SOURCE: Trench-Bonett, Dorothy. “Naming and Silence: A Study of Language and the Other in Conrad's Heart of Darkness.” Conradiana: A Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies 32, no. 2 (summer 2000): 84-95.

In the following essay, Trench-Bonett counters the charge that Conrad is a racist by examining the way the author utilizes names and silence in Heart of Darkness.

Chinua Achebe makes some grave charges against Joseph Conrad in his well-known analysis of Heart of Darkness. Conrad, he says, is a “thoroughgoing racist” who ignores the cultural achievements of Africans and represents them not as people, but as “limbs and rolling eyes,” refusing even to confer language upon them. The writer has “a problem with niggers,” and uses “emotive” language and “trickery” to dehumanize his African characters and present a view of Africa as “a place of triumphant bestiality” which functions as a “foil” for an enlightened Europe.¹ Achebe's essay deserves serious...