Heart Of Darkness Racist Quotes

Decent Essays
I agree that Heart of Darkness is racist. Heart of Darkness does focus more on the dehumanization and depersonalization of the Africans then talking about what features he admired and what relations grew when he was overseas. Even when the different scenarios were described, all had to do with some type of pain the Africans were going through. Heart Of Darkness rarely admired Africa for its beauty, but criticized all the countries flaws.

Something that bothered me when I was reading Heart of Darkness was the way the Africans were addressed, exampled by the following quote. "The hurt nigger moaned feebly somewhere near by, and then fetched a deep sign that made me mend my pace away the fellow." Instead of viewing the injured individual as a

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Hook: The horror of Imperialism haunts Africa even today, and this suffering was greedily created by the Europeans for power and resources. One brave man, Joseph Conrad, spoke out against the hostility that the Europeans projected onto Africa through his controversial book, The Heart of Darkness. In order to reveal the unjust exploitation of the Europeans, Conrad uses extremities and contrasting…

    • 62 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In HoD, Conrad describes the Africans having “faces like grotesque masks” (Conrad 14). This create the idea of african being inhumane and animal-- like. They are uncivil and evil. The depiction of them creates the idea of them being an evil force that needs to face justice. They are in the category of evil and unlikable.…

    • 1109 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the book Heart of Darkness Conrad shows how the natives were depicted as savages by the Europeans that colonized the area. European discrimination against the Africans is clearly described in this book, as the protagonist, Marlow in travelling through Africa. He states that the natives he encounters are savages and he compares them to animals in the wilderness. An example of this is the phrase: “They were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation” (Conrad, 1899).…

    • 983 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Joseph Conrad Controversy

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The people of the time period that the book is set in have many controversial ideas and can teach a lot. During the time, King Leopold II of Belgium exploited the Congo and its resources while treating the natives as slaves. Heart of Darkness is an example of a European going to the Congo and shows the poor treatment of the natives. When he first sees the natives, he describes them as, “nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom… The black bones reclined at full length with one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me, enormous and vacant …”(pg. 72).…

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The essay looks at Conrad’s negative portrayal of the local African population in Central Africa, examining the narrative purpose served by this type of representation and how Conrad sets up Africa and its people as an anti-pole to Europe and ‘civilization’. In order to do that, the local African is constantly dehumanized, deprived of his own language and forms of expression. One of the main focuses of Conrad’s work is to portray the European's mental disintegration against the background of the wilderness in the African continent. Heart of Darkness contrasts the colonial world of the European, with that of the indigenous African peoples. Conrad uses a frame narrative charting the story of how Charles Marlow made his long and excruciating…

    • 1122 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychology professor, conducted an experiment which examined life in confinement from the perspective of both the prisoner and the prison guard. As the study progressed, he observed that the prison guards began to display peremptory attitudes towards the imprisoned, developing sadistic and apathetic tendencies. Similar to the tyrannical behaviour of the colonizers during their relentless pursuit of superiority through imperialism, the prison guards became thoroughly indifferent of their iniquitous actions. The presence of this callous apathy that the colonizers direct towards the colonized is a theme often depicted in post-colonial literature. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the Europeans regard the Africans…

    • 1107 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Joseph Conrad reviews colonialism in Africa in the fictional novel Heart of Darkness, as the Europeans anticipate colonizing Africa. Africa, which is seen as a dark place throughout the novel, was poorly understood and nearly unknown during that time, and colonialism was seen as the brighter future for this continent. Through Marlow’s adventures in this novel, the exploitation of colonialism being inflicted upon African natives by the Europeans is explored more intensely. The use of figurative and literal darkness supports the hypocrisy of imperialism. While the Europeans feel that they are brightening the future for Africa through their conquering, the reality of the purpose is far more related to the lack of moral limitations for this continent,…

    • 1266 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    In Heart of Darkness, Conrad illustrates the common societal phenomenon that “white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go completely unremarked” (Achebe 4). With so many racial conflicts going on now, this novella raises people’s awareness that racism still exists. Also, the Europeans over African natives hierarchy in the Heart of Darkness precisely reflects the white supremacy and white privilege in the United States. For example, white people tend to receive better education and are often more competitive than black people in the selection of job positions. Secondly, sexism, an ongoing issue as well, is also demonstrated in the novella.…

    • 2457 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Heart Of Darkness Thesis

    • 151 Words
    • 1 Pages

    I. Thesis Statement a. Heart of Darkness is both a metaphor for a psychological side of man, and an allusion to Africa. II. It is an actual place a. Africa is the “dark continent” (unknown) b. Cannibals live there c. Thick jungle covers the land in darkness d. Africa is separated from the modern world III. Imbalance of power a. Pilgrims have control over the natives…

    • 151 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Postcolonial, Why? Postcolonial is studied to help gain a better understanding of the consequences of having control and about the economic exploitation of native people and their lands have on the rest of the world or one selves. Two theories that is demonstrated is the control and exploitation of others are diaspora and oppression. These postcolonial themes are found in literature works like The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Tempest, and Heart of Darkness and they exemplify the interdependence between the two theories. Diaspora refers to the displacement of others either by force or by choice and oppression is to deprive someone of their voice and power.…

    • 973 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Colonialism changed the lives of both the colonizers and the natives. In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad the readers see colonialism through the eyes of the invaders, and in Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe the audience sees how the natives feel about their culture being altered. While each of these books tells the story of colonialism, Conrad only shows his readers a racist view that Africans are savages with no culture, but Achebe shows the true nature of the Africans. Marlow, Conrad’s main character, witnesses the Africans preforming a ritual and he describes the scene, “They howled and leaped and spun and made horrid faces” (Conrad 36). Marlow never tries to understand what the Africans are doing, and describes the ceremony in a way that makes the Africans look like savages.…

    • 775 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Heart of Darkness show Europeans wanting to change Africa in order for the company to benefit off of the native people and the manner of doing so is far from humane. They do so by going into Africa and becoming the ruling force trying to civilize and colonize the indigenous people. Season of Migration to the North, however, presents two African men who are both trying to take themselves away from European life and integrate into African society. In Heart of Darkness the Europeans view themselves as top of the line, clean cut, civilized beings and see the Africans as uncivilized savage beast who they can change for the better. While Marlow 's intentions in Africa are to explore and help bring the natives to civilized life that isn 't why the Europeans are in Africa.…

    • 1474 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart shows the apparent ways that Joseph Conrad and Chinua Achebe differ in ways of presenting Africa in the colonization era. Conrad and Achebe books shows the difference between an Afrocentric and Eurocentric viewpoint. Joseph Conrad’s depictions of the Africans as savages an in a very racist undertone causes Chinua Achebe to write Things Fall Apart through the viewpoint of the natives of different tribes to show Africans, not as uncivilized savages, but as members of a very hierarchy society that is not too much different from the Europeans. One way Conrad’s views about Europeans to make the look as if they were higher beings to the African tribes was in his description of Marlow.…

    • 805 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Even though the information may not be false completely, it often contained euphemisms and were written to favor the Europeans beliefs such as when Olunde points out that “history is made by describing murderous defeats as strategic victories” (161). Soyinka demonstrates that for the purposes of pleasing the people in a country, it may be necessary to leave out or alter parts of what would eventually become historical events. In addition to this, even African writers may often exclude important aspects in their writings. This can be seen in Chinua Achebe’s critique of Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness in which he argues the image of Africa “has no reality and the natives no individuality” (Davis 33). This refers to the idea of not giving the African slaves in the story any names, which is not different than the denial of identity…

    • 851 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Racism is a difficult trait to define, and to recognize. It is often hard to decipher what is actually racist, and what just comes across as such. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is the story of one man’s account of being an ivory transporter, down the Congo River. During the voyage, there are many encounters with African Natives, and many of those encounters reflect negatively on the natives. The white men who dominate the storyline are demeaning towards the natives, and paint them as being sub-human.…

    • 1630 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays