Achebe's "An Image of Africa : Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness"

Achebe's "An Image of Africa : Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" (The Massachusetts Review, 18 (1977) : 782 - 94) expresses a passionate objection to Conrad's point of view and portrayal of Africa and Africans in his novel Heart of Darkness. Achebe's novel, Things Fall Apart, can be considered the direct opposition to Conrad's Heart of Darkness and is seen to as a challenge on Conrad's western views. I shall explore the validity in Achebe's "An Image of Africa : Racism …

…of Darkness was to show the Westerners lack of moral fibre by contrasting them against the Africans and showing how the Westerners exploited the Africans. Achebe's description of Conrad as a "thoroughgoing racist" in "An Image of Africa : Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" was not entirely true. Conrad did include some racism in Heart of Drakness but it was not intentional and it was certainly not extreme enough to call him a "thoroughgoing racist".