Heart of Darkness:  The Blacks in the book and today
by Marco, Ramona, and Nora

The blacks in the book

The term “darkness” has a lot of uses and one of them is: a color of skin. Much of this chapter is spent by discussing Marlow's early encounters with and observations of the natives of the African Congo. In the book the blacks get treated like wild animals. The darkness of their skin is always mentioned. At first glance, Marlow describes them as "mostly black and naked, moving about like ants”. 

One of these descriptions is about the way the blacks walked througt the Jungle: Six black men advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads, and the clink kept time with their footsteps. Black rags were wound round their loins, and the short ends behind wagged to and fro like tails. While in the shade, "dark things" seem to feebly merge into the darkness outside. There is absolutely no differentiation between dark animals and dark people. Often in the great descriptions of Conrad there are many similarities between black men and wild animals: Even the rags worn by the native people are described as tails. The black bones reclined at full length with one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind, white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died out slowly. 

In the book Marlow, (I think) is trying to get along well with the natives, he shows this, when he gives a biscuit to the native boy at the station, he is trying not to discriminate them, and to show them respect. That's what makes the difference between Marlow and the other whites, because for them the natives were savages and would be savages forever.

I think the author is always trying to show the oppression of the natives, it's an important part of the book. One example: on the steamboat, the only time, that a native speaks is,when the ship appoachs the brush, right before the attack, he says, that some of the prisoners should be given to the crew as a meal. I think there the author is trying to demonstrate the simplicity of the natives.
The constant dehumanization of black people is almost obsessive on the author's part. He is trying to build a very closed-minded picture of the colonists. "Black shapes" crouch on the ground, "creatures" walk on to get a drink from the river. They’re called shadows: reflections of humans, but not substantial enough to be real. Marlow observes the piece of white string on a young man, and he is taken back by how much the whiteness stands out against the darkness. He cannot seem to conceive of mixing black and white.

The blacks today

In the region where they come from, it's very hard to live, they have nothing to eat, no water to drink and they also get oppressed, by their rulers or terror groups which only see a solution in war and killing.

Maybe we should try to help them to get a better standard of living in their land, so that they can live there like we do it here, and if they even then want to come to us, we should show them our respect, and we should be happy that there are people that want to work in our land, it's certainly good for our economy.

The main problem concerning the blacks of today is racism Conrad himself was accused of racism. The reasons of this “madness” are the poverty and the difference of the classes both inside the same country and in the different parts of the world. This problem has always affected our society. 

An example is the apartheid policy in South Africa, in 1948 when the complete racial segregation of the blacks started. The black people in that country waere considered in a status of inferiority with respect to the white men and this idea was officially set with legislative racist norms, such as the ban to organize mixed unions and the prohibition for the blacks to entert the public structures. The blacks’ legal ability and their civil rights were very limited. 
We can supply two valid examples of people who fought against racism in their countries, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. In 1964 Nelson Mandela, leader of the ANC and author of the “Chart of Freedom”, was sentences to life prison. Although in 1968 the United Nations had stated that the apartheid was a crime against the mankind, this policy was continued for many years in the South Africa Republic.

 
The release of Mandela inn 1990 facilitated the first multi-racial elections of 1994; after that Mandela became the president of South Africa and the apartheid was abolished.

 
The second example is the conditions of the black people in USA. In 1863 the president Lincoln, admitted the freedom to blacks, but did not grant their right of voting. After that, their precence in the election lists was conditioned by restrictive rules. From a political point of view, the blacks had no existence. Their conditionj in American society became worse in 1896, when the Supreme Court admitted t the principle “separated but equals”: the segregation was legalized.
Racism increased with the irrationality of the Nazism. Since then the problem became more serious.

In 1963 Martin Luther King led a great election campaign for the human rights, in the USA. His purposes were: the inscription of blacks into the electoral lists, the abolition of the racial segregation and the improvement of their standard of living. During these non-violent demonstrations, the leader was arrested many times. Finally hge was assassinated.
Unfortunately all good actions must come to an end.
What we can do for the repression of the racism? Only a word to answer… Respect.


By Nora, Ramona, Marco