In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad does not portray a completely positive or negative attitude about imperialism, but rather appears to waver between supporting its ideology and denouncing its sins. When considered its historical context, this novel presents a very specific attitude about Africa held by Europeans, i.e. that the conquest of Africa was essential because of the obligation, the “white man’s burden” so to speak, to assume their duty to civilize the rest of the world. At first, Marlow is emblematic of this mission but as the novel progresses, he comes to understand the darkness and folly of this intent. This essay will discuss the criticism of imperialism appearing in this novel, supporting the thesis that ultimately Conrad was critical of the racist and imperialist perspectives and actions of the Europeans who intended to colonize Africa and other such lands.
The term “imperialism” is used to describe the period in which African and Asian nations were colonized by European nations, the United States, and Japan. These activities were motivated by the belief that the white race residing in Europe was superior to the native peoples who were living there, and was entitled to gather all the resources and gold in those nations for its own purposes and profit. Conrad himself was a proponent of the imperial exploitation of the underdeveloped nations of Africa, although, in the novel, he changes his strong beliefs about the inevitability and righteousness of imperialism.
In Britain, which was the oldest imperial power, it was common and acceptable to pretend to have a noble purpose in its imperial agenda, but Belgium, for example, was not as skilled at this “hypocrisy” (Jones). Conrad, in 1890, was a sailor and an adventurer before becoming a writer and traveled up the Congo River to work for King Leopold of Belgium, a classic instance of imperialism. He could have viewed this as the beginning of a life containing riches, power, and evil, but ultimately he completely changed and became disillusioned and ill. Marlow, in the novel, represents Conrad’s own experience (Jones).
127 our experts are availableright now
This novel takes place in Congo and reveals the intense degree to which the natives of Africa were exploited by the Europeans. The colonialism demonstrated by the European capitalists that arrive in the land involves Belgian colonization and the darkness that resulted from it. Using Kurtz to demonstrate the misuse of power by the Europeans, the theme of darkness appears to describe both the country of Africa and the internal evil within this character. Kurtz will kill simply for infractions regarding his desire for ivory, and he convinces people that he is a divine creature. The darkness inside of him causes him to commit acts that are shameless and horrifying.
The attitude of the Europeans toward the natives in Congo reveals the racism and imperialism that pervaded the interactions between these parties. The Europeans are completely patronizing and condescending towards the Africans, although Marlow, the narrator, quickly presents a more altruistic and less prejudiced critique of the Europeans. The main theme of the book is the criminality of wastefulness and complete selfishness when engaging in work in Africa that is designed to be civilizing, yet these attitudes and activities are anything but civilized (Matsuda). The people in Congo suffered in many ways as a result of God’s supposed divine plan to put the Europeans in charge of them to teach them to be civilized. Conrad wrote the main idea of the novel to describe the criminality of selfishness and lack of efficiency when describing the work that was designed to civilize those referred to as savages.
In the novel, Marlow initially symbolizes the correctness of European imperialism; at one point, he expresses that he has a heavenly mission to civilize the Africans. However, he appears to have his consciousness awakened about the mission of the Europeans being morally objectionable. Ultimately, he refers to himself as an imposter and sees that he is simply a foreigner in the land of others without a right to try to impose his cultural values and/or will on them.
Kurtz is the embodiment of the white man’s burden as the bearer of the message that it is the responsibility of the European colonial power structure to civilize the Congolese. Again and again, the language used by Kurtz and about Kurtz reveals the extreme racism and disparagement of black people that appears to have characterized the Europeans when they were colonizing Africa and Asia. For example, when Kurtz’s mistress first appears, she is described as “savage and superb,” a princess who is elegant but nevertheless primitive. Kurtz describes another Congolese as “to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog and a parity of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind legs” (Conrad, 52). Further, Kurtz wants to reinforce the idea that Europeans should be viewed as godlike creatures when he says “… We whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, must necessarily appear to them (savages) in the nature of supernatural beings—we approach them with the might of the deity” (Conrad 65).
Joseph Conrad has been controversial largely because his descriptions of the Europeans’ travels in Africa contained much language that describes the Congo natives in derogatory terms, as savages and otherwise primitive creatures that needed to be civilized by the colonists. However, there is much active debate about this perception because it appears that Conrad was simply pointing out the perspective from which most Europeans of that day were associated so that his descriptions were informative rather than heartfelt. The development of two distinct characters in Marlow and Kurtz represented the negative and positive aspects of imperialism; Marlow was rather typical of the Europeans in the beginning when he was a firm believer in the mission of the Europeans regarding colonization, but transformed into a person who viewed that agenda as evil. Kurtz, however, throughout the story was the embodiment of European arrogance and racism in his patronizing and derogatory behavior and language about the natives. The line “the horror, the horror” might have been Conrad’s eventual reaction to the European agenda of aggressive colonization of the Asian and African continents.
