“An Image of Africa”, written by Chinua Achebe, depicts his dislike of how Western civilization sees and looks on Africa. Achebe states that he believes Westerners have a desire, or need to downgrade the image of African civilization. Achebe was a professor and begins the essay by describing an experience that he had one morning before his African literature class started. In this experience, he explains how a man was not aware that something such as African literature even existed. For the majority of the essay Achebe uses the example of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness in order to show how Westerners truly do display the degradation of African civilization through Conrad’s descriptions of Africa and Africans. Through the many points stated by Achebe, it is clear that Conrad’s story, Heart of Darkness, demonstrates this low look of Africa by Westerners.

Achebe uses Conrad’s portrayal of the environment in Europe and Africa to begin his argument. Achebe quotes from Heart of Darkness lines describing the river, Thames in Europe and the Congo in Africa. Achebe states, “It conquered its darkness, of course, and is now at peace. But if it were to visit its primordial relative, the Congo, it would run the terrible risk of hearing grotesque, suggestive echoes of its own forgotten darkness…” (Achebe, 53). The use of the word primordial reveals the direct difference that can be seen in the environments of these rivers.  The Thames is described as being peaceful, while the Congo is the “primordial relative” and is said to have a darkness to it that the Thames has already overcome. Here the point begins that Conrad even looked down upon a small detail, such as a river in Africa. Achebe brings up that the interesting factor is that Conrad was worried about how similar the Thames used to be to the Congo. This worry he mentions is ridiculous in Achebe’s eyes, considering the only difference now is that the Thames was simply calmer than the Congo. Achebe states that Conrad uses trickery and writes as to comfort myths, which is how he is able to write words, such as these, without being noticed. With the use of the words trickery and myth, it is clear how Achebe dislikes Conrad’s writing and believes that it conforms in the common low image of Africa. Achebe then looks into, not how the environments are described, but how the actual people are described throughout Conrad’s story. “…she fulfills a structural requirement of the story; she is a savage counterpart to the refined, European woman…” (Achebe, 56). After stating lines from Conrad’s story, this line is said referring to an African woman mentioned in the story. The African woman is described using harsh words, which can be seen as Achebe uses the word “savage” to display how badly the African woman is described. Meanwhile, the European woman, as stated, is very refined in Conrad’s description, especially in comparison to the African woman. The difference in these descriptions continues on to look at the speech used. As Achebe states, throughout the story most of the Africans are seen as simply grunting to communicate with each other, hinting at them to not just being uneducated but to also having an almost barbaric nature to them. However, Achebe mentions one instance in which the Africans are actually seen speaking in English. This speech involves the desire of the Africans to perform cannibalism, which therefore continues on to degrade the image of the Africans, and takes away their humanity. 

Achebe clearly expresses his dislike of Conrad’s writing and even goes on to bluntly state that Conrad was a “bloody racist”. Achebe brings up the fact that some readers state that Africa is merely the setting and just a background to the main story; he states that this is the problem. “Africa as a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognizable humanity…” (Achebe, 58). Here he shows how it is a problem by using the word battlefield to show that Africa was just a hectic background with no humanity to the main story, which is about a European man. By saying this, it shows how Africa was just an irrelevant subject to the story and therefore displays how Westerners, such as Conrad, do not view Africa as being significant in any way. Achebe goes on further to say that he cannot consider Conrad to even be an artist. He brings a metaphor comparing Conrad to a doctor poisoning patients and to Nazi’s in Germany using their talent. By expressing a similarity between Conrad and a Nazi and a doctor doing the opposite of what he is supposed to, Achebe makes his point that Conrad and his writing are not anything to be celebrated but should rather be looked down upon.

Achebe’s argument goes on to discredit and question how trust worthy Conrad was, especially in his writing. He mentions a biography written of Conrad which states that he was inaccurate in his writing, however Achebe notes that not once is Conrad’s racist attitude mentioned in the biography. Mentioning Conrad’s tendency to be inaccurate takes away any credibility that could be present in Heart of Darkness. Achebe continues to discredit Conrad by including an excerpt from an art historian that was written shortly after Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. The excerpt explains how African art was causing an artistic movement throughout Europe, which ended up being the artistic movement of cubism. This point is made by Achebe as to prove that African people were not as the savages described by Conrad. By discrediting Conrad through all of these points, he shows that the portrayal of Africans was not accurate and was rather a display of the need or desire to downgrade African civilization. Achebe also brings up other works to prove that not only Conrad displays this Western desire to look down on African civilization. 

Achebe’s main purpose in writing this essay was to show that Western civilization has a tendency to inaccurately label Africa and Africans as being on a low level. He displays this by using Conrad’s story, Heart of Darkness. Achebe hoped for a change to come from this essay. He hoped that one day people would change their view of Africa to a more realistic and equal view. “There is just the possibility that Western man may begin to look seriously at the achievements of other people.” (Achebe, 63). He hoped that people would realize the achievements and intelligence that has come and can come from African people. 