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In recent years, the debate over the merits versus the racial shortcomings of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness has raged hot. Many, notably David Denby and Chinua Achebe, have come down on one side or another of the issue. I contend, with the help of the written opinions of Denby and Achebe, that Heart of Darkness, while racist in its views, is nonetheless a valuable and commendable work of art. In 1975, celebrated Nigerian author Chinua Achebe (Things Fall Apart, 1958) gave a lecture at the University of Massachusetts condemning Heart of Darkness as an offensive and totally deplorable book that should not be considered a work of art. He believes that it has contributed to Western discrimination against Africa and Africans. In his words, The question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion of the human race, can be called a great work of art.
My answer is: No, it cannot. He then went on to discuss the Western tendency toward a reflexive discrimination against Africa. His speech ended with a challenge to his listeners to fight against the unthinking racism of the West against Africans. David Denby's Jungle Fever is an article written in response to Achebe's speech. It disputes Achebe's assertion that Heart of Darkness is without literary value because of its racist background. The article is an account of a discussion about Heart of Darkness that took place over the course of two days in a class at Columbia College.
In between episodes it disputes Achebe's conclusion. Denby is of the opinion that the book is a scathing attack on imperialism and cannot be condemned as evil and worthless. It makes significant contributions to literature and to the intellectual environment of its time, and is therefore a worthwhile work. The fact that Conrad appeared to share the prevailing opinion at the time about the humanity of Africans does not outweigh the point of the novella, which is that imperialism is a rapacious folly. The entire dispute surrounding Heart of Darkness is reminiscent of the debate about Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. As in that debate, I tend to come down closer to Denby's opinion on Heart of Darkness than that of Achebe.
Although I agree that Conrad was a racist, I also think that because of the time at which the book was written and the main focus of the book, this shading is, if not commendable, at least excusable. Conrad's book portrays a man living in imperial England, and his evolutionary racism is merely an accurate portrayal of the accepted beliefs of the time. In addition, Heart of Darkness goes much further than most literature from that time period, in that it attacks imperialism while most other writers at the time simply accepted it as something normal and permissible. If Conrad's work is to be attacked on the grounds of the opinions of its author, then so must the work of nearly every other writer active during the imperialist era. The best way to look at Heart of Darkness is as an imperfect, yet incalculably valuable, contribution to literature. In reality, it has done much more good through its attack on imperialism than it has harm through the inherent racism of the time in which it was written.
Chinua Achebe, although well intentioned, seems blinded by his own proximity to the issue at hand and the strength of his opinions.
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Research essay sample on Heart Of Darkness Work Of Art