No Racism in the Heart of Darkness Chinua Achebe challenges Joseph Conrad's narrative depicting the plunder of Africa, Heart of Darkness (1902) in his essay "An Image of Africa " (1975). Achebe's is an indignant but solidly grounded argument that brings the perspective of a celebrated African writer who undermines the near-universal acceptance of the work as "classical" and proclaims that Conrad had written "a racist bloody book" (Achebe 319). In her introduction to the 1997 Signet edition, Joyce Carol Oates writes, "[Conrad's] African natives are 'dusty niggers,' cannibals." Conrad [...] painfully reveals himself in these passages, and numerous others, as an undisputed heir to centuries of Caucasian fanaticism" (Oates 10). The argument seems to lie within a larger issue: the main character Is Charlie Marlow racist, and is Marlow an extension of Conrad's view? Achebe says yes to both notions Points to Marlow's speech on the Thames and the Congo as revealing his vision of "Africa as". the other world, "the antithesis of Europe and therefore civilization," and notes the description of Africans as "rolling limbs [and] eyes" or, in Conrad's words, "ugly" (315). When not being "savages" or incomprehensible "brutes", Africans are farcical: "[The fireman] was an improved specimen; he could light a vertical boiler. [...] watching him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a travesty of trousers and a hat of feathers" (109). Achebe discusses the fact that Conrad denies the ability to speak to most of the African characters. Africans are not humanized, as whites are, having no size, tone, or color except an alien black. Conrad calls them "black shapes" or "mor... half of paper...". ..different point of view, history as an end in itself, just like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's mysteries which openly said nothing about society. Unlike Mr. Doyle, Conrad's attempts to make social commentary on the plundering of Africa immediately put him in his character's shoes, and although he attempted to do some good by shedding light on the issue, he made only a half-hearted attempt ; not racism, simply lack of conviction. Works Cited: Achebe, Chinua. “An Image of Africa,” from Chant of Saints: A Gathering of African American Literature, Art, and Scholarship, Michael Harper, ed. University of Illinois Press, 1979 Conrad, Joseph Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer, 1902. Signet Classic, New York 1997. Oates, Joyce Carol. Introduction to Heart of Darkness and The Secret Sharer copyright The Ontario Review Inc., 1997.