SOURCE: Johnson, A. James M. “Into Africa: ‘The Black Savages and the White Slaves’ in Joseph Conrad's ‘An Outpost of Progress’.” English Language Notes 33, no. 4 (June 1996): 62-71.

In the following essay, Johnson examines the representation of race in “An Outpost of Progress.”

Recent currents in critical inquiry have tended to liberate literary works from the limitations of canonical approaches. As a result it is now possible to read texts traditionally received as being subversive in a more complex manner. Joseph Conrad's “An Outpost of Progress” is a case in point. This short story, which V.S. Naipaul argues is “the finest thing Conrad wrote,”¹ and which Conrad himself considered his “best story,”² is widely known as a powerful critique of European culture, yet Conrad employs racially charged representations to dramatize his critique, and this latter fact has not received adequate attention. When the issue of racism is acknowledged...