Achebe's Interpretation

Okay, so I admit that despite my adamant defense of Conrad in my last blog, Achebe has managed to thrust my naivete into plain view. Throughout my reading of Heart of Darkness I genuinely believed that Conrad had created a subtle yet strikingly sarcastic work that actually operated as a commentary against the colonization of Africa...so its just slightly devastating that I may have been terribly mistaken.

During my reading of Achebe's criticism several portions stood out to me as shockingly enlightening and definitely something that I overlooked during my idealistic reading of the text...
"If there is something in these utterances more than youthful inexperience, more than a lack of factual knowledge, what is it? Quite simply it is the desire -- one might indeed say the need -- in Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe's own state of spiritual grace will be manifest. "
It is this very concept that provides Achebe with his argument, but it also implicitly clarifies the very complexity surrounding the debate of possible racism, is it really just "youthful inexperience" or European ignorance as a whole or greed that drew Europe to Africa? While no one will ever really know, its important to remember the time in which Conrad was living and the preconceived notions regarding race (and gender...but I digress) of the time. To say that Conrad was completely and utterly racist cannot be true, he obviously cared enough to create the book on the first place and the fact that he mocks the inability and overall lack of qualification amongst the white colonists, speaks for itself. If Conrad mocks European society, how can he simultaneously criticize Europe and be racist? Perhaps Conrad's lack of knowledge comes across as racist, but as Achebe says regardless, there is undoubtedly more than meets the eye with Conrad's perception of Africans.

However, although this consistent ambiguity may come lack of knowledge or the innate beliefs of society at the time, there really is no excuse for the following passage,
"And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman. He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler. He was there below me and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat walking on his hind legs. A few months of training had done for that really fine chap. He squinted at the steam-gauge and at the water-gauge with an evident effort of intrepidity -- and he had filed his teeth too, the poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, and three ornamental scars on each of his cheeks. He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank, instead of which he was hard at work, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge. "
Now as Achebe says, "for Conrad things being in their place is of the utmost importance" , so perhaps that is why this description seems so dehumanizing because this particular native wasn't in his natural form, he was trying to be something he was not, just as Conrad criticizes all of the Europeans coming to Africa (a place they clearly do not belong).
Ugh, I don't know, I myself am left with mixed emotions and an unclear idea of what Conrad meant, and as much as I could battle both sides of this argument I am choosing not to simply because I can acknowledge the fact that there are so many things that happened and justifications of both sides of the spectrum that I don't know about, and since Conrad obviously was lacking clear information regarding the Africans and he sways back and forth with his opinion of the Europeans, maybe he should have been more clear or not said anything at all!

*I apologize for the lack of visual stimulation, but seeing as this is my 3rd attempt in posting my blog Im not sure I have the capacity to handle recreating it in its entirety it yet again...