When a student is taught in a history class in 2016, he or she is not only taught about the “good” parts of history. In addition to learning about great feats in our world’s past, the student will also learn the huge tragedies and shortcomings our world has experienced. Although it is not as enjoying as learning about the first man on the moon or the first car that was built, learning about the negative parts of the past is very important for the student to understand how things were different back then and to know how far the world has come since then. “An Image of Africa” by Chinua Achebe is an analysis of a famous book, “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad. By closely analyzing the book, Achebe shows the reader that Conrad was in fact a racist when he was writing this book about Africa. Although the book is regarded as one of the icons of literature, Achebe fully proves his point that Conrad was indeed a racist. He says the Africans are “savages,” thinks of Africa as prehistoric, and says the girls are like wild animals(326). Because of this, Achebe says that this iconic book “cannot be called a great work of art”(329). Although this work of art might not be literally “great” in the sense that it is racist, the book is historically magnificent because it displays fully the racism that occurred toward Africa in that time period.

Historical writings are huge in today’s society for a number of reasons: people find them interesting to read, they give us realistic accounts of how life was like back in that time period, and they help put in perspective how much better (on most issues) we have it today than the people did before us. Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” perfectly epitomizes historical writing because he put to paper how almost everyone in the civilized western world felt about Africa, and that is what was so important in his writings. Racism is still a huge problem in the world, but what is important about Conrad’s writing is that it shows how far the world has come since then. He was inaccurate in his descriptions of Africa, disrespectful when describing the Africans, and frequently patronized them as if he knew he was the bigger and more powerful man than the African people. At one point, he even goes so far to describe every part of one African person’s body parts as black when he says a “black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms”(329).  Although all of those things made it hard to read the text at some points, those are what really made it so powerful and important to read still even after the world has made great strides with dealing with racism, although it is still prevalent in many places.

When reading “Heart of Darkness,” there will be many times when the reader reads a sentence or two and will most likely be alarmed at how disturbing and rude Conrad was to the Africans even though he was regarded as a worldwide famous author after. One of the first things he says when he gets to Africa was that “we were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of another planet”(325). Are you kidding me? Joseph Conrad literally just compared Twentieth-Century Africa to the time before people had any form of written communication. Although we now know that they were not nearly that rural, that is what Conrad made them think. In this day and age, most Western civilizations were racist toward Africa and Africans and once they read Conrad’s writing, it gave them proof that the Africans really are “savages,” as Conrad would refer to them; since the Africans were thought of as savages and everyone thought Africa was exactly how Conrad described it, they started to dislike it even more and thought they had good reason to since they realized how horrifying it was in Conrad’s book. That is why his story is so historically important; it gave people just another reason in their day to hate the Africans but more importantly, it gave them a reason that made them feel like it is the right thing to hate and patronize the Africans.

Another aspect of this story that makes it so appealing to people nowadays was that many parts of it were not true and based off facts. For instance, Conrad started his book on what he thought was the River Thames, but it was actually the River Congo, two very different rivers in Africa.  It is crazy that a book that infused so much hatred and racism in a world where hatred and racism already exists is not even based on facts. This is how the worst things in the world like racism, sexism, hatred and other things are usually started. Most people will hear something, whether it was a credible source on NBC or their friend across the street, and will believe it, which was the case in “Heart of Darkness.” People read it and immediately thought that Africa was full of “savages” and wanted nothing to do with them even though the book was full of lies and false facts.

All in all, “Heart of Darkness” is a book that should be read for generations to come, not because it is a great novel but because it shows how far the world has come in terms of racism but also how much further we still need to go. When reading the book, most of the racism that the book displays no longer exists, but there is definitely still racism today and that is why it should be continued to be read in school. If people start to forget our past, they are more likely to repeat it; that is why reading this is so important in order for us not to ever go back to the way we were in the past.