Whether Achebes assessment of Heart of Darkness is entirely fair Essay

Whether Achebes assessment of Heart of Darkness is entirely fair - Essay Example The assessment presented by Achebe presents an analysis of the characterization in Conrad’s work. Achebe’s view of the comments presented by Marlow, the narrator in Conrad’s work, and the writer himself are subject to prejudice is fair. While taking the two (Conrad and Marlow) to be an entity, Achebe states that their wish is that things remain in the way they are. On a further note, Marlow represents a wrong image of the people of Africa. He refers to the pseudo-civilized African as a man who needs external support. In his assessment, Achebe is not happy at the fact that Conrad presents the Africans as having no language but the Europeans’ language as being superior. Achebe condemns what Conrad referred to as the lack of coherent way of human expression. This is a fair assessment since there were, native, African languages, through which they communicated. Since language’s core role is to communicate, there is no language fairer than another spoken by a different group of people, as Conrad tends to create in his work. The work by Conrad gives a view of Africa as a world in which the occupants are ignorant of events and display the least form of humanity. There is inaccurate information provided by Conrad about the description of some places in the setting of the book. The setting of the story is on river Congo, which evidently not River Emeritus. The depiction brought by Conrad brings that the two are distinct in value is wrong. He depicts that there was no food for a â€Å"civilized man† (Conrad 11) in River Congo, but the waters of Thames were drinkable. The racism evident through the presentation of Africa and its people by Conrad and Marlow (the character) works to invalidate the work. The author and character’s manipulation of the image of Congo in Conrad’s work denies it the credit any credit that it may attain from its readers. Achebe notes that Conrad never