Blog Assignment #2

          Chinua Achebe is a professor of African literature at the University of Massachusetts and wrote a criticism of Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. He has some very strong opinions about what he thinks about Joseph Conrad as a person and as a writer. 

  Achebe has a few main points in his essay. He claims “that Joseph Conrad was a  thoroughgoing [bloody] racist”(343). He goes on to say that Conrad dehumanized the African race and disregarded their language. Chinua Achebe states that this book could not be considered a “great work of art” because it “celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the human race”(344). Another main point that Chinua Achebe addresses in his essay is that Joseph Conrad’s work is the epitome of the need of “Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe’s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest”(337). 

  In Chinua Achebe’s essay, I liked how he used tone and harsh language to really portray how he felt about this novella and also about Joseph Conrad. He said, “his [Joseph Conrad’s] method amounts to no more than a steady, ponderous, fake-ritualistic repetition of two antithetical sentences, one about silence and the other about frenzy”(338). He reduces this book, which has been studied for years, to being only two sentences. Achebe also uses context from the book throughout his criticism. This only reinforces and gives evidences to his critiques, which only makes his judgements stronger. Another thing that I really liked about Achebe’s essay was that he actually addresses the issue of racism in the novella. He wrote, “Conrad...was strangely unaware of the racism  on which it [imperial exploitation] sharpened its iron tooth”(349). Achebe goes on to say “that this simple truth is glossed over in criticisms of his work is due to the fact that white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go completely unremarked”(343). He claims that he is one of the only critics that has ever brought up the issue of racism in Heart of Darkness. 

  I did not like that he was so harsh about the novella and said just about nothing good about it. He is a very highly respected man and what he says about this book, and others, carries a lot of weight. If someone were to read this critique then he or she may not ever read the book because of the things he said about it. I also didn’t like that he didn’t adequately address counter examples in his essay. He just gave negative examples and very few positive examples in the novella. Although I found weaknesses in Chinua Achebe’s criticism, I agreed on most of the points he made about Joseph Conrad and of Heart of  Darkness.

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Armstrong 336-49.

Armstrong, Paul B, ed. Heart of Darkness. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005. 

Heart of Darkness -Portfolio Essay

Taylor Ladyman

English 105 

Professor Timmons

September 27, 2010

“A Savage Sight”: A Life of No External Checks

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness poses the question of how life would be or how a person would act if there were no external checks or if society didn’t tell them what was right and wrong. Kurtz shows that he changes completely when he went to Africa, but Marlow, for the most part, stays about the same as he was before he left.The question is, if there were no external checks, would people be nihilistic, lack self-control, lack willpower, lack morals, and lack backbone, or would they keep their character and morals?

  Life might be very chaotic if there was no societal structure and order placed on people. They could act however they wanted. They could also reject all the laws that they knew prior to going into the wild. People might do anything to get what they needed. One of the englishman said, “‘It is funny what some people will do for a few francs. I wonder what becomes of that kind when it goes up country?’”(15) This is foreshadowing the concerns of the people about those who were going into the wild. He too is questioning how people might change inwardly when nobody is there to tell them what to do. 

          Without laws and morals, individuals might lack self-control and willpower. They will take whatever they want without thinking twice about it. Marlow was talking about the Eldorado Exploring Expedition and said that, “It was reckless without hardiness, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage”(30).  They were a band of pirates that went around and stole things from other people showing their lack of self-control and willpower. 

     Many of the people would have said that they were going to Africa to help the people there. In reality, they were going there just to make more money. The way that they made their money was through ivory. Marlow said that, “The word ‘ivory’ rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it”(23). The people going over there were very greedy; ivory and money were all they cared about and they would take it from anybody they saw.  

     Marlow mentions that it is hard to keep your composure when there are so many outside influences pressuring you to do the wrong thing. He said, “I’ve seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but by all the stars these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils that swayed and drove men-men, I tell you”(16). He is suggesting that with all these different “devils”-violence, greed, desire- there is no way that you won’t be tempted to do the wrong thing or act in the wrong way. 

     These “devils” wouldn’t just control men, they controlled women as well. Marlow went to say goodbye and visit with his aunt before he left on his boat for his trip to Africa. He said about her, “and the excellent woman living right in the rush of all that humbug got carried off her feet. She talked about ‘weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways’”(12). She was under the same thinking that most everyone else was about the job that the Europeans were doing in Africa. 

     Once Kurtz would kill people, he would put their heads on sticks. When Marlow spoke about this, he said, “They [the heads] only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts, that there was something wanting in him-some small matter which when the pressing need arose could not be found under his magnificent eloquence”(57). Even though Kurtz could give a beautiful speech about all the good he was going to do, he was really only going to kill people. Mr.Kurtz showed a lack of restraint not only in his murderous ways, but also with the lies he was spreading about his work in Africa.

     One way that Marlow described people was whether or not they had backbone. He talked about the accountant and said, “I respected his collars, his vast cuffs, his brushed hair. His appearance was certainly that of a hairdresser’s dummy, but in the demoralisation of the land he kept up his appearance. That’s backbone”(18). Marlow spells out what he thought backbone was. He respected this man because he was in a dirty place and he could still keep his sanity and keep his appearance looking nice. 

     It would be hard to tell if a person had changed once they got into the wild if you were just looking at them from the outside. Before Marlow could leave for his trip, he had to go see the doctor. When Marlow got there, the doctor asked if he could measure his head so that when Marlow came back, he could measure again and record the differences, if there were any. Marlow asked why he did that and he said that is was “in the interests of science”(11). They talked about how people change from how they once were when they were civilized and then how they are once returning from the wild. The doctor was speaking to Marlow and said, “‘the changes take place inside, you know’”(11). He knew that you couldn’t notice the changes on the outside, all the changes that they had were inwardly, like their morals, their thinking, and the decisions that they made. 

     Prior to going to the native land, Kurtz had morals and a clear head on his shoulders. Thinking about Kurtz, Marlow said, “I was curious to see whether this man who had to come out equipped with moral ideas of some sort would climb to the top after all and how he would set about his work when there”(31). Marlow was wondering if there was a change that might take place within Mr.Kurtz whom he had heard was a man of high morals and a great work ethic. Marlow speculated that Mr.Kurtz may start to lose self-control, back bone, and restraint. 

     Once Kurtz had people listening to what he had to say, he could say whatever he wanted and people would still hang on every word. Marlow spoke about one of Kurtz’s speeches and said, “It was very simple and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment is blazed at you luminous and terrifying like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: ‘Exterminate all the brutes!’”(50) In this speech, Kurtz is showing that he is becoming savage. His main purpose prior to leaving was to get ivory, but that soon changed to killing the natives.  

     Marlow was against the way in which Kurtz was going about his job. Kurtz called what they were doing a “method.” The manager and Marlow had a discussion about the said “method”: “‘Because the method is unsound.’ ‘Do you,’ said I [Marlow]... ‘call it an ‘unsound method’?” ‘Without doubt,’ he [the manager] exclaimed hotly. ‘Don’t you?’... ‘No method at all,’ I [Marlow] murmured after a while”(62). Marlow knew that what the company was doing was wrong and he told the manager that. The manager wanted to reinforce to Marlow that Kurtz had to go. He said to Marlow, “there is no disguising the fact, Mr.Kurtz has done more harm than good to the company. He did not see the time was not ripe for vigorous action”(61). Not only could Marlow see it, but so did the manager; Kurtz was becoming savage and needed to be stopped and to be taken out of the company. 

     On the other hand, Marlow still knew right from wrong. He didn’t like to lie and said, “You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies-which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world-what I want to forget”(27). He knew what was right and what was wrong and he knew that he would not lie.

     Before Kurtz died, he realized all of the bad things that he had done. Every memory that he had about the recent things he had done came rushing back to his mind. Marlow said about him:

          Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision-he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:   ‘The horror! The horror!’(69)

Mr.Kurtz finally became aware that the “methods” that he used were not the ones he should have used. He realized all of the people he had hurt along the way and all of the things he shouldn’t have done and he now regrets everything he did. 

     In many situations, the way you act is determined by the different checks you have on your life. In college, people get wild when their parents are not there to tell them to do their homework, when to go to bed, what time to be home, etc. They start to lose their self-control and their restraint. Some of the students act more like Marlow and keep their morals and act as they should. It depends on the person and what “devils” are present in their life and which ones take hold of them. 

Works Cited

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Ed. Paul B. Armstrong. W.W. Norton: New York, 2005

Heart of Darkness Blog One Prompt One

           In Joseph Conrad’s novella, The Heart of Darkness, there are many contrasts between the Europeans and the natives that Marlow encounters. There are contrasts in regards to the way in which they act, in their appearance, and the jobs in which they can hold. 

Within the first couple of pages, Marlow shows the vast difference in the way that the natives ran their communities when compared to the Europeans. He says that “these chaps...were no colonists, their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more”(6). The Europeans’ goal was to colonize and have a civilized colony, but the natives were the exact opposite. They were perfectly content with not having the type of  government that the Europeans had. 

Furthermore, the natives carry themselves much differently than the Europeans do. Marlow says that “[the natives] grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got”(7). Marlow shares stories about these people like they are greedy people who would just take anyone’s things, just because they could. He also mentions that “it was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind”(7). He shows that the native people were just out on a hunt, not caring about who they were killing or what the consequences were to their actions. Clearly to Marlow, his people would never carry themselves in such a way.

The most obvious contrast between the natives and the Europeans is their appearance. Marlow comments on this and says that “[the natives] have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses”(7). The Europeans have light complexions with pointier noses, which, in the European mind of that time, was superior to the other types of people that did not look the same as they do. Not only is there contrast in their complexion and facial structure, but also in the way that they dressed. On one hand, the natives wore loincloths. On the other hand, some of the Europeans wore “high, starched collar[s], white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and  varnished boots”(18). There was a huge difference in the small amount of clothing that the native’s wore and the many layers of nice, clean clothing that the Europeans wore. 

In addition, the jobs in which the natives held and those that the Europeans held were completely different as well. The Europeans were able to be captains of the boat, seamen, and important members of the boat. On the other hand, the natives were used as the crew of the steamer and as slaves. 

There was a huge contrast between the native’s and the Europeans that Marlow encounters in The Heart of Darkness. On one hand, the Europeans had a civilized environment, had light skin, wore nice clothes, and held high jobs. On the other hand, the natives lived in an uncivilized environment, had darker skin with flatter noses, wore little clothing, and held less important jobs. 

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Ed. Paul B. Armstrong. W.W. Norton: New York, 2005.