Question

It might be contended, of course, that the attitude to the African in Heart of Darkness is not Conrad's but that of his fictional narrator, Marlow, and that far from endorsing it Conrad might indeed be holding it up to irony and criticism. Certainly, Conrad appears to go to considerable pains to set up layers of insulation between himself and the moral universe of his history. He has, for example, a narrator behind a narrator. The primary narrator is Marlow, but his account is given to us through the filter of a second, shadowy person. But if Conrad's intention is to draw a cordon sanitaire between himself and the moral and psychological malaise of his narrator, his care seems to me totally wasted because he neglects to hint, clearly and adequately, at an alternative frame of reference by which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters. It would not have been beyond Conrad's power to make that provision if he had thought it necessary. Conrad seems to me to approve of Marlow, with only minor reservations—a fact reinforced by the similarities between their two careers.

–“An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's
Heart of Darkness,”
Chinua Achebe

Which evidence from the text best explains Achebe’s opinion about the counterargument?

“The primary narrator is Marlow, but his account is given to us through the filter of a second, shadowy person.”
“Conrad’s intention is to draw a cordon sanitaire between himself and the moral and psychological malaise of his narrator.”
“He neglects to hint . . . at an alternative frame of reference by which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters.”
“Conrad appears to go to considerable pains to set up layers of insulation between himself and the moral universe of his history.”

Answer 1

“He neglects to hint . . . at an alternative frame of reference by which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters.”

This line directly explains Achebe’s point: the narrator-within-a-narrator and other “insulations” are ineffective because Conrad never gives readers a clearly critical perspective to judge Marlow, so Marlow’s views go unchallenged.