American Research Journal of English and Literature

This paper deals with the concept of racism, which is considered as a dark chapter in the history of the world.Throughout history, racist ideology widespread throughout the world especially between blacks and white. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness which is his experience in the Congo River during the 19th century dealt with the concept of racism, which was clear in this novel because of the conflicts that were between black and whites and it explained the real aims of colonialism and expansionism in Africa, which were for wealth and power. This paper shows Marlow’s limitations as a narrator, his ethnocentricity and color consciousness and inability to comprehend inscrutable Africa that lead him to side with the colonizers against the Africans and how his approach is shared by Conrad as well. A bitter irony lies in the fact that the people who look apparently civilized in the novel are most savage in reality. In fact, power, jealousy and greed for ivory or money have metamorphosed them into corrupt, monstrous, brutal animal. My point of argument is that Conrad in Heart of Darkness has biasness for European colonialism, though the biasness is not so much conspicuous but ostensible, covertly and allusively maintained throughout.