Racism in the Heart of Darkness by ConradImagine floating on the dark waters of the Congo River in the heart of Africa. The calm water and dense fog make the hair on the back of your neck stand up and you wonder if the steamboat crew will eat you in your sleep. These things happen in Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Although the book is undeniably racist, was the author, Joseph Conrad, racist? Conrad was racist because he uses racial slurs, slavery, and unfair treatment of native Africans in his book. The use of racist language is very prevalent in Heart of Darkness. Conrad, through Marlow, the main character, repeatedly uses the word nigger to talk about indigenous Africans. “The crazy Negro had dropped everything to open the shutter and let this Martini-Henry escape” (Conrad 46). The use of the word nigger so loosely by Marlow and others in the book was an accepted thing at the time the book took place. Nigger has always been a racist word and because Conrad writes with that word, he is racist. Conrad's racist writings make the natives appear ignorant. a movement of abject terror through this jammed mass of bodies. » (Conrad 66) In this particular part of the book, Conrad blew the steam whistle to frighten the foolish natives. Conrad, in his writings, displays an attitude that the natives were niggers and were not intelligent people. In writing about it, he doesn't know the cultural differences. He doesn't know or understand Africans, so he calls them niggers... middle of paper... teach them, so to speak. " (Conrad 42) To say that the natives had no understanding of time is dehumanizing. Even the most primitive cultures had some concept of time, simply knowing that when the sun sets and then rises, a new day begins. Conrad presented the natives as beings who spoke a primitive language and were not intelligent Writing about this is extremely racist and offensive As you move further up the river, objects emerge from the dense jungle only a few. not from your boat. The "crazy nigger" who drives the boat gets scared and starts shooting at the rest of the ship's crew aimlessly in the bush He is a racist person. for mindless beings who should be used as pawns of European society Works cited by Conrad, Joseph Heart of Darkness... 1988.