Racism In The Heart of Darkness

Today’s society has major issues pertaining to problems that we have been dealing with for years. Women’s rights, LGBTQ and other equality issues as well. Being that this is a time era past the twentieth century, you would think that racism would be already behind us in this time. Yet, it still goes on today. It seems to be that Marlow has very conflicted thoughts about African Americans throughout the story of The Heart of Darkness. Why is that? One minute it seems to be he despises them and other times it seems he respects them as people. Considering his hatred towards them, the quotes below show derogatory nicknames for Africans and what exactly he thinks of them when it comes to the suffering they obtained.

"'What a frightful row,' he said. He crossed the room gently to look at the sick man, and returning, said to me, "He does not hear. 'What! Dead?' I asked, startled. 'No, not yet,' he answered, with great composure. Then, alluding with a toss of the head to the tumult in the station-yard, 'When one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages—hate them to death.'"

“The so-called pilgrims' goodness pitilessly beat the black man blamed for the fire. They have no compassion for his suffering; his whimpers are registered only as a "row" made by "the brute." They treat the man like an animal, as if he will only learn his lesson from repeated beatings.”

It is not apparent that African Americans and other natives were known as savages and were not sympathized for the actions they obtained throughout this journey. The men compared the native’s whimpers to a “row” made by “the brute.” Reading that makes me think of something that is crumpled up and thrown away somewhere and just forgotten about, right? I feel as if also during this time, treating those people like animals was probably a no brainer for most. Being that hunting and survival was at its highest peak, but also having people do chores for other “prioritized” civilians was something that went hand in hand as well. Things may have been more horrific and life-threatening to a huge population back then and you would think that things change as society grows stronger and better. But in the end, everything is still the same and the underlying cause of such anger from certain races to other races is something that pertains to everyone’s life every single day.

Works Cited

Greenblatt et. al., (Eds). (2018). The Norton Anthology of English Literature The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.