Joseph Conrad has been criticized as being racist based on his literary production at the start of the 20th century.  Much of the action in his novel Heart of Darkness takes place in Africa and afterwards, the subject matter revolves around the native culture and the effects colonialism has had on the region.  Many critics of Conrad novel have scrutinized his treatment of the African natives through the eyes of his literary narrator Marlow as being racially insensitive. Chinua Achebe, a native of the region described by Conrad in his novella, emphatically declares the author as a racist. Cedric Watts and Caryl Phillips have sought to explain where the criticisms of Conrad and the blanket assumption of his racial prejudices as being inaccurate and unfair to the author. In my opinion, Conrad’s text is not racist and Achebe criticism of the novella does not reflect an objective view of it. Chinua Achebe, Africa's most prominent novelist, who happens to find the novel racist, has several points of critic to Conrad’s text; between them we can find the writing technique and the comparison between Africa and Europe. He thinks that Marlow speaks for Conrad because Conrad "does not hint, clearly and adequately at an alternative frame of reference by which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters (Achebe, 5). Because of the technique used by Conrad, he is being accused of hiding his evil feeling against African people, something that we can’t prove. Conrad’s description of the Congo is one that highlights Africa as wild and mysterious and its inhabitants primal and savage. Achebe mentions that Conrad’s describe Africa as "the other world" the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization. Under this accusation the comparison between the river Thames and the Congo is a great example. For Achebe, this unfair portrayal is emphasized with association of the more “civilized”, and “cultured” Europeans. Achebe writes, “Quite simply it is the desire one might say the need in Western psychology to set Africa up as foil to Europe”(Achebe, 1). The description of African people and the focus on the darkness is also a controversial topic. As Achebe calls attention to in his essay, Conrad rarely describes “an African who is not just limbs or rolling eyes” (Achebe, 3). Conrad focuses his attention not on the content of the African characters’ character, but their “gruesome” and “helpless” exterior. “The point of all this is to suggest that Conrad's picture of the people of the Congo seems grossly inadequate.” (Achebe). We can find a whole page describing African people with “inadequate” adjectives. For example: “but what thrilled you, was just the thought of their humanity, like yours, the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly” (Conrad). Supposedly explaining the meaning of Heart of Darkness and the fascination it hold over the western mind. Achebe mentions: “Of the nigger I used to dream for years afterwards” (8), referring to the amount of times he read the word in the novella. It is interest how this is evidence in a brief description:  "A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms