Significance of the title: Heart of Darkness

[IWilKikU]

Wow! I've only read the first of the three parts so far, but I am floored! I'm ancious to see if there is a character who fits the description in the title, someone with a heart of darkness, I have a feeling there will be, but meanwhile I like the geographical significance of the title, Congo is the HEART of Africa, the DARK continent, good double meaning.

Is it just me or does the over use of "nigger" bother you guys too? Marlow says things that are sympathetic to the native people who are starving and chained up ect... but its hard for me to take him seriously in his sympathies when he keeps refering to them with such a derogatory term. Was nigger a derogatory term at the time of publication? I'm not real up to date on my racial slur history :rolleyes: .

[amuse]

having been called "nigger" before, yes. it's exactly like 7 ton elephants drop-kicking you. unless a black person says it - "my nigga," for example. then again, "nigger" is a whole 'nother word. and if "nigga" wasn't socially acceptable to a lot of (not all) black people, there might be fewer people using either word in conversation, thinking it's ok when it's really not.
i haven't read this book but i seem to be the only black person here. don't know about the word's use at time of publication.
what a good question, kik!

[Sancho]

I’m continually struck with how much work has to go into reading a text from a different time. I think there is part of the art that is inaccessible to someone who didn’t live in the same world as the author. I could spend the rest of my life studying nineteenth century whaling in New England, and still will not understand Melville as someone who lived in Nantucket in the 1800s. In order to fully understand a piece of literature I think you have to smell the air, walk the streets, eat the food, know the people the politics etc etc etc.

That being said, I’m sure the meaning of that damnable word has changed, but it carries so much baggage with it now that it is impossible for me to read it without becoming uncomfortable. I live in a region of the country that is still struggling with its racist past and that word, like no other, continues to rip the scabs off. Try as I might, the literature of Twain, Faulkner, now Conrad are diminished for me because of it. My skin color is such that I’ve never had that hatred directed towards me personally, so I can only imagine what it must have been like for Amuse.

[amuse]

well i'm pretty creamy colored as it is. and look racially indefinable :rolleyes: (am a cat ;)). i can't imagine what it's like for darker black people. i mean, i've been told, but it's not the same as knowing.
though, when i was three years old, i playfully patted my dad on the back and said "good boy." i mean, what did i know, i was a tot. he was so furious: "don't you EVER call me 'boy.'" i'll never forget that.

i like what richard wright said once about writing "native son," it was exactly what you wrote about smelling, tasting, seeing, walking. he tried to portray that when he wrote...when i read "the mists of avalon" there was a paragraph in the first hundred pages that astounded me: i "heard" a man speak when i read his dialogue. usually it's my own voice reading the words, but marion zimmer bradley enabled me to hear people's voices in the book, as well. so the sound of it all electrified me :) and what a way to tune me into the story! :)

btw, have now begun the book. so like how it starts out on the thames. (to be trite and shallow! :))

[atiguhya padma]

If Agatha Christie is anything to go by, then the term "nigger" was acceptable well into the 20th Century. Her book Ten Little Niggers, was published in 1939. In my opinion, it is a term totally unacceptable today.

What Amuse says about the black use of this term reminds me of how the gay community have reclaimed the term "queer", or post-feminists have reclaimed the c word. I really don't know what I feel about this. Whilst it is, in my opinion, commendable and maybe even necessary, to transform terms that have such negative baggage attached to them, it still perpetuates separation and the isolated position that the original usage promoted.

[Sancho]

Amuse, I’d like to think that I had the same independent thought as Richard Wright, but it’s probably more likely that I read or heard that somewhere, had tucked away in the grey matter and it just sort of popped out here.

Making me “Sancho the Plagiarist.” I’d appreciate it if we could keep this between ourselves and not get the copy write lawyers involved.

[Sancho]

Back to the subject at hand. Conrad is such a master of prose. What do you think of the passage early on in the book:

"And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men."

I think it’s a powerful and beautifully rendered tightly packed sentence. The sunset as death, the dull red, without heat, insuing darkness, not just killed by the brooding gloom of the men (perhaps the darkness in men’s hearts), but “stricken.”

I'd enjoy reading anyone else's impressions.

[Koa]

As for the language, I found it a bit hard... almost verbose...well not verbose but I didn't understand much of the book the first time I read it (I actually really got it when I read it in translation anyway). So it didn't really impress me... But I want to be bilingual as Conrad...

The heart of darkness....damn I can't elaborate all I have in mind about it. I'll be back.

[Dexter]

Interesting problem with the use of the n-word. I am sorry that it offends people, but it does, so I don't use it. It surprises me that Conrad uses the term (but Marlow is the one who uses it, and he becomes a character in his own right in Conrad's novels).
At my age (67) I grew up when it was certainly offensive (to blacks - and justifieably so - , but it was common.

I love Faulkner, but he uses the term the way people did in those days - not to put down individuals, but generically, the way we (some people anyway talked about "polaks" "wops" "kikes" people who were different than us (wasps), but had friends of all kinds, even though we used those terms about them. I had a relative who had a dog he called "Nigger", not because he was a dog, but because he was black. Still it bothered me.
Read Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" essay to get an idea of how words can take on emotions which are sometimes intended and sometimes not.

[Isagel]

I can see your point, but I disagree in this matter.

I think that the way people used the word, and dividing people like that shows the how the we labeled and oppressed. I think we all still do, in varied degrees. I also think that the fact that the person is not aware of it does not make the oppression less.
To make my point clear I´ll give some examples from old Swedish and german lexicons that I happen to own -

In the "Swedish family book" - a standard lexicon from the 1920 (my translation) we find that we can look up the word
Negrodance, and find it translated as - ugly negroes dance all over the world.
From the german book about called - again my translation - Man , woman and their relationship - we can read that "negroe women tend to have enlarged genitals, because of a tendency for self satisfaction by rubbing" . If these examples seem offensive - yes they are. And I did not choose the worst. The people that wrote these books thought about themselves as researchers and objective. But now, we can see clearly that they where not.

I´m not by any means implying that you do this, Dexter . Not more than me, or anybody else. I only want to show even if we believe that we do not prejudice , we can still do. These examples that show seem blunt to us. Now, when we have been made at least partly aware. The labels we put on people carry much more information, and emotion than just the colour of skin, or gender or sexualorientation. And not just the words but the spirit of the times that was filled with segregation and prejudice.

But sorry... back to the book. I´m still in the harbor. And I´m going to try and get hold of that essay by Orwell. I like his essays on organizational theory.

[Sancho]

Isagel, thank you for your post. Your translations are as interesting as they are disturbing. Part of the human condition, I think, is to place ones kinship group or race or culture above all others. It was a matter of survival in some cases. I am also reminded of Louis and Clark’s contact with the Nez Perces (Native North American Tribe). When translated from their language into English, they simply refered to themselves as “the human beings.”

[Sancho]

Dexter, I’m not saying that Faulkner shouldn’t have used that word in his writing. It’d be a ridiculously sanitized piece of literature if he had. I’m saying that I find it impossible to read that word in the 21st century without all of its present day connotations. My failing. Further, anyone who tries to put an author from another time on a pedestal or under the microscope of present day values is bound to be disappointed.

[Sancho]

William Faulkner is also one of my favorite authors and was probably as open minded as any white Mississippian of his day. You are probably familiar with his dedication in at the beginning of the collection, “Go Down Moses”

"To Mammy Caroline Barr, Mississippi, [1840-1940]: Who was born in slavery and who gave to my family a fidelity without stint or calculation of recompense and to my childhood an immeasurable devotion and love."

And yet he still referred to “Go Down Moses” as his "N…. Tails." And that was Faulkner, not Jason or Marlow or any character in a novel.

[Sancho]

Here’s a comment on Faulkner’s writing and on the time: In “The Sound and the Fury” Faulkner could write in the first person as an idiot (Benjy) as a suicidal Harvard student (Quentin) and as a bigot (Jason) but when he got to the Dilsey chapter (probably fashioned around Caroline Barr) he switched to the third person. And he couldn’t develop her character as deeply as he had the others. Perhaps that was because she was the only sane one in the whole book. But I think that he just didn't have it in him.

I'd enjoy reading your opinion on this thought Dexter.

[Sancho]

Alright, on to the derisively named Labrador: I do not believe for one minute that your relative gave that dog that name by way of trying to describe his coat. I grew up in the South in the sixties and naming a dog in just that manner was popular within a certain element of the population. It was considered the pinnacle of cleverness and high humor amongst rednecks and bigots. This, of course, was more a comment on the pet owner than on race of people he was trying to deride.

Ask yourself this: would your relative have taken that dog across the river to East St. Louis and into a large crowd of angry black men and called his name? I think not. Although that is a drama I’d enjoy watching. I think it’d go something like this: “Here pup pup. Here poochie poochie poochie.”

I’m back to Kant’s Categorical Imperative from another thread. “Act in such a way that the maxim of your action could be taken as a universal law.” --Always –Everywhere – even in East St. Louis.

[Sancho]

Whew! OK, back to the book.

Was anyone struck by the similarity between the death of Fresleven in the novel and the real death of Captain Cook on the big island of Hawaii a few years earlier?

[IWilKikU]

Sancho, You have alot to say and that's good. You put up six posts where one or maybe two were neccasary. Thats bad. It's pretty distracting, because by the time I get a chance to talk, the last six posts I'm thinking of are all you. There's something in the rules anouncement about monopolizing a thread. Pleeeeeaasse don't do it :).

That being said, that was a great example you gave concerning Conrad's prose. Even among other classic authors (much less modern) of fiction its hard to find one that I can enjoy both for depth and aesthetics.

I'm not familiar with Captain Cook's death. Care to elaborate?

[Lara]

I am about halfway through the book. Although it is a short novel, I am having difficulty getting involved in the story. I am not certain whether I was just not in the mood for this type of story or if I am having difficulty grasping the language. Perhaps a little of both.

In regards to the use of the N-word. (I can't even say it or write it), I think one has to consider the time the book was written as well as how the word pertains to the story, regardless if one finds it offensive. No matter what a writer writes, there will be something in there to be offensive to someone in the world. Isn't the purpose of a novel to cause some sort of emotions? If the author has acheived feeling or purpose in the story, they have offered something you may not have otherwise encountered.

A relative of a relative once used the word while in conversation with me. I was so shocked, I was rendered speachless. That is all I think about now when I think of this person and I can't think of anything positive anymore.

[Sancho]

Thanks Lara.

And a big salute to you Field Marshall Kik. I’d’ve never taken you for a regulator; always figured you for more of a “live and let live” sort of fellow. I say we leave the moderating to the moderators lest we further stratify the society of us peons on the posting boards.

Uhhhh, that being said, I did get a tad carried away yesterday with my posts on your thread. That bit about the dog struck a raw nerve. So, with regards to my distracting posts, please accept my most humble apology.

I was going to throw in a bit about limiting my future posts to banal one-liners concerning cup sizes, but I decided to leave it out. Whoops – there it went anyway.:)

[Sancho]

I'd be happy to elaborate:
Cook and Fresleven both died in a scuffle with the natives over a minor transaction. Some would say simply a misunderstanding. Both were deified by the natives. Both enjoyed relatively good relations with the natives, however, both were berating a village chief for some perceived wrong at the time of their deaths. Though Cook probably wasn’t “the gentlest and quietest man on two legs,” as Fresleven was described, he did have a deep respect for the Native Hawaiians. Both were knifed between the shoulder blades by someone in the crowd. Both bodies were mutilated – Cook’s by the Hawaiians Fresleven’s by the elements.

That’s were the two stories split. Conrad’s natives headed for the hills fearing the consequences, but the Hawaiians proudly absconded with the body only to return to beach each day to taunt the sailors. (It sort of went down hill from there) They did eventually return Cook’s thigh to the ship.

