Blog Assignment #2

      In Chinua Achebe’s essay, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”, he discusses the acts of racism throughout the novella.  Achebe criticizes Conrad’s take on racism in this book. He even dares to call Conrad himself a “bloody racist ”.  Achebe crosses the lines between Marlow and Conrad. He meshes the two into one person.  He uses the book itself to say that Conrad used it as a real life depiction on events. Though the book was written with some real life intent, it is not clear as to whether Conrad meant for it to be autobiographical.

       In J. Hillis Miller’s essay, “Should We Read ‘Heart of Darkness’?”, he discusses whether or not Heart of Darkness is even worth reading.  He starts off is essay asking a series of rhetorical questions whether or not it should even be taught to students to begin with. He ventures to ask if it should be burned at the risk of being taught to students. Each person who reads Heart of Darkness  “must read for him or herself and testify anew”  (Miller 463).

      Both of these men were passionate for this novella. Whether it was that the book revealed Conrad to be a racist, or that the book is not even worth reading, they were still passionate about what they had to say about the book. Though it is controversial about whether Conrad himself was a racist as stated by Achebe, it must be admitted that his points were good ones. Achebe’s strength in his essay was within his accusations about Conrad as being a racist. It was a bold accusation to make in the first place. He even mentioned the merge of Marlow as being a reflection on Conrad’s personal views. Being that Achebe was African born could have played into account. It is possible that he views the book in a completely different way than an American born citizen.

      In The essay by Miller the weakness is that he starts off his essay with a good many rhetorical questions. It causes one to think about just that part of the essay rather than moving onto the rest of the essay. It can cause one to spend too much time thinking on the rhetorical questions rather than going to read the rest of the essay. It is not a great idea to start an essay with questions. Especially with so many of the questions being similar, it was a definite weakness to the essay.

      Each person’s view of this book will be different. Perhaps that is the way Conrad had intended it to be. It cause one to question their own views and what is acceptable and the traditional roles races are put into.

    

Achebe, Chinua. “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”.

              Armstrong 336-349.

Armstrong, Paul B. Ed. Heart of Darkness. New York: W.W. Norton and Company,

                2006.

Miller, J. Hillis. “Should We Read ‘Heart of Darkness’?”. Armstrong 463-474.