I wrote this essay for a one week summer school class in literary criticism i
attended; it seems to me to be relevant to some of the discussions we tend to
have here, especially my recent engagements with Brother Saiks. If you are a
literature buff, you will find it very stimulating. If you ain't one, you are
better off reaching for your 'delete' key!
Best wishes and a great weekend ahead,
Hamjatta Kanteh
**************************************************
Chinua Achebe's literary pedigree is the stuff legend. The literary audience
and admiration he commands - especially within the African continent - is
also legion. It would not be hyperbolic to suggest that Achebe's literary
feat has come to embody the aura of legendary literary mystification that
such other great literary legends like Dante and Shakespeare were venerated
amongst generations and continue to be treated with similar veneration.
Indeed, one young African academic once suggested to me that Achebe might as
well be Africa's Dante. Stripped off the difficulties associated with judging
different writers of different eras and cultures and the concomitant effects
of the relativist themes generated from this, this judgement, to my mind, is
not entirely wrong or without literary and historical basis. Achebe's debut
novel, Things Fall Apart, has become the most famous and read novel by an
African writer. The book has sold millions and continues to sell. It is with
Things Fall Apart that Achebe cut his literary teeth as a contrarian of
Western perceptions of the African peoples, their cultures and histories. As
a debut novel, Things Fall Apart was a landmark in every sense of that word
and in the sense of "decolonising the mind" about Africa and Africans
generally. As Wole Soyinka commented on this, Things Fall Apart "was the
first novel in English which spoke from the interior of an African character,
rather than portraying the African as exotic, as the white man would see
him." [1]
To the extent that this was true of Achebe's debut novel and later works,
Achebe saw it as a moral duty to challenge the wrong perceptions outsiders -
especially Westerners - have and are keen to believe about the African
peoples, their cultures and histories. Achebe's literary oeuvre became
debunking those unfair perceptions and caricatures of the African and his way
of life. As he commented on this: "I'd read so-called 'African novels' in
school, by Rider Haggard and John Buchan, in which white people were
surrounded by savages but managed to come out on top. But I didn't recognise
them as relating to me until I read Mister Johnson: this book was not talking
about a vague place called Africa but about southern Nigeria. I said, 'wait,
that means here; this is our story.' It brought the whole thing home to me:
the story is not true, so is it possible the others are not either? It opened
up a new way of looking at literature." [2]
It is within this context that Achebe's controversial attack of Joseph
Conrad' Heart of Darkness should be viewed. Suffice for me to say here that
Conrad's Heart of Darkness was, sui generis, made of the staple of which
Achebe has come to view as the typical and grotesque Western caricature of
African cultures and histories. In his critique of Conrad's book - An Image
of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness - waxed indignant and lyrical
on the "thoroughgoing racism" inherent in Conrad's book. Arguing about the
latent racism in Conrad's book seems not to be the only bane of Achebe's
moral indignation; rather, the fact that Conrad himself was a "thoroughgoing
racist". Chief on Achebe's charge sheet against Conrad, thus read: "The point
of my observations should be quite clear by now, namely that Joseph Conrad
was a thoroughgoing racist." [3] The following passage from Achebe's critique
should be a pointer to what made him to wax indignant on Conrad's
"thoroughgoing racism":
"The real question is the dehumanization of Africa and Africans which this
age-long attitude has fostered and continues to foster in the world. And the
question is whether a novel which celebrates this dehumanization, which
depersonalises a portion of the human race, can be called a great work of
art. My answer is: No, it cannot. I do not doubt Conrad's great talents. Even
Heart of Darkness has its memorably good passages moments… Its exploration of
the minds of the European characters is often penetrating and full of
insight. But all that has been more fully discussed in the last fifty years.
His obvious racism has, however, not been addressed. And it was high time it
was!" [4]
Where to begin? The idea that Conrad's Heart of Darkness "celebrates the
dehumanization, which depersonalises a portion of the human race", and thus
Conrad was a "thoroughgoing racist"? Let me shelve that question for later
and kindly point out what seems to me Achebe's profound lack of insight in
reading far too much into the eerie resonance or similarity of the fictitious
Marlow and Conrad's career background amongst others. Achebe's judgement that
Conrad was a "thoroughgoing racist" naturally provokes the question: what was
the premise for this judgement of Achebe's? Achebe largely achieves his
premise with a deft literary sleight of hand by supplanting the fictitious
Marlow with Conrad; in effect, when Marlowe speaks, ruminates, reflects or
acts, it is Conrad or reflects Conrad's real life position on such moral
questions. Which beggars the question: career similarities aside - there is
no doubt about the career meeting point of Marlow and the real Conrad -
couldn't it simply be the case that whilst this eerie similarity exists
between the two, it is simply the case that the connection between the two is
merely that Marlow is Conrad's "fictional narrator" and "far from endorsing"
Marlow, "Conrad might indeed be holding" Marlow "up to irony and criticism"?
