The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of the racial slurs nigger and negro in Heart of Darkness on readers’ perception of dehumanisation, discrimination, and racism. It compares data collected through online questionnaires to test whether the absence or different frequencies of the slurs influence how participants perceive the fictional representation of the African people in the text. Three versions of the same questionnaire are used: one with unmodified passages from Heart of Darkness , one with the same passages but without the racial slurs, and one with the same passages but with more slurs than in the original. Findings show that the absence or overabundance of slurs compared to the original does not alter reader perception of dehumanisation, discrimination, and racism. By comparing the results, this paper makes two interconnected contributions. First, it contributes to the critical discussion about racism in Conrad’s novel, by providing evidence on whether the representation of the Africans is perceived as dehumanising, discriminatory, and racist by readers. Second, it offers an empirical perspective on the usefulness of the “sanitising” (removing or substituting of all racial slurs) of literary texts with potential racist implications, adopted by some publishing houses and applied to novels like Conrad’s The Nigger of the “Narcissus” and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn .

中文翻译：

---

《黑暗之心》中的种族诽谤和种族主义观念

本文的目的是研究《黑暗之心》中黑人，黑人和黑人对读者的非人性化，歧视和种族主义观念的影响。它比较了通过在线调查表收集的数据，以测试是否缺少或不同频率的诽谤会影响参与者对文本中非洲人的虚构表示的看法。使用了同一份问卷的三种版本：一种具有《黑暗之心》的未经修改的段落，一种具有相同的段落，但没有种族歧视，另一种具有相同的段落，但具有比原始版本更多的诽谤。研究结果表明，与原著相比，没有诽谤或内容过多不会改变读者对非人性化，歧视和种族主义的看法。通过比较结果，本文做出了两个相互关联的贡献。首先，它通过提供证据证明读者对非洲人的代表是否被视为非人道化，歧视性和种族主义，为康拉德小说中关于种族主义的批判性讨论做出了贡献。其次，它提供了一种经验观点，即对一些具有潜在种族主义意味的文学文本进行“消毒”（去除或替代所有种族歧视）的有用性，这些文本被一些出版社所采用，并应用于康拉德的《水仙的黑鬼》等小说中。和马克吐温的“哈克贝利费恩历险记”。