Heart of Darkness has long been considered a triumph of 20th-century English-language literature and its exploration of the darkness within man has long sparked analysis of reviews. But Chinua Achebe, a renowned Nigerian author and leading scholar of African culture, has a distinctly different view. In a 1975 lecture, he denounced Heart of Darkness as an example of pervasive racism, rejection of African culture, and European arrogance and ignorance. He argued that if it were to be taught, it should only be used as an example of the horribly retrograde views of Joseph Conrad and the period in which it was written. His lecture and subsequent essay sparked an academic outcry, with many strongly denouncing Achebe's views. and arguing that, although racist, Heart of Darkness was well ahead of its time and indeed sought to highlight European abuses of power in Africa. Hunt Hawkins is one of these scholars and his counterargument to Achebe represents the much more relativistic view of many critics and seeks to place Conrad's novel and his views in the context of its times and its author's life. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Achebe's criticism focuses on the depiction of Africans in Conrad's novel. Their representation is effectively that of subhumans. As he points out, no African characters are named and only one is described in detail. They are considered beyond savage, beyond primitive, and not entirely human. Achebe points out Conrad's use of racial slurs, his emphasis on the blackness of Africans and their apparent lack of humanity. This is important, Achebe argues, because it is often the only representation of Africans that students learn about before university and is therefore key to shaping their first opinions on the subject. Achebe sees this book and the image it perpetuates as responsible for the idea that Africa has no culture worth studying. He readily admits that Conrad is "one of the great stylists of modern fiction", but Achebe says this only adds to his danger. The permanence and quality of writing of Heart of Darkness is what makes it one of the most ubiquitous novels in high school curriculums and this gives it a platform from which to disseminate its vision of Africa as “the other world”. According to Achebe, Conrad does not present Africa or the Congo as a nation or a people, nor its inhabitants as full human beings: they are only a nameless and faceless backdrop for the Europeans of the 'history. This is not simply a representation of the prevailing views of the time in Achebe's mind, but a reflection of Conrad's own views and his own deep-seated animosity and ignorance towards the people of Africa . Hunt Hawkins presents a radically different view in his own counterpoint. in Achebe's essay. He admits that Heart of Darkness is inherently racist and does not attempt to deny that Africans are dehumanized in this story. But Hawkins argues above all that the tribes Conrad describes are not the well-established and relatively stable Igbo of Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart, but are chaotic and warring tribes, torn apart by European diseases, the slave trade and occupation. Unlike the Igbo in Things Fall Apart, they are a people devastated by colonialism, who do not encounter the first signs of it. Thus, Hawkins argues that Conrad may have painted a much darker picture of the »..