An Image of Africa

Liberalism is broadly defined as a branch of political and moral philosophy that emphasizes individual rights, such as life, liberty, and property. A product of the Enlightenment, liberalism is the political basis of Western democracy. Achebe highlights the shortcomings of Western liberalism to show the hypocrisy inherent in a culture that fails to extend these human rights to all races. Conrad’s liberalism extends only far enough to criticize the horrors of colonialism. However, he is mostly concerned with the negative impact of colonialism on the colonizers themselves. This is emphasized by Kurtz losing his Western identity in Africa, culminating in his death. The Black characters in Heart of Darkness are afforded no such psychological depth.

What Achebe calls “permanent literature” is another term for a literary canon. A culture’s literary canon is comprised of texts considered the most important, influential, and enduring. As an author and a scholar, Achebe is concerned with Heart of Darkness occupying such a prominent place in the English literary canon, with one leading scholar proclaiming it to be one of the six most important short novels in the entire body of English literature. The fact that the novella is accepted as part of the canon—coupled with the fact that no literary critics had addressed Conrad’s inherent racism until Achebe wrote “An Image of Africa”—forms the core of Achebe’s critique.