Term Paper on "Recent Criticism Argues That Marlow Is Racist Plain"

Term Paper 4 pages (1247 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

colonialism, there are seemingly countless examples of the inherent dehumanizing racism that drove the policies and actions of those who were at the heart of the movement. Recent scholarship makes it clear that the tides of pot-colonial studies are leaning in the direction of redefining the racism of colonialism to its purest state, that of simple and clear racism, driven by greed. The recent works take the context out of the movement and make it clear that the discrimination that was so much a part of the movement is simply racism driven by ignorance.

Many years have been spent softening the blow of the destructive racism of the Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, with the faulty argument that it was contextually appropriate, or in layman's terms his racism was just like everyone else's, so it is somehow excusable. Yet, the truth is that the work represents the pinnacle of time that is desperately racist, and regardless of the collectively racist nature of the time, there is no excuse for the excuses and destruction that was had because of it. It would be much like saying the Nazi's weren't purely racist because anti-Semitism existed in Europe for centuries prior to WWII.

The outline of the work is demonstrative of the destructive and dehumanizing position that African men and women were placed within during the African colonization. People were enslaved, murdered and even killed through neglectful disease spreading, while they watched their homeland stripped of natural resources, cleanliness and even its very beauty. Though Conrad does in some ways assail the institution of colonialism Chinua Achebe assigns him the role of a simple racist, plain a clear. Creating a line for this argument any reader can see that the ultimate sin committed within the work was the act of one man allowing the jungle to make him "go native."

One of the most controversial issues relating to Heart of Darkness concerns Conrad's attitude toward colonialism and race. Though most critics view the novel as an attack on imperialistic exploitation, other commentators, such as the African novelist Chinua Achebe, see Conrad himself as guilty of racist tendencies.

It goes without saying that the creation of a work of fiction is a process that should allow the writer the opportunity to express things he or she both agrees with and disagrees with the language within Heart of Darkness, with regard to the treatment of the native African's clearly relates them as inferior and in many ways inhuman.

Though he admits that the novel criticizes colonial exploitation, Achebe brands Conrad a "thoroughgoing racist" who presents Africa and Africans as intellectually and morally inferior to European civilization. Rather than viewing Conrad as a writer who genuinely challenged imperialistic assumptions about race, Achebe scorns him as a "purveyor of comforting myths."

Conrad details the reality of the existence of the black African's as simply the objects of the colonial arm of exploitative slave labor.

Moreover, Achebe points to the grunting sounds made by natives in Heart of Darkness and to the contrast of Kurtz's barbaric mistress and his refined European Intended as evidence that Conrad did not feel anything more than a remote sense of kinship with the "rudimentary souls" of Africans. He does not venerate the culture or the place.

His words are entirely representative of a shadowy very European quest. In this case the quest is a clear avenue to wealth, and fame.

Achebe grudgingly grants that Marlow's perspective may not be identical to Conrad's, but he finds no sign of an alternative point-of-view in the novel. Thus, he finds Conrad representative of the European liberal attitude that disparaged colonial exploitation but never affirmed the equality of white and black people.

Conrad gives the natives… READ MORE

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