Heart of Darkness

“I have wrestled with Death. It is the most unexciting contest you can imagine, it takes place in an impalpable grayness. With nothing under foot, with nothing around, without spectators, without clamor, without glory, without the great desire of victory, without the great fear of defeat . . . without much belief in your own right, and still less in that of your adversary.”
i understand the criticisms that have been made about this book in recent years, but I look at it this way: the book talks about Africans the way it does because it's the way the white people within the novel view them. The book implies that all of humanity is born from a darkened heart, but the characters aren't smart enough to realize this, so they shift blame elsewhere, cast themselves as saviors. I'm fully aware that the time in this book was written guarantees that it would never be a fully progressive story by today's standards, but for its time it was very important & even now i still believe it is, for historical context if not the message