This clearly shows how people in this current generation still are able to understand the moral implications in Conrad’s language is the actual problem. Africa is setting and backdrop which eliminates the African as a human factor” (Achebe, 37 and 38). Achebe asserts that “A Conrad student informed me in Scotland that Africa is merely “a setting for the disintegration of the mind of Mr. In Chinua Achebe’s essay, “An Image of Racism”, he highlights how Conrad uses figurative language to compare Europe and Africa.
It can be seen clearly from the novel that Africans were not people that deserved such disgraceful and disrespectful action from the characters and the acknowledgment of the author to prove their portrayal of Africans as animals and unworthy of a name. During the novel, the protagonist, Marlow and the other white people disrespected the African people in a way that justified that being a light pigment meant superiority.
During his first visit to Africa on his way to Congo, he observed that “The prehistoric man was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us– who could tell?” (Conrad).With the perspective of describing African people as underdeveloped and his use of words such as s “prehistoric”, “savage”, and even the derogatory N word, despite most African people in the novel were faceless and unnamed. One form of dehumanization factor that is portrayed in “Heart of Darkness” is when Conrad uses many racist descriptions of the African people.
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