An Image of Africa

Achebe counterbalances his scholarly voice with flashes of scathing, sarcastic, and even bitter language, best demonstrated by one of the most oft-cited lines in the essay: “The point of my observations should be quite clear by now, namely that Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist” (257). The blunt, matter-of-fact tone Achebe takes here is in direct response to a body of literary criticism that had heretofore failed to acknowledge what Achebe viewed as Conrad’s obvious racism. While some have argued Achebe’s refusal of the standard, detached scholarly tone is unprofessional, such critique ignores Achebe’s positionality as a former subject of European colonization, someone intimately connected with The Dehumanization of Africa he decries in “An Image of Africa.” Additionally, while he has been accused of oversimplifying the complex, anti-imperialist message of Heart of Darkness and its author’s complex relationship with the subject, this is not the case. Part of Achebe’s central argument is that Africa and its peoples have been dehumanized, rendered into unintelligible ciphers, devoid of character, culture, and even language—a people and a land without history—until the advent of European colonialism.

While the tone of “An Image of Africa” may be less rhetorically formal than other scholarly essays, Achebe uses a standard structure of academic argumentation: He opens with a relevant anecdote, provides context for his audience, establishes his main claim by providing evidence, addresses counterarguments/opposing viewpoints, and concludes by turning to the broader implications of his argument. Achebe takes care to position himself as an African scholar and teacher to help establish his ethos and to convey his reasoning for writing at the beginning of the essay. The opening scene establishes a clear picture of university life: “It was a fine autumn morning such as encouraged friendliness to passing strangers. Brisk youngsters were hurrying in all directions, many of them obviously freshmen in their first flush of enthusiasm” (251). However, his subsequent interaction with the older white man who expresses surprise at the existence of African history and literature immediately disrupts the harmony of the scene. His cavalier attitude toward Achebe (who he initially regards as a student) and toward African literature as a discipline subtly implies that Achebe himself is out of place on the University of Massachusetts campus.

This points to the broader cultural problem “An Image of Africa” addresses: the marginalization of African voices and dehumanization of Africa by Western countries. This is reinforced by the student who is enthusiastic about reading his novel Things Fall Apart, the first broadly successful English-language novel written from the perspective of an African, but nonetheless reduces its complexities to a story about “the customs and superstitions of an African tribe” (251). According to Achebe, this student’s reductionist reading of Things Fall Apart is in the exact same vein as the essentialist portrayal of Africans in Heart of Darkness. In this way, Achebe poses the central questions “An Image of Africa” seeks to address: “If there is something in these utterances more than youthful inexperience, more than a lack of factual knowledge, what is it?” (251). The elevated status of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness provides Achebe with his answer.

Conrad’s novella is the perfect lens for the Psychoanalysis of the West. Heart of Darkness, to this day, enjoys a place of almost universal acclaim. Conrad’s craft and skillful use of language cannot be denied, even by Achebe, who acknowledges the author as “undoubtedly one of the great stylists of modern fiction and a good storyteller into the bargain” (252). However, it is the merit of Heart of Darkness as a great work of literature that Achebe questions. Achebe approaches the subject from a humanist lens, arguing that a work of literature predicated on dehumanization cannot be genuinely great, no matter the skill of the writer. While Conrad does depict the ugly side of European colonialism, he depicts the native Africans as something less than human. Achebe notes that they are often described merely as an incoherent collection of black limbs, incapable of any real action or even of language. If Conrad’s racism is a product of the culture that produced him, it is no logical stretch to say that the popularity of Heart of Darkness—despite the novel’s racist depictions of Black people—reflects upon the culture that continues to venerate it as an essential part of its literary canon. 

Using the frame of Conrad’s “Irrational love and irrational hate jostling together,” Achebe turns to history and biographical details of Conrad’s life to further support his claims of the author’s racism (259). Achebe also insists that Conrad’s racial prejudices are particularly acute, even for his era. He notes that Conrad “parades in the most vulgar fashion prejudices and insults from which a section of mankind has suffered untold agonies” (259). The condition of the native Africans, suffering from disease and starvation, and the maniacal colonial oversight of Mr. Kurtz are a mere backdrop to Marlow’s horror at what has become of Kurtz himself—at what can become of a white man who has too close contact with Africa. Achebe cannot forgive Conrad for this level of dehumanization, where Africans are treated as props, obstacles, or features of the setting, ultimately given no human complexity.

Conrad’s dismissal of Africans is nothing new. A central part of Achebe’s argument is that the dehumanization present in Heart of Darkness is reflexive of the West, part of its very psychology. Such diminishment of Africa reflects “the desire […] in Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe” (252). Achebe reinforces this point by drawing upon the many instances of dualism and contrast in Heart of Darkness, beginning by analyzing Conrad’s opposing depictions of the Thames and the Congo. This is the first instance of Achebe’s employment of Manichaeism as a critical lens. Postcolonial theorists use Manichaeism to describe the way that colonists portray themselves as “good” and the colonized as “bad.” So too does Conrad frame the Thames as a good, civilized river, while the Congo is savage and full of danger.

However, Achebe notes that Conrad is more concerned with what the rivers have in common. Achebe writes that if the civilized Thames “were to visit its primordial relative […] it would run the terrible risk of hearing grotesque echoes of its own forgotten darkness and falling victim to an avenging recrudescence of the mindless frenzy of the first beginnings” (252). The “avenging recrudescence,” or the danger of the Thames becoming like the Congo—reverting to its primordial state—evokes the dissolution of Mr. Kurtz’s mind in Heart of Darkness. Achebe uses the kinship of the two rivers as a model for how Conrad discusses the shared humanity of Africans and Europeans in Heart of Darkness. The fact that Conrad acknowledges—and then dismisses—this shared humanity supports Achebe’s assertion that Heart of Darkness dehumanizes its African subjects.

Throughout “An Image of Africa,” Achebe justifiably vents his frustration at Conrad’s critics and audiences who have failed to acknowledge the dehumanization he decries: “Can nobody see the preposterous and perverse arrogance in thus reducing Africa to the role of props for the break-up of one petty European mind?” (277). Conrad is not alone in this: Achebe contends that Heart of Darkness exists within the framework of a colonial mindset that diminishes a whole subset of people. Conrad’s reliance on racial essentialism, Achebe argues, reflects the deep entrenchment of these constructs within the Western psyche. To acknowledge the humanity of the colonized peoples of Africa would be to acknowledge the inhumanity of the West for subjugating them. However, this acknowledgment is precisely what postcolonial literature aims for, and it is the antidote that “An Image of Africa” deems necessary moving forward.