Student Essay on Absence of Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"

The essay criticizes Chinua Achebe's claim that Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" is a racist book.

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is heralded by many as a classic, but over the years has presented many problems of interpretation. One of the most notable misinterpretations is Chinua Achebe's An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. In it, Achebe points to various passages in the book that supposedly prove that Conrad and his book are racist, and that the book should be cast out of the canon of classic literature. This is a false and inaccurate interpretation, and Achebe's objectivity is hindered by his anti-western bias. It is an indisputable fact that when European nations colonized undeveloped nations that Europeans believed that they were superior. Colonization and racism go hand and hand and the absence of the sight of racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness would have resulted in an unauthentic.....