“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 before his African literature class started. In this experience, he explains how a student was unaware that something such as African literature even existed. This is significant as it reveals the point that Achebe is trying to make of how Western civilization looks down on Africans. He references Heart of Darkness, which is a well-known novel that is read often and referred to as one the greatest novels written. However, Achebe brings up many aspects of this novel that reveal obvious differences in its portrayal of Africans and Europeans. These differences appear to go unnoticed by people, such as readers and Westerners, and reveal an important message. This message conveys that people are oblivious to the misrepresentation of African civilization in Western culture, and Achebe shows this by using Conrad’s novel, “Heart of Darkness”. 

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…”(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. These rivers can also serve as a representation of the type of civilization that exists in Africa and Europe. Africa’s environment serves as a foreshadowing that Africans would be less civilized just as the Congo is less civilized than the Thames. Achebe also displays the differences of how people and civilizations are described throughout Conrad’s story. He states, “…she fulfills a structural requirement of the story; she is a savage counterpart to the refined, European woman…” (56). This quote refers to an African woman in the story and looks into the differences of portrayal of the characters. The African woman is described using harsh words, which can be seen as Achebe uses the word “savage” to display how poorly 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. This contrast is important because it displays the major differences Achebe sees in how the characters are portrayed. It also emphasizes the idea that Africans are not described in a fair manner, just as the environments in Africa are also described differently and negatively compared to Europeans. Through the descriptions of the environments and characters in Conrad’s novel, it’s clear that there are obvious differences. However as Achebe states, this novel is still regarded as being a classic novel and is taught often without any notice to how Africa is poorly represented. His purpose of stating this, is to hint that Westerners and readers of Conrad’s novel do not take notice of these differences within the novel.  

Achebe brings up the fact that some readers state that Africa is merely the setting and just a background to the main story; he argues that this is a problem, revealing again how Westerners are not aware of the degradation that is present in the novel. He states, “Africa as a metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognizable humanity…” (58). Here Achebe shows how it is a problem by using the word battlefield he shows that Africa was just a hectic background with no humanity to the main story. Furthermore the word metaphysical is used to emphasize that Africa was not a literal battlefield, but rather appeared that way through Conrad’s descriptions. By saying this, it exhibits that Africa was just an irrelevant subject to the story, because a battlefield is just a background to what the main focus is on, which in Conrad’s novel is a European character who was in Africa. People do not even realize that Africa is pushed to the side of this story in a negative aspect. Within this battlefield, Achebe states that throughout the story most of the Africans are seen as simply grunting to communicate with each other, not only are they uneducated but they also have a barbaric, caveman-like portrayal. However, Achebe mentions one instance in which the Africans are actually seen speaking English. This speech involves the desire of the Africans to perform cannibalism, which therefore continues on to degrade the image of the Africans as barbaric, and takes away their humanity. This degradation of the humanity of African civilization goes unmentioned by critics, though it clearly shows how Africans are negatively represented. 

Achebe clearly expresses his dislike of Conrad’s writing and even goes on to bluntly state that Conrad was a “bloody racist”. The 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, Achebe notes that not once is Conrad’s racist attitude mentioned in the biography. Displaying once again, that this abasement occurs without being recognized. Mentioning Conrad’s tendency to be inaccurate discredits the literature that was written 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 the savages described by Conrad. Discrediting Conrad shows that his novel was incorrect in its descriptions, while also revealing how people truly can be blind to realize what the novel does to the image of Africans.

Achebe’s main purpose in writing this essay was to show that Western civilization has a tendency to inaccurately belittle and label Africa and Africans negatively. He displays this by using Conrad’s story, Heart of Darkness. A deeper message is also revealed inside this essay. Achebe intends to show that in Western culture, Africans are commonly misrepresented, with this misrepresentation going unnoticed. 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, by noticing and paying attention to this inaccurate representation of Africans. 