heart

"Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effased within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair." I have never read Heart Of Darkness but from the excerpt almost everytime a black person is mentioned the context is grim and dark. Unlike most people I dont think it is wrong to call someone black, we are called white all the time so I see no problem in that but there are verses like this. "Everything else in the station was in a muddle -- heads, things, buildings. Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed; a stream of manu- factured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass- wire set into the depths of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory." Passages like these are a little difficult to get around and they point out some blatant racist comments. But you have to realize that this novel was published in 1902 and for there not be any racist comments would make it unrealistic.

" For the Thames too "has been one of the dark places of the earth." It conquered its darkness, of course, and is now in daylight and at peace. But if it were to visit its primordial relative, the Congo, it would run the terrible risk of hearing grotesque echoes of its own forgotten darkness, and falling victim to an avenging recrudescence of the mindless frenzy of the first beginnings." I think this is his biggest strong point and the thing that I noticed the most. Conrad's choice words in describing the atmosphere and the people is always darker and not very uplifting in any sense and If Conrad is racist I think this is where you have to focus in to find the answer. The words are important but I think the way he describes it brings to focus his actual thoughts and emotions on the subject. And after reading Achebes article it is kind of hard not to see the racisim in the writing. I have never read the book but it is always talked about as being one of the best works so I don't think it should be not looked at if its writing style and story is a classic. It reminds me of that film "Birth of a Nation" It was so controversial but it was groundbreaking that you can not overlook it. It was one of the first films to use the technique of zooming in and it secured the feature length films in american cinema. Even though the context was horribly racist you can not overlook the impact of the film, just like in "A Heart of Darkness."