Author:

Keywords:

Arts & Humanities, Literature, 'HEART-OF-DARKNESS', ACHEBE, CONRAD, 2005 Literary Studies, 4705 Literary studies

Abstract:

In the wake of Chinua Achebe’s critique of Conrad as a “thoroughgoing racist” much has been said about race in Heart of Darkness; and yet, so far, the anthropological meaning of the rituals Conrad describes have tended to remain unexplored. “A Picture of Europe” reopens the race dossier by considering Conrad’s images of “frenzy” as a representation of what religious anthropologists now call “possession trance.” I argue that Conrad’s artistic insights into possession trance cannot simply be dismissed as a distorting “image of Africa” but emerge out of a carefully crafted “picture of Europe.” That is, a mimetic picture that struggles to make us see the horrors that ensue when massive forms of ritual frenzy break out, not so much at the heart of Africa, but at the heart of Europe instead. It is my contention that the terms of the race debate need to be reframed in the light of this mimetic realization.