Joseph Conrad’s short narrative “An Outpost of Progress” follows the lives of two civilized men, Kayerts and Carlier, stationed at a trading post in Africa. Between the departure and return of the Company steamer, Kayerts and Carlier are free from civilization’s rules, morals, and beliefs that facilitate a chain of command, trade, and comfortable living. When they are forced to live without society, the men slowly descend into madness. I will argue that “An Outpost of Progress” illustrates humanities propensity to fall to fall from civilization when free of a conventional society.
Early in the short narrative, evidence of civilization exists around the men. The narrator writes, “There were two white men in charge of the trading station. Kayerts, the chief. . . Carlier, the assistant. . . The third man on the staff was a Sierra Leone nigger, who maintained that his name was Henry Price” (Conrad 3). This system imitates bureaucracies of a civilized world. There is a white man in charge, someone working under him, and a lower level often consisting of natives.
However, this broken bureaucracy is the first sign of Kayerts’ and Carlier’s fall from civilization. When men from the coast arrive at the trading station, Makola (Henry Price) converses with them about trading for ivory. When Kayerts questions him the next day, Makola eludes all attempts to close with him (Conrad 12). Makola, the lower level of the chain of command, avoids reporting to Kayerts, the chief in charge.
This breakdown if also evident during Kayerts’ and Carlier’s argument over sugar. Following a civilized bureaucracy, Carlier should accept Kayerts’ refusal to let him put the sugar in his coffee. Instead, Carlier shouts, “Who’s chief? There’s no chief here....
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...oncile with its morals. A dense fog clouds his clarity and “he looked round like a man who has lost his way; and he saw a dark smudge, a cross-shaped stain, upon the shifting purity of the mist” (Conrad 25). Kayerts hangs himself from the cross, a symbol of one of civilizations greatest institutions.
Despite the men’s best efforts to sustain civilization, Kayerts’ and Carlier’s are doomed. The men are only “insignificant and incapable individuals, whose existence is only rendered possible through the high organization of civilized crowds” (Condrad 5). The steamer, their only real connection to civilization, casts off and leaves them in the wilderness of Africa. Without a connection to society, Kayerts and Carlier slowly fall from civilization.
Works Cited
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness and Other Tales. Ed. Cedric Watts. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
Watts, Cedric. 'Heart of Darkness.' The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Ed. J.H. Stape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 45-62.
Cox, C. B. Conrad: Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, and Under Western Eyes. London: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1987.
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness critiques the cause for expeditions and its effects on the land they voyage too. Kurtz accounts of expedition shows ironic details of patriotic intentions of creating goodness and prosperity in a country, but leaving it in disaster and chaos. However, in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Kurtz uses cluster images to describe the river and its services in numerous expeditions, yet masquing the truth of death as effects to the performance of change by the water and ship’s patriotic duty through the changes in the atmosphere, alluding of ships and their expeditions, and the anarchic depiction of travellers and their reasons for travelling.
Kurtz was the chief of the Inner Station, where he was in charge of a very important ivory-trading post. Marlow learns that because of Kurtz’s ability to obtain more ivory than anybody else, he is of “greatest importance to the Company” and is to become a “somebody in the Administration” (Conrad 143). However, a critical aspect is the way in which he went about his business, as it was ruthless and selfish, characteristics that go hand-in-hand with European colonization.
In the present era of decolonization, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness presents one of fictions strongest accounts of British imperialism. Conrad’s attitude towards imperialism and race has been the subject of much literary and historical debate. Many literary critics view Conrad as accepting blindly the arrogant attitude of the white male European and condemn Conrad to be a racist and imperialists. The other side vehemently defends Conrad, perceiving the novel to be an attack on imperialism and the colonial experience. Understanding the two viewpoints side by side provides a unique understanding that leads to a commonality that both share; the novel simply presents a criticism of colonialists in Africa. The novel merely portrays a fictional account of British imperialism in the African jungle, where fiction offers maximum entertainment it lacks in focus. The novel is not a critique of European colonialism and imperialism, but rather a presentation of colonialism and the theme of darkness throughout the novel sheds a negative light on the selfishness of humanity and the system that was taking advantage of the native peoples. In Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness, Conrad presents a criticism of British imperial colonization not for the purpose of taking sides, