the grounds that I have not made the journey myself† (7). Achebe has never been to the Congo like Conrad has, yet he has the audacity to question what Conrad witnessed there while Achebe’s father was a baby. Achebe accuses Conrad of depicting Africa incorrectly without having ever having stepped foot into the continent, which makes him even more clueless to the Africa of Conrad’s age. He declares that Conrad of making Africans seem more savage than they actually were, while unable to even imagine how they were so long ago. Achebe charges Conrad with racism and ignorance while completely dismissing his own. Although Achebe is a celebrated author, at many points during this essay his arguments are weak, even pathetic because of the irrational conclusions that he comes to. This gives a preview to the carelessness of his essay that becomes evident upon further inspection. In his essay Achebe seems to forget to (or chooses not to) discuss many factors that go against his argument. He states that Conrad enjoys things that stay in their place. Achebe believes that the African’s proper place is found when Conrad writes about Kurtz’s African mistress. He says, â€Å"She was a savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent [†¦] She stood looking at us without a stir and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose† (142). According to Achebe, Conrad believes that the African’s place is one that is wild and close enough to look at from â€Å"civilization† but distant enough to be separated well. Thus, Achebe implies that Conrad wants Africans to stay in their proper place, where the wildness is far from the Europeans. However, this argument is invalid when considering how Marlow feels about Kurtz. Marlow is unsure about how to feel about Kurtz, but he certainly does not hate Kurtz and has decided to side with Kurtz at the end of the book, so it can be assumed Kurtz is closer to Marlow’s good side than not. However, Marlow describes Kurtz as having no place. He says, â€Å"There was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it. He had kicked himself loose of the earth† (149). Marlow says this because he knows Kurtz is between Europe and Africa. Kurtz has no real place in the world, but Marlow has sided with him. Since Achebe has equated Marlow’s thoughts to Conrad’s, Marlow should hate Kurtz, but he does not. Thus, when Kurtz is taken in as a factor this argument is null and void, much like when Achebe attempts to compare Albert Schweitzer to Conrad. Achebe writes, â€Å"Albert Schweitzer, who sacrificed brilliant careers in music and theology in Europe for a life of service to Africans in much the same area as Conrad writes about, epitomizes ambivalence. In a comment which has often been quoted, Schweitzer says, ‘The African is indeed my brother but my junior brother’† (5). He then continues to criticize Conrad for only go as far to call the African his kin, not his brother. By the standard of Achebe’s day this sentiment could most definitely be considered racist; however, Achebe fails to take into account the simple fact that the standards of his day cannot be applied to Conrad. Conrad is from a much different time, where white men were raised to believe that black men were under them. For him to consider them kin is already a radical thought. Achebe seems to want to ignore the fact that he is criticizing a book written seventy years prior, as he makes this mistake once again. Achebe quotes Conrad’s account of his first encounter with a black man. Achebe writes: â€Å"A certain enormous buck nigger encountered in Haiti fixed my conception of blind, furious, unreasoning rage, as manifested in the human animal to the end of my days. Of the nigger I used to dream for years afterward. † Certainly Conrad had a problem with niggers. His inordinate love of the word itself should be of interest to psychoanalysts. (6) In this excerpt Conrad speaks of only one black man, not of all men of the color, thus it is wrong to assume that he has a problem with â€Å"niggers† from this passage. As far as his use of the word â€Å"nigger,† Achebe seems to ignore the fact the word was used quite commonly during the time period. Even in Achebe’s time the word is used very often in certain areas. Furthermore, the word â€Å"nigger† is used 219 times in Mark Twain’s the Adventures of Huck Finn, yet Mark Twain was one of the greatest advocates for the humanity of African-Americans of his time. In his essay â€Å"An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’† Chinua Achebe makes many points to support his idea that Joseph Conrad and his book, Heart of Darkness are racist. However, many of these points are not very good ones. Although his intentions are good, he is blinded by his quest to attack racists and ended up putting an innocent man, who also had good intentions, under fire.