Achebe grants that much but has both a literary and technical demurrer:
"Certainly Conrad appears to go to considerable pains to set up layers of
insulation between himself and the moral universe of his history. He has, for
example, a narrator behind a narrator. The primary narrator is Marlowe but
his account is given to us through the filter of a second, shadowy person.
But if Conrad's intention is to draw a cordon sanitaire between himself and
the moral and psychological malaise of his narrator his care seems to me
totally wasted because he neglects to hint however subtly or tentatively at
an alternative frame of reference by which we may judge the actions and
opinions of his characters. It would not have been beyond Conrad's powers to
make that provision if he had thought it necessary. Marlowe seems to me to
enjoy Conrad's complete confidence - a feeling reinforced by the close
similarities between their two careers." [5]
As posited earlier, Achebe achieves his premise only with a deft literary
sleight of hand; wherein, he supposes with the aid of anecdotal and
conjectural evidence - note here that he merely says: "it seems to me…" thus
the conjectured nature of his evidence - it sufficed to supplant Marlow with
Conrad; and when the latter speaks, ruminates, reflects or acts, it is
actually the former speaking, acting, reflecting or ruminating. All this is
dismissable on the grounds that it hardly convinces one empirically and the
best that can be said of it is that it is mooted on conjectural grounds. The
best weaponry in Achebe's arsenal is his invocation of the similarities in
the career backgrounds of both Conrad and Marlow. Again, this is mooted on
both literary and: it may well be the case that the easiest way Conrad could
have written a novel on European imperialism, especially given the manner in
which Europeans travel to Africa, i.e., by ships, etc., etc., is to create a
fictitious sea-faring character. Certainly, it is the case that Conrad
himself did visit or plied the Congo River and were he to write about, he is
predisposed to use such experience. All which serves as only anecdotal
evidence and not convincing enough to say that Marlowe reflects Conrad's own
private moral outlook.
Which takes me to the earlier shelved question: is it really the case that
Conrad's Heart of Darkness "celebrates the dehumanization, which
depersonalises a portion of the human race", and thus Conrad was a
"thoroughgoing racist"? The first obvious point of objection herein is the
phrase "thoroughgoing racist", as Achebe uncharitably described Conrad.
Heretofore, a small passage from Achebe's critique, which is an
acknowledgement of the good in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, clearly
contradicts Achebe's heavy-handed indictment:
"Conrad saw and condemned the evil of imperial exploitation but was strangely
unaware of the racism on which it sharpened its tooth." [6]
If Achebe grants that Conrad did indeed "see and condemn the evil of imperial
exploitation", how did Achebe manage to come to the conclusion that Conrad
was a "thoroughgoing racist"? Would a "thoroughgoing racist" "see and condemn
the evil of imperial exploitation" given the fact that Achebe himself posited
that it was racism that was, amongst others, that gave impetus to
imperialism? Once we pursue this line of argument, the logical defect in
Achebe's charge sheet is laid bare. For instance, Achebe correctly posited
that it was, amongst others, racism, which give the impetus to imperialism.
Given this premise, if Conrad denounced imperialism unequivocally in Heart of
Darkness - as Achebe judiciously granted - why would anyone accuse him
[Conrad] of being "strangely unaware of racism"? That is just akin to
accusing an anti- Capitalist tract by a Marxist which denounces inequalities
in society in very strong terms whilst only making indirect references to
class inequalities of being "strangely unaware of" the iniquities of class
differences and the role they play in social inequalities. Suffice for me to
say that Conrad's unequivocal observations and condemnation of the "evils of
imperial exploitation" largely represents - on equal terms - a condemnation
of racism. Conrad cannot "see and condemn the evils of imperial exploitation"
- if it is granted that Achebe is indeed right that imperialism "sharpened
its tooth on racism" - and be fairly labelled a "thoroughgoing racist".
