Achebe directly objects to Joseph Conrad’s treatment of African culture in Heart of Darkness. Nevertheless, the more compelling objection made is not so much the atrociousness of the book itself or its author, but the book’s continued esteem as a classic example of modern European literature. In “Image of Africa,” Achebe’s implication is that the African continent is seen as the “other world” in the Western psyche due to the tremendous efforts of dead men like Conrad and his modern academic purveyors. For Achebe, bringing attention to a central piece of fiction, exposing the views of its author, and showing how the same colonial mindset persists in the modern era is key to eradicating the stereotype of the African as the “savage” from western thought.
Yea, so much wrong with this picture...
Similarly, Apocalypse Now draws attention the American views of the Vietnamese during the Vietnam War. We see this perhaps most obviously when the patrol boat captain veers off course to check a sailboat for contraband - a situation that ultimately leads to the Vietnamese aboard the ship being senselessly murdered.
Achebe quotes Heart of Darkness to illustrate how Conrad described the “natives”:
“We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there— there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were—No they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it—this suspicion of their not being inhuman.”
Both Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now deliberately attempt to marginalize the native people being invaded, painting their personal destruction as mere property damage in an otherwise fecund and enthralling adventure.
I agree with your point that Achebe was disgusted with Heart of Darkness because of that fact that it was a continuance of modern European literature.
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