Chinua Achebe, a well known writer, once gave a lecture at the University of Massachusetts about Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, entitled “An image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” Throughout his essay, Achebe notes how Conrad used Africa as a background only, and how he “set Africa up as a foil to Europe,” (Achebe, p.251) while he also “projects the image of Africa as the ‘other world,’ the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilizations” (Achebe, p.252). By his own interpretations of the text, Achebe shows that Conrad eliminates “The African as a human factor,” thereby “reducing Africa to the role of props” (Achebe, p.257).

In supporting these accusations against Conrad, Achebe cites specific examples from the text, while also, pointing out that there is a lack of certain characteristics among the characters. Achebe then compare

However, this particular shortcoming of the native woman, is not the only one that Achebe finds. As stated earlier, communication is very important in our society and to “civilization” (as known by the Europeans of the time). While reading Heart of Darkness, I noticed a significant difference in the levels of communication that were allotted between the Europeans and the Africans. This drastic difference in speech was that the core of Achebe’s argument that Conrad deprived the Africans of human qualities. Achebe pointed out that “in place of speech they made ‘a violent babble of uncouth sounds,’” also saying that “it is clearly not Conrad’s purpose to confer language on the ‘rudimentary souls’ of Africa” (Achebe, p. 255). Here lies the problem that I have with Achebe’s article. Assuming that the lack of speech (in Conrad’s eyes) is a racist factor-which is a valid assumption-Achebe still did not support his comment that “Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist” (Achebe, p.257). Without outside knowledge (beyond the book), Achebe had no basis to charge Conrad with this rather harsh statement.

Singh wrote, "The African natives, victims of Belgian exploitation, are described as 'shapes,' 'shadows,' and 'bundles of acute angles,' so as to show the dehumanizing effect of colonialist rule on the ruled" (269-270). Another similar statement was when Conrad wrote of the death of Marlow's helmsman. Marlow respected the helmsman, yet when the native's blood poured into Marlow's shoes, "To tell you the truth, I was morbidity anxious to change my shoes and socks" (Conrad 47). How can someone respect yet feel disgusted towards someone? Singh looks into this question by stating, "The reason of course, is because he (Marlow) never completely grants them (natives) human status: at the best they are a species of superior hyena" (Singh 273). Both of these statements would be considered canonistic for the time, however in today’s interpretation it would be considered somewhat racist.

In an attempt to refu

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