Something has got to give in here; either, imperialism doesn't connote racism
and Achebe can then attempt to convince us that Conrad was indeed a
"thoroughgoing racist". Or if imperialism rightly connotes or "sharpens its
tooth on racism" and Conrad's unequivocal condemnation of it repudiates
Achebe's heavy-handed charge that Conrad was a "thoroughgoing racist".
All this is not to say that there was no racism in Conrad's Heart of
Darkness. But it is the type of racism that Achebe, unfortunately, has not
grasped. For starters, Conrad's choice of title - Heart of Darkness -
certainly doesn't help matters. Now, as then, Western perceptions or
intellectual analysis of the continent's myriad political problems,
especially the seemingly intractable ones, only attracts ugly headlines that
grotesquely parody Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Is this Conrad's fault? I
think not. Literary works have and will always be grotesquely misinterpreted
on the scale we have and continue to see Westerners, especially journalists
and intellectuals, do and operate from the racist stereotypes of Heart of
Darkness. It was only some two days ago that I came across an article in the
Financial Times with a caption that goes like this: "UK looks to women to
lead Congo out of darkness" by a one Michela Young. Needless to say, none
will accuse the Financial Times of "thoroughgoing racism"; indeed, the paper
represents liberal decency and tolerance. But that it can unwittingly publish
articles with captions tendentiously portraying racist perceptions of Africa
should, perhaps, give us an inkling of the racism in Conrad's Heart of
Darkness.
The racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness is more a self-righteous, benign and
fastidious moralising modern Western cosmopolitan liberals are so accustomed
to deliver against what is the opposite of their own moral outlook. Nowhere
is this more latent today than when Western liberals are discoursing Muslims
and Islam. They will certainly be tolerant of Muslims but cannot help
conclude by patronisingly reject that Islam can conceivably cope with
personal autonomy and all those vexatious moral questions they almost always
highlight in Islam and Muslims' moral convictions. The racism in Conrad's
Heart of Darkness is along the same lines. Suffice to say that the racism
that can be fairly ascribed to Conrad's Heart of Darkness is also the kind of
racism that T.S. Eliot was justly accused of when he posited that
Christianity represented the highest stage of civilisation and Judaism as a
forerunner, merely represented the primary or backward stage of that
civilization.
In conclusion, the worst that I believe that can be ascribed to Conrad is
unwittingly regurgitating and recycling age-old racist myths and nonsense
about Africans and Africa. Achebe seems to concede this much to Conrad:
"Conrad did not originate the image of Africa which we find in this book. It
was and is the dominant image of Africa in Western imagination and Conrad
merely brought the peculiar gifts of his own mind to bear on it." [8] Whether
Conrad actually believed or was ignorant of the racist nonsense and myths he
recycled and regurgitated in Heart of Darkness is mooted. Conrad's ignorance
or lack thereof doesn't, of course, excuse him of being culpable of the
charges of regurgitating and recycling age-old racist myths and nonsense.
Achebe, it can be safely said here, most certainly hasn't supplied convincing
evidence to make his indictment of Conrad being a "thoroughgoing racist"
stand the test of evidence. The best that could be said of his evidence is
that it is largely conjectural and anecdotal. Therefore, Achebe's charge that
Conrad was a "thoroughgoing racist", seems to me to reflect his own lack of
profound insight on the moral narrative or context of Conrad's Heart of
Darkness.
REFERENCES
1. The Guardian, Story of the Savannah, by Maya Jaggi, Saturday November 18,
2001, viewable from:
http//www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4092618,00.html
2. Ibid.
3. Chinua Achebe, An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness,
p. 257, in Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Norton Critical Studies, ed.
Robert Kimbrough, WW Norton & Company, 1988, New York & London
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid. p. 256
6. Ibid. p. 262
7. The Financial Times, UK looks to women to lead Congo out of darkness, by
Michela Young, August 10, 2001
8. Chinua Achebe, op. cit. P. 26
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. The Guardian, Story of the Savannah, by Maya Jaggi, Saturday November 18,
2001, viewable from:
http//www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4092618,00.html
2. Chinua Achebe, An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness,
in Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Norton Critical Studies, ed. Robert
Kimbrough, WW Norton & Company, 1988, New York & London
3. The Financial Times, UK looks to women to lead Congo out of darkness, by
Michela Young, August 10, 2001
4. Richard Adams, Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Penguin Critical Studies,
Penguin, 1991, London
5. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, edited with an introduction by Paul
O'Prey, Penguin, 1983, London
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