Question

Which excerpt is historical evidence that supports Achebe’s claim about why Heart of Darkness is popular despite its racist elements?

“Travelers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves. But even those not blinkered, like Conrad, with xenophobia, can be astonishingly blind.”
“A few weeks later I received two very touching letters from high school children in Yonkers, New York, who —bless their teacher—had just read Things Fall Apart.”
“For did not that erudite British historian and Regius Professor at Oxford, Hugh Trevor Roper, also pronounce that African history did not exist?”
“We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance.

Answer 1

Excerpt 3: “For did not that erudite British historian and Regius Professor at Oxford, Hugh Trevor Roper, also pronounce that African history did not exist?”

Why: this is historical evidence of a respected Western intellectual denying African history—showing a wider cultural/intellectual climate that accepted and reinforced the dehumanizing view of Africa. That climate helps explain why Heart of Darkness could be popular and canonized despite its racist portrayals: the novel confirmed prevailing assumptions rather than challenged them.