[Dexter]

Great thread. Part of story on dog and n-word- I visted my cousin a few years ago (his father was the one who named the dog) I brought it up to my cousin(my age) he looked embarrased and denied that was his name. I was just reminiscing and not being judgemental, but interesting reaction. His father had died two years before our conversation. But when his father was alive, my uncle would praise blacks whom his wife worked with. I was at a social event where there were a number of black families. It was obvious that my uncle and aunt were friends with and quite congenial with them. I suspect the dog was named (you note quite incitefully ) as sort of a joke, when it was much more tolerable - about 50 years ago. I don't think my Uncle was a racist, at least in his day, or even today, but reflecting the tenor of the times. That is not, of course, justifing racism in any way. I guess my main problem is reading literature from any earlier period (or culture) from the sole viewpoint of the present age. This undoubtly would aggravate feminists (and others who would like to see improvements in the present culture). The values of older texts such as character development, themes, moral dilemmas, etc. are still quite appropriate in the present day. Even if it disturbs readers by using language which is offensive to them.

[Dick Diver]

Nigger is only a word - and I have written it deliberately.

Language is anathema to censorship - it is as right for NWA to appropriate it as a Ku Klux Klan member.

The perception comes from the situation, rather than the word.

If Hitler whispers sweet nothings in your ear, are you turned on or repulsed?

[amuse]

Oh of course it is only a word. "Only a word" with incomprehensible amounts of baggage.

And for Ice Cube and everyone else in Niggas With Attitude to use it is far more appropriate than for the KKK.

[amuse]

The KKK hates black people and has since its inception in the 19th century. NWA on the other hand is composed of black people.

[atiguhya padma]

I think its a great shame that we create words that are so exclusive to certain groups, whether through reclamation or through original design. Language should always be inclusive. It is a communication system after all.

[amuse]

Well, you're welcome to come here to Philly and use the "n" word liberally if you'd like.

I don't recommend it, however. That is, unless you happen to be around bigots. I don't believe that that word with its history has the right to belong to anyone outside of the black race. As you don't seem to know what I'm talking about, from a personal standpoint, you really can't know how the word affects. So I suggest you keep that in mind when you try to make it a generally used/publicly owned word.

And I say this with full awareness that everyone was born with the same number of melanocytes, and only our lysosomes' activity ultimately define the color of our skin.

My presence on this forum is beginning to embarass me.

[IWilKikU]

I don't think that anyone is condoning the use of "the n word", (getting tired of typing that). I think what people are saying is, if its wrong for a white person to call someone nigger, why is it ok for a black person to call someone nigger?

I live in small town rural VA. There are practically NO blacks where I live. The handful of blacks that do live in my town, work at the resturaunt that I do. I've gotten to the point with them where I can say "the n word" without offending anyone. If the word is going to be acceptible within context (ie, when NWA says it), it should be a context of companionship and relationship rather than racial exclusivity. I don't think it should be acceptible for a black to call another black that he doesn't know a nigger or nigga, whatever, they're the same word to me. Nigger is a DEROGITORY term. I call friends of mine derogitory terms all the time. But if I called some complete stranger an ******* (regardless of the color of his skin), he would be pissed. I don't think it should be a crime to say/print the word, but I think it shouldn't be thrown around as lightly as the black comunity tends to do.

And amuse, PLEEEEEAASE never be embarassed of being here. As far as I know, no one is racist here, and everyone is fairly tolarant of other dissimilarities (ie, religeous, gender, ect...).

[IWilKikU]

I just realized that on this forum no one is either black or white to me. Your all different shades of orange :D.

[amuse]

:D thanks, i feel better.

and funnily enough, a light apricotish-peach is my fave color - not too far off the mark from orange!

[Dexter]

Food for thought. I heard a black woman (older) say in our conversation that somebody was a "crazy nigger." We both knew exactly what she meant. He was outside the bounds of black society as well as white.
I don't care for rappers using the word (untasteful) but they can use it if they want if it can be shown to serve some artistic value. The same argument used to be used about the f-word, but now its commonplace in mass publications (The New Yorker) I have no problem with that. However I notice that the c-word for women is still apparently not allowed, unless spoken by a character to make a point. I would object if it were used otherwise - untasteful again. Probably for the same reason - a put down to show superiority by the speaker. Blacks can use the n-word to each other, (and do) because "we're all in the same boat."

[Koa]

Originally posted by IWilKikU
I just realized that on this forum no one is either black or white to me. Your all different shades of orange :D.

That's indeed so true... :D

[Dick Diver]

I just don't believe that ANY word should be subject to censorship - forgive me if I was being flippant but I do think that language should be free from political correctness.

[amuse]

"Nigger" is not just any word. I invite you to read Ralph Ellison (esp. "Flying Home"), James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Richard Wright and scores of other persons. It is a word that encapsulates a history of hate for an entire race/color of people. If that doesn't make it politically incorrect I don't know what does.

[Lara]

Quote by Dick Diver

<I just don't believe that ANY word should be subject to censorship - forgive me if I was being flippant but I do think that language should be free from political correctness.>

The words are certainly available to be utilised, and I believe when words are used to educate, it is acceptable. Anyone who writes knows how powerful words are, look at the use of the N word in this story, look at the discussion it has caused. It is a strong word and stimulates strong feelings. I think that is the bottom line. One has to consider how the use of words will make others feel.

[Dick Diver]

Yes but Conrad was writing in a different era - I would be suspicious of somebody using the word to indicate race now.

What of the Moor of Venice? Is Othello legitimate?

Or Huckleberry Finn which is full of the word, but an extremely sympathetic portrayal of the relationship between Huck and Jim (until the crap bit when Tom turns up).

How can you 'ban' a word?

[IWilKikU]

we're not talking about banning a word. We were discussing Conrad's time and talking about whether or not "nigger" was as offensive as it is today. You can't ban a word, and unfortunately there will always be bigots who call people that, we were mearly commenting on its inappropriateness and trying to figure out if it was inappropriate at the time of writing.

[atiguhya padma]

Seeing as I agreed with this choice, I guess I had better get reading this weekend.

[papayahed]

We can't possible know if that word was offensive at that time. None of us were there, but it stands to reason that from the whole tone of the book, (Marlow thought of his driver as a useful tool rather than a human companion) "the" word was acceptable.

We can only take what he has written for face value. If you look at the rest of history most conquering people thought of / treated their conquerees (is that a word?) as though they were something below human. That is a fact we can't change but we can learn from it.

Words cannot be banned, that's simply ridiculous. The only way to get rid of a word is to stop using it - all people.

[IWilKikU]

I dissagree. I felt like Marlow was genuinely upset at the death of his pilot. He stood there in a stuper watching him die. He did say something like "I missed him, he performed a task." But I don't think that is as impersonally as you're implying, if thats the line your refering too.

As far as everyone stoping, well that's what I was saying. It's impossible, but if YOU don't want it to be said, start with YOURSELF. Thats why I don't think its acceptable for blacks to call each other by this particular term of endearment.

[Koa]

The darkness is what Kurtz finds in his own heart.... Ambition makes him 'go native', that's to say much more uncivilised than those whom he thinks to be uncivlised just becaue they belong to a totally different culture...cos they're 'others'.
The darkness is inside human beings...


(not really much to say on the 'nigger' thing... well here we tend to look at the word 'negro' as offensive, while 'nero' is just a plain way to say someone is black (the word means infact 'black', but the connotation of 'negro' is not viewed as so radically and absolutely offensive, in some contest it can be almost plain... But I have a feeling I see the question from a different cultural point of view, since the presence of black people is much more 'ancient' in the USA and UK, while it's been just 20-25 years ago that masses of Africans started to emigrate here, so the question probably has a different cultural value... I don't even think there's too much of a black culture like the one of the American ones, again for historical reasons...)

[papayahed]

IWilKiKU,

I think your right, Marlow did seem upset by the death of his helmsman, but in the line where he talks about the helmsman being a useful tool and where he compares him to a "grain of sand in the black sahara" it seems like he's trying to make excuses for being upset, like he needs to justify his feelings to the "civilized" people.

[Sitaram]

Once in Annapolis, Maryland, in the 1960's, I went into some public building (can't remember, library, post office), and there was a glass case display of some things from the days of slavery. What caught my eye was a newspaper article about some explosion or accident. It read: "No one was injured. Four slaves died."

Obviously, it was on display to demonstrate that in those days, a slave was not considered a person who might be reckoned as a casualty.

My father, who is now a healthy age 88, told me that in the 1930's, if you were to call a negro "black" he would probably punch you. The term he would have found acceptible was "colored". The term "blacks" was not in use.
Notice the N.A.A.C.P. stands for "National Association for the Advancement of Colored People."

Nowadays the phrase "person of color" is a politically correct and tasteful way to denote people who are non-white.

[dEaD PrEsIdEnTs]

does anyone really know it tho? the signifance of it? not a guess.. can u back it up with quotes?

[ghideon]

Although the original question for this thread was about the title: The Heart Of Darkness most of the posts have discussed the use of the word "nigger" by Conrad. With that said I will add my two cents concerning the N word in this novel.

I think we really need to be vigilant here. There is the question about what was Conrad trying to communicate by using that word? Could he have used another word such as "black" "negro" "collored"? I do not know the answer to that question because I do not know enough about the language and its uses during that historical period. But I know this much, what the word means to us now really has absolutely nothing to do with an understanding of the novel. Or rather, it may be of note if we want to understand what the nature of race relations were at that time and how that influenced culture and art. But we need to be very careful about thinking that Conrad wrote this last month and thus was fully aware of the power that word has during this time.

I read quite a powerful book on the dominance of "crtical thinking" in literary ciricles these days. The author, whose name I forget, essentially argued that when we think "critically" about a given text we are actually translating the work and turning it into something that is entirely different from what the given author intended. We add meaning to words, plot, characterization that will confirm the particular perspective, ideology, paradigm that we hold dear as The Truth. Marxists, Freudians, Feminists, De-Constructionalists and on and on. Lost is the actual human being who sat down ten, twenty, two hundred years ago and tried to create a piece of art that would say certain things, convey particular emotions and describe the world as he or she understood it.

What was Conrad's intent? That is the question and it is a radically different question then what the reader's intent is in interpretation.

Finally, remember the movie based on this book...Apocalypse Now...blood,guts, madness...I don't think anyone would have said **** about the N word in that movie because it would have made perfect sense given who the characters were and the situation they found themselves in.

[Jean-Baptiste]

I believe the word was, at that time, used synonymously with the word slave. Hence, the fact that it seems so prevalently used by such respectable authors as Conrad. Also, hence its extremely derogatory interpretation now.

[Whifflingpin]

"I believe the word was, at that time, used synonymously with the word slave."
Not in Conrad's time - slavery had been abolished within the British Empire about 100 years before Conrad was writing, and in the USA about 50 years before.
Conrad did write another book, titled "The Nigger of the Narcissus," in which, if I recall correctly, the term has no perjorative connotations. I think the word is simply what sailors, at the time, called black people. The more refined "negro" might have been used by middle and educated classes.

Until political correctness, the word was generally a denigrating term for black people, but not always. So, in my childhood, (50 years ago,) we had a nursery rhyme "Ten little nigger boys" which had no derogatory significance whatever. On the other hand, if I'd called a coloured person a nigger (not that I ever saw any, except once) my mother would have been cross. Not as cross, however, as she was when I, not knowing the significance, used the word "wog." So, to us, "negro" was the polite term, "nigger" less polite but could be used in context, "wog" abusive and totally unacceptable.

Of course in other countries and cultures, "nigger" was always used abusively.

In respect to the "synonymous with slave" idea, it is perhaps interesting that "Uncle Remus," a (fictional but generally reckoned to be "authentic" as to speech) ex-slave, uses the term nigger as a contemptuous word for fancily dressed town negros, as opposed to the rural plantation negros.

In "Heart of Darkness," if Conrad has contempt for anyone it is the Belgians. They are not, I think, mentioned by name, but there are enough references in the book to ensure that anyone of Conrad's time would have known who he was talking about. The natives are victims of an empire that is run without the "idea."

[Redzeppelin]

Words do carry meanings - two of them to be exact. The first one is its dictionary definition (denotation) and the second is the emotional associations we attach to a word (connotation). The latter is subject to change - sometimes radically - as time passes. This emotional component is what makes language sometimes so powerful and often inflamatory. (Think of the words "gay" and "queer" - which have very different connotations today than 100 years ago).

If I remember history correctly, it was after the Civil Rights movement of the 60's that the N-word became a socially uncacceptable term - but that prior to that time, it was a synonym for "black."

We cannot expect writers writing prior to a time of connotative change to anticipate that change and write politically correct prose for a standard that does not yet exist. When I teach Huckleberry Finn and Heart of Darkness, I ask students to pretend the offensive word isn't present and then ask them to examine the author's portrayal of the black characters, as well as the central character's attitude towards the black characters and the portrayal of the white characters as well. The real test of a "racial" book is the underlying theme of racism, more than language that is (today) clearly "racist." If Conrad and Twain are racist because of the use of the N-word in their narratives, then they have done a bad job of expressing their hateful ideology because both books have white narrators who are openly sympathetic to the black characters and openly critical of the white characters. Aside from Huck (and a couple minor characters), what white character in Huck Finn is admirable? Ditto in Heart of Darkness: aside from Marlow, what white character is there to admire? Just because derrogatory language wasn't used towards the white characters doesn't mean that they were left unscathed by the writers.

And yes - HOD is a wonderful book. Conrad is a prose virtuoso (English - the language he wrote HOD in was his 3rd language!), and his opening 12 pages or so are magnificent. The opening scene aboard the Nellie is a masterpiece of setting and the establishment of tone.

[ghideon]

I agree with your central point regarding the connotation and dennotation of words. I think that is an absolutely fundamental characteristic of language that does not get the attention it deserves.
I do think that your post can use some clarification. What do you mean by a "racial" book? I honestly do not know what that term is referring to. Do you mean any work that portrays characters of different races but the theme of race may not be central? That would be a huge category. Or is it a book in which the author deliberately focuses on race as an important theme? That is, works by Wright,Baldwin,Twain,Walker, Malamud...

Also, I would argue for a broader definition of racism? Twain was clearly throwing punches at the racist ideology of his time. But I would argue that one can critique an ideology, a theory, a statement but also be complicit in it at the same time. There are many whites who work against racist policies and acts such as targeting people of color by the police or the economic poverty of the African-American community. But these white people, and I include myself, can still have deep unresolved feelings, judgments, fears, bias towards people of color. We have a rather superficial understanding of oppression in this society and that is why blow ups like the ones by Gibson and Michael Richards get so much attention.
The vast majority believe that if you do not say the N word and if you don't go off on some racist tirade wearing Klu Klux Kan sheets then you are not really racist. Well it just aint so. Gibson is anti-semitic regardless of what he may argue and Richards is racist. In fact I find it absurd for anybody to claim that Gibson's/Richard's explosions are just innocent outbursts of anger rather then the alarming display of prejudices usually stuffed deep down in the dark crevices of the soul.

I do not write this intending to publish a rant about the idiocy that surrounds us. Although I sure am sick of it. I simply want to point to a deeper and I believe more accurate definition of racism. At any given point in history you could say that the society is...lets say 7 on a scale of 1 to 10 on a racism gague. Now Twain perhaps was a 4 at the time of his writing and that certainly deserves praise. He used irony, characterization,plot...to take racism to task. But we ought not grant him less then his due but also not more. I believe this is crucial for teachers to understand because students need to grasp the true nature of oppression and the variety of methods used to modify it, reduce it, hide it, reform it or totally eliminate it. There are substantive differences in those different strategies and they need to be spelled out.

This may seem off topic but I remember a brilliant point made by James Carroll in a book about the Catholic Church's relationship to Jews. He describes a scene he witnessed in front of Auschwitz. A group of nuns were kneeling in prayer right next to the entrance and bowing in supplication for compassion towards all those who suffer, for the Jews who were killed, for those still alive and for those who were guilty of great acts of injustice. This all seems good but look deeper...Do these nuns believe that the Catholic God they are praying to is the One Allmighty Lord only to be embraced by those who accept Christ? If so then even though they may be asserting their humanity aren't they also guilty of the same arrogance that saw Jews as lost, as against Christ, as needing some form of conversion? And since it was Gentiles who slaughtered the Jews doesn't that cast grave questions regarding the nature of their worship and system of beliefs? Their act has to be seen in the broader context of a world in which New Testament values dominate the Western ideology and all other systems are of secondary,tertiary or lower power.
I mention this only as an example where an act that seems ostensibly humane and just can also be understood to involve complex complicity.