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Chris Nye
Sherryll Mleynek
ENG 300
March 15, 2009

Conrad the Victim

“It is the reader’s own criticism that constitutes the reality of the book. The
novel…is not to be viewed as the mere reflection of a social reality, for its true form will
only be revealed when the world it present has, like all images, been refracted and
converted by the mind of the reader” (Wolfgang Iser, The Implied Reader, 113).

In the quote above, Wolfgang Iser presents the novel as an image, as if the work

of fiction is simply a picture of whatever the author writes. In the same breath, Iser says

that the reality of the book (or image) is based upon the reaction of the reader. In other

words, the author is not enough.

Joseph Conrad’s classic novella “Heart of Darkness” is one of the most widely

criticized books; its reality does not need to be justified. While plenty have read the book,

it seems to me as though nearly everyone has constructed an opinion concerning the book

itself, its characters and setting. In my own reading of Conrad’s classic, I feel as though I

have a very unique reaction to it and wish to respond to some of the scholarly notes.

Chinua Achebe offers perhaps the most famous response to “Heart of Darkness,” calling

the author a “thoroughgoing racist” (Conrad, 343). Taking a slightly lesser stance on the

novel is J. Hillis Miller in “Should We Read ‘Heart of Darkness?’” Miller suggests we

read it as “a powerful exemplary revelation of the ideology of capitalist imperialism,

including its racism…” (Conrad, 474). It is my claim in response to these critics and

others, that Conrad must not be blamed or criticized for his racism but must be set into

the context in which he wrote. In understanding this context, Conrad’s novella should be

widely read and discussed in classrooms all over the world.

It is first of great importance to discuss Conrad’s “racism,” which seemingly

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permeates his story and his critics papers. Achebe presents very challenging points in his

essay, and in fact sets up cogent remarks, however, I believe he is missing a large piece to

the puzzle that is Conrad and “Heart of Darkness.” Conrad was a racist, but it is my

argument that we should not be surprised nor should we as critics ascribe blame to

Conrad because he was enslaved to an unenlightened worldview.

Chinua Achebe’s essay opens with a very valid point: there lies, in this current

age, a problem with the Western mind’s understanding of African history, traditions, and

values. Far too often do we treat Africa as wildly unique and somewhat “native,” when in

all actuality our culture holds traditions, histories, and values as strong as Africa.

However, as Achebe digs deeper into “Heart of Darkness,” he begins to open a

psychoanalytic reading of not just the novella, but all that Conrad writes. Achebe paints

Conrad as not just a racist, but an “unrelenting,” obsessed, and “tormented man” (Conrad

345). It is at this point in the essay where I feel Achebe has forgotten the reality and

power of worldview.

Conrad was born in the middle 1800s and was orphaned by the age of eleven. He

was raised in a somewhat cautious, Polish upbringing that made him wait out some of his

childhood dreams. Achebe capitalizes on Conrad’s childhood, pulling a quote from his

early years “of his first encounter with a black man…” (Conrad, 344). Admittedly,

Conrad’s language is very awful and by our standards today, unarguably racist: “A certain

enormous buck nigger encountered in Haiti fixed my conception of blind, furious,

unreasoning rage, as manifested in the human animal to the end of my days” (Conrad

344). However, I do not see a place for blame solely on Conrad for this. I see Conrad as a

young man enslaved to his worldview. Every human being has a worldview that has been
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constructed by his or her own personal upbringing and Conrad is no exception. Gene M.

Moore writes, “…works can be read as products or signs of the various influences that

contributed to the shaping of…life and literary career…influence can be negative or

positive” (Cambridge, 224). It is unfair for the reader or the critic to attribute identities to

the author that never existed in his worldview. Conrad constructed his literary

masterpiece under the influence of 19th Century Polish culture, which was not as

progressively enlightened as Achebe’s 20th century Western worldview.

Since his teenage years, it was Conrad’s passion to travel to Africa and be a man

of the sea. In his famous trip of 1889 where he captained a steamboat to the Congo Free

State, he collected most of his material for “Heart of Darkness.” This would be the first

time Conrad would see any native culture. He had no access to the Internet or

photographs as one does now. The simple concept of a man painting his face and

screaming in a new dialect would be alien to the young Conrad – he was shocked. The

tales of his journey are simply reports from his worldview, not judgments.

The reader, above anything else, must understand the worldview in which Conrad

had whilst he sat on that boat. More importantly than the political situations of the time, it

needs to be noted that things such as “civil rights” as they exist today, were at the most in

the infantile stages of the Western human thought development. The phrases attributed to

Marlow are horrifically racist by our current standards, but it is unfair and outlandish to

ascribe our worldview on Conrad’s somewhat unenlightened worldview.

It is clear that much of Conrad’s words are somewhat prophetic, and because of

this often critics believe that he should be ahead of his worldview in other areas of

thought as well. It is true that Conrad’s commentary of Western imperialism is surprising

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considering his worldview. Obviously on his journey and through his life, he saw clear

evidences of the darkness in imperialism. His political mind was advanced, but perhaps it

is too much to assume that his social and humanitarian mind was as advanced. It would

have been fantastic if he had achieved enlightenment outside of his racist worldview, but

the fact is he did not. Conrad’s language should not be surprising, for it was normal

dialect for a white man in the late 19th century.

It must be made clear that I do not intend to justify this language in our current

culture. If Conrad were to have written this as a current American or European, he should

be labeled a racist, but I feel as though the blame thrust upon him individually is out of

place. The focus of Achebe and others should be upon the civilization and society he was

brought up in, not Conrad as a person. There is no secret that the history of Western

thought is one of pain and embarrassment – from the justification of slavery, to the

treatment of the Native Americans, all the way to the treatment of black men in the south

during the 1950s – westerners do not have a pretty past. It must be recognized that we

have surviving literature of some value that exists from that embarrassing time period.

Joseph Conrad is a victim of this awful time period. He wrote far before the equality of

the native black man was either recognized or even talked about. The reader and the critic

must separate the man from the society. For if we blame Conrad alone, we are forgetting

the blame of the millions of others who never put pen to paper.

Beyond this, speaking of Conrad’s racial disposition is besides the point of his

great literary achievements in “Heart of Darkness.” Because people have forgotten his

worldview that he fell victim to, critics have stopped focusing on his form, style, and

even content, and more closely focused on the implied psychoanalytic reading. Moore
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would agree saying, “As an author’s works achieve significance as token of cultural

literacy, they inevitably become caricatured or distorted, and are readily available as

points of reference in arguments that go far beyond merely literary issues” (Cambridge,

225). Since “Heart of Darkness” is such a literary accomplishment, and because of

Conrad’s enlightened view of imperialism, readers have unfairly attributed

psychoanalytic critiques to his work which simply do not belong there in the first place.

To answer Miller’s accurate and fair question, “Should we read ‘Heart of

Darkness?’”, the answer is absolutely yes. We must read it, but with the context of

Conrad’s retarded worldview, understanding the society he came from and the culture he

was influenced heavily by. Should we teach our children to speak and write like Conrad?

Absolutely not, they must know the grounds from which we have risen. It is essential not

to single out Conrad as a racist, but to understand him as a small piece of a larger racist

culture. I believe that with this understanding, we can value the literary brilliance of

Conrad without becoming hung up in psychoanalytic criticisms of a man who was by all

social circumstances at the time, quite regular.

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Works Cited

Cambridge companion to Joseph Conrad. Cambridge [England]:

Cambridge UP,

1996.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness: an authoritative text,

backgrounds and contexts, criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005.