If you've read Heart of Darkness (or the essay Chinua Achebe wrote about it), you know that Conrad is pretty interested in talking about race… and it gets him into some sticky places.
Like Heart of Darkness, Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard presents the indigenous peoples as "mute," "suffering," and basically lacking in individuality/agency, which is pretty problematic. However, you could argue this presentation is just a symbolic move on Conrad's part—the narrative mirrors the way in which the "forces of progress" push indigenous peoples into the background while Europeans, Americans, and European-Costaguaneros make Costaguana their economic playground.
Questions About Race/Ethnicity
- What does being a "true" Costaguanero entail? How do we know? What does the novel's presentation of race/ethnicity have to do with this definition?
- The novel does a lot of talking about different "races," often associating the indigenous people of Costaguana with savagery. Do you think this is a perspective that the text stands behind or tries to critique?
- If the novel parrots racist attitudes toward indigenous peoples in order to critique the people/forces that perpetuate that racism, does that make it excusable? Why or why not?
Chew on This
The novel's presentation of particular races as somehow inferior is not self-conscious. The "savagery" of indigenous peoples is used in the book to mirror/highlight the savagery of supposedly more "civilized" peoples… which is pretty offensive.
The supposed "savagery" of indigenous peoples is self-conscious, presented but then debunked when compared to the behavior of the non-indigenous inhabitants. In other words, the Europeans/European-Costaguaneros end up looking like the "savages," not the indigenous population.