"The Racist Novel"

Was Joseph Conrad a racist?

Since Chinua Achebe’s landmark speech in 1975 that has been the dialogue surrounding him and his novel Heart of Darkness. In fact I’d venture to say that every discussion of either Conrad of Achebe in any academic forum on any level of society invariably links the two by centering in on this controversy.

My answer to the question, knee-jerk as this will sound, is: it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter if Conrad was racist anymore than it matters that Tennessee Williams was a homosexual or that Virginia Woolf was raped. In the context of being an author of fiction your personal experiences have to take a back seat to the actual produced work no matter how much they may influence you to right. Ad hominine attacks add nothing to the discussion of literature in fact they more often detract from it. Even if Conrad was a racist; that still does nothing to take away from his talent. H.P. Lovecraft and Jack London were both known racists but their talent is still respected, why shouldn't Conrad be afforded the same treatment?

The question is not the one to be asked. What we should we be asking instead is:

Is Heart of Darkness Racist?

Oh absolutely. With scenes of barbarism committed by the blacks, accepted barbarism committed by whites against blacks and a general lack of black voices throughout the novel it can’t help but be. Even in descriptions it weasels in there: The man seemed young -- almost a boy -- but you know with them it's hard to tell. If Achebe never started his battle with Conrad, Heart of Darkness would still be a racist novel.

But even as a “Racist Novel” it has its merits. Our very discussion of the topic proves that fact. As a “Racist Novel” we now have a legitimately well written and popular novel which we can look at a point to as example of racially biased representations of non-whites in literature and with Achebe as the major critic, we can directly compare Conrad’s work to his and examine the differences in representation of blacks and whites based on the time and the writer.

We can't throw out a work just because of a particular viewpoint it espouses. When Achebe talks about Heart of Darkness he says: "I am talking about a book which parades in the most vulgar fashion prejudices and insults from which a section of mankind has suffered untold agonies and atrocities in the past and continues to do so in many ways and many places today"

He is right but let’s look at it this way. When I talk about Taming of the Shrew I am talking about a play in which a woman is broken, battered, abused and almost starved to death in order to keep from voicing her opinion and causing her to conform to what men at the time felt a woman should be. Is Taming of the Shrew sexist? Yes it is. But are we ever going to get rid of Shakespeare from the canon? Shakespeare is the canon!