Chinua Achebe's "An image of Africa: Rascism in the Heart of Darkness"

In Chinua Achebe’s “An image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” he focuses through out the article is his Conrad’s liberalism and racist views that he believes are expressed through his novel.  Achebe really focuses  on Conrad’s hatred for blacks and the native people of Africa.  Achebe is very clear and descriptive on how he feels about Conrad, he says “The point of my observation should be quite clear by now, namely that Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist” (343).  He is very confident in his attack on Conrad’s writing ability and what he believes to be a book that should not be read by anyone ever again.  He describes Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” as “ no more than a steady, ponderous, fake-ritualistic repetition of two antithetical sentences, one about silence and the other about frenzy” (338). Achebe is very judgmental and hard on Conrad and his novel, but i believe that is was deserve.  The problem with Achebe’s article is he starts off saying that he believes this book to be nothing but a depiction of a racist point of view.  Later on he says that he is not a very good writer because his novella is “ no more than a steady, ponderous, fake-ritualistic repetition of two antithetical sentences, one about silence and the other about frenzy” (338).  Then he goes way out to left field and says,. 

The good thing about Achebe’s article is that he is expressing is views as a black man on a book that is very negative towards black.  Through out the book he keeps his thought focused on how much he does not like Conrad’s and his liberal views.  Achebes attacks are very direct when he states “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 remarked” (343).  This is one of Achebe’s concerned be expressed in the novella because people will not speak out on it because the time period was in times of heavy racism.  His view on how students take the book is that “ Students of the Heart of Darkness will often tell you that Conrad is concerned not so much with the Africa as with deterioration of one European mind caused by solitude and sickness” (343).   This explains that he believes student see that Conrad is not concerned with the African people but is only concerned about the Europeans and their fascination with the distraction of the Africans. You