He defends Conrad by stating that the interaction between Europe and America, on the one hand, imperialized the world, that these actions were animated and made explicit which he argues is ‘experienced by both sides’ and that Conrad should, therefore, be viewed as a ‘creature of his time’. Moreover, Said argues that this is presented beautifully within Conrad’s extremely rich novella Heart of Darkness. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is firmly rooted in imperialism and European conquests worldwide, while the colonizers deceitfully claimed that they sought only to civilize native populations by the spreading of the Christian lifestyle: their mindsets were built upon a notion that white Europeans epitomized civilization, whereas the indigenous people were ignorant and in some cases primitive. Heart of Darkness was one of the novels that helped to perpetuate an offensive image of Africa, having been disturbed by the inhumanity and brutal behavior bestowed upon the African natives, Conrad was moved to present his anti-imperialist views aboard his vessel which is the Heart of Darkness (Okafore, 1988). However, this came under fire in 1975 when Chinua Achebe heavily criticized the novella in his essay ‘An Image of Africa’ and accused Conrad of being a ‘Thoroughgoing racist’. Knowles further states that Conrad would have been ‘astonished by these contemporary reverberations’. Firstly, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Achebe’s scathing essay of 1975 and Said’s defense and contextualization of Conrad’s novella in 1992.Ĭonrad’s Heart of Darkness is one of the greats where English Literature is considered according to Conradian Owen Knowles (2007) as he discusses how Conrad’s mighty influence on English literature shaped the way for other English literary greats such as T.S Eliot with his use of fragments from Heart of Darkness as an epigraph to his poem ‘The Hollow Men’ (1925). Given the complexity and ambiguity of the text, alongside the vast amount of ongoing discussions that Achebe’s lecture instigated, this essay shall focus on three primary sources.

Achebe heart of darkness