In his lecture on Joseph Conrad's 1975 novella 'Heart of Darkness', Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe states that although the novel has been discussed at length over the years , that his "obvious racism is not, and it's about time it was." The lecture Achebe gave in Massachusetts forever changed the way Heart of Darkness (1899) was read and also had a great impact on postcolonial readings of Conrad. The intention of this essay is to discuss Achebe's statement, whether it contains a certain degree of truth or not, and whether Joseph Conrad actually produced his works with an underlying racist intent. Writing his well-researched novel in 1899 at the height of imperialism, Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad tells a story through the narrator Marlow, a fictional English sailor, of his travels from "The Greatest City on Earth" or how Achebe accuses Conrad of using this description to undermine Africa and call it a “place of darkness”. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Given the complexity and ambiguity of the text, along with the large amount of ongoing discussion that Achebe's lecture sparked, this essay will focus on three primary sources. First, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Achebe's scathing 1975 essay and Said's defense and contextualization of Conrad's short story in 1992. Conrad's Heart of Darkness is one of the greats in which English literature is considered according to Conradian Owen Knowles (2007) while discussing how The powerful influence on English literature paved the way for other English literary greats such as T. S. Eliot with his use of fragments of Heart of Darkness as an epigraph to his poem "The Hollow Men" (1925). Knowles further states that Conrad would have been "astonished by these contemporary reverberations". However, this came under criticism in 1975 when Chinua Achebe heavily criticized the tale in his essay "A Picture of Africa" ​​and accused Conrad of being a "total racist". Heart of Darkness was one of the novels that helped perpetuate an offensive image. of Africa, having been troubled by the inhumanity and brutal behavior bestowed upon the African natives, Conrad was moved to present his anti-imperialist views aboard his ship which is Heart of Darkness (Okafore, 1988). Conrad's Heart of Darkness is firmly rooted in imperialism and European conquests around the world, while the colonizers falsely claimed that they were only trying to civilize the native populations by spreading the Christian way of life: their mentality was built on the idea that white Europeans embodied civilization, while white Europeans embodied civilization. the natives were ignorant and in some cases primitive. Furthermore, Said argues that this is presented beautifully in Conrad's very rich short story Heart of Darkness. He defends Conrad by stating that the interaction between Europe and America, on the one hand, imperialized the world, that these actions were animated and made explicit, which he believes is "experienced on both sides" and that Conrad should, therefore, be seen as a "creature of his time". Robert Hampson, professor of modern literature and Conradian editor of the Penguin edition of the tale, notes that the country Conrad had entered had been, in its entirety, under the personal possession of King Leopold II of Belgium in 1885, under the guise of bring "light to the dark continent". Or at least, as Conrad describes it when he states that it was "the vilest plunder race that has ever disfigured the history of human consciousness and geographical exploration" (Conrad, 1946, p.17). Out of context, this quote showsimmediately that Conrad was troubled by what he learned about during his maritime expeditions. However, Achebe argues that in this statement Conrad is simply projecting an image of Africa as “The other world, the antithesis of Europe and therefore of Africa”. civilization […] mocked by triumphant bestiality» (Achebe, p.252). However, Abdullatif Al-Khait states that Conrad's denunciation of the imperial West deserves credit and applause for showing the horrors of the colonial mission, which in reality is not a period of "bringing light to benighted savages, but perverts the same vision of the West". self-image of light and civilization'. Achebe, however, attributes this to Conrad's "residue of antipathy towards blacks". If Conrad actually had an antipathy towards blacks, this is not shown in passing as his first description of said blacks appears in the kindest and most thoughtful tone. As he describes his journey aboard the French steamer, 'formless, as if still in the making'. Marlow describes his first encounter with the natives. It is fair to agree with Achebe's argument that Marlow's description is derogatory when in doing so Marlow says: 'You could see the whites of their eyes shining, they shouted [...] their bodies dripped with sweat; they had faces like grotesque masks'. Here Conrad uses, according to Achebe, 'a nice little vignette' (Achebe, 1977, p.5) - 'a descriptive explanation of how things should be - in their place'. However, what Achebe does not indicate or even acknowledge is that Marlow does not use derogatory words, he uses the words "Black fellows". He further confirms his awe of them by saying that "they were a great comfort to look at". However, Guerric Debona accuses Conrad of masking his anti-Semitic views, stating that "Heart of Darkness contains underlying racism and miscegenation", furthermore, that there is a "darker, more ambivalent side of modernism" or what Fredric Johnson called "schizophrenic writing". 'regarding Conrad'. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of the word racism is a prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior, if the belief is that Conrad was actually a deceptive racist, after careful examination. From the examination of the text, attention should be drawn to the way in which Conrad describes the African peoples. As highlighted above we note that its first mention is 'black fellows'. The next mention appears when Marlow describes the feeling of loss between the two men looking at each other when he uses the term "unhappy savages", after which the next mention comes with the description "black men". It is also presented that Marlow moves more into the keen thoughts of the natives when he describes them as "helpers". Heart of Darkness was first published as a three-part serial history printed in Blackwood magazine, during which the British Empire was particularly focused on African colonization and trade, or, as ED Morel states when he writes that "the The main objective of European rule in the Congo was the plunder of its natural riches". An argument of this essay is that Conrad, who was an expatriate at the time, seeking to obtain citizenship, approached his writings with circumspection. Conrad uses the characters Kurtz and Marlow as tools to discreetly express his anti-imperialist views. Conrad centers Heart of Darkness around the ivory trade in the Congo Free State, which is the heart of Africa - or as Conrad describes in his title 'Heart of Darkness'. Said comments that with the help of Kurtz and Marlow Conrad wants us to see "Europeans performing acts of mastery and imperial will in (or.