Essay on relationship between 'race' and gender in the unit text

On relationship between 'race' and gender in the unit text - Essay Example al studies by scholars examined the various kinds of discrimination based on race, religion or gender in the literary works of both past and present as well as in the attitudes of the writers themselves. In some cases racism is the prominent theme while in other work s critics have revealed racist attitude that is seen as underlying assumptions, but may not be immediately evident to the reader. It is best to analyze the works, â€Å"A passage to India â€Å"by E M Foster, â€Å"Heart of Darkness â€Å"by Joseph Conrad and â€Å"Kim† by Rudyard Kipling, applying the historical and cultural conditions of the society in which they were produced. The works succeeded in depicting the relation between groups and classes of people that imperialism sets up and these works explore the contradiction within capitalism in a way that a similar piece of fiction set within one culture and dealing with characters from that culture alone cannot. Heart of Darkness is a fiction taken from the life of the conquest by the European whites, of a certain portion of Africa, an impression in particular of the civilizing methods of a great European trading company face to face with the negro. According to Robert F. Haugh, in Joseph Conrad, â€Å"The story was taken by some as an attack upon Belgian colonial methods in the Congo; as a moral tract; and as a study of race relationships.†1 Haugh goes on to say that, â€Å"Most contemporary reviewers read it as a criticism of Belgian colonialism, an issue that remained alive until Conrad’s death and got attention in his obituary notices.† Other reviewers interpreted the story in terms of Christian religious iconography. As Haugh explains, â€Å"Paul Wiley, in his Conrad’s Measure of Man ...finds the myth of the fall from innocence throughout Conrad, and ... makes of Kurtz the man driven from the Garden of Eden.†2 The book is more criticized on the basis of racism. In a lecture first given in 1975, entitled â€Å"An Image of Africa,† African novelist