Sunday, May 1, 2011
Racism in Heart of Darkness?
My group's topic when we were discussing Heart of Darkness was whether or not it was racist. I know that we've discussed this topic thoroughly, but I was actually pretty interested in the opposing viewpoints' arguments. The novella seems to be blatantly racist, but the novel was written in a time when racism didn't have the same understanding as racism today. What I thought was interesting was how he wasn't concerned about the impact that colonialism would have on the savages, but rather the "deterioration of one European min caused by solitude and sickness". The novella was also told from a narrator behind a narrator, showing that perhaps the opinions held by the character was not of Conrad's (completely). I think that Conrad was using Heart of Darkness to express his disgust over colonialism and merely talked how everyone else talked during that time period.
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I agree. It is unfair to label Conrad a racist based on writings from the turn of the century. Our idea of what is exceptable and what is not is completely different.
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And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fire-
man. H e was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical
boiler. He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him
was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a
feather hat, walking on his hind legs. A few months of training
had done for that really fine chap. He squinted at the steam gauge
and at the water gauge with an evident effort of intrepidity-and
h e had filed his teeth, too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate
shaved into queer patterns, and three ornamental scars on each of
his cheeks. He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamp-
ing his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a
thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge"
That can be interpreted a number of ways but to me it seems he is showing they are not just objects. Conrad pointed out that the man was improving his knowledge.
Because Heart of Darkness remains a work of the Western standard, this debate probably will always continue. Maybe it’s that the central issue is the distance of Conrad from Marlow. The story of Marlow parallels so neatly with Conrad’s own personal tale that it would be easy to assume that Marlow mirrors Conrad’ own perspective, including his prejudices against certain people and even possibly racism. But if you look at the story without any background information, it is impossible to determine whether Conrad expresses his own views by simple transfer or something else. Although the natives are often unintelligible in the tale, they also are portrayed as more innocent. In regards to this issue, one should consider the overall themes of the work and how this issue relates to them, but also how Conrad would have expected his contemporary audiences, themselves of varying opinions about race and colonialism, to read his book.
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