Is Joseph Conrad More Critical of Whites or Africans in Heart of Darkness?

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is more critical of Europeans than Africans in his novella is because of how Conrad negatively portrays the European Pilgrims and praises the African Cannibals by depicting the Pilgrims as evil, ruthless and cruel aggressors who terrorize the Cannibals and Africans. An example of this is when Marlow, the Pilgrims and the Cannibals are ambushed by a group of Africans who attack them possibly on Kurtz's behalf or because they want to protect Kurtz. Using their superior weaponry, the Pilgrims inflict great casualties on the Africans, which lead one Pilgrim to say � Say! We must have made a glorious slaughter of them in the bush. Eh?� (87). This is ironic because the Europeans of Marlow�s time most likely saw Africans are a warlike, savage people. However, Conrad shows that it is the European pilgrims carrying out and celebrating a massacre, which proves they are acting more warlike and more like barbarians than the Africans. The Pilgrims also show their cruelty when they make sure ...

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Kurtz's apparent mistress, and uses the following paragraph to describe her:

"She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was ...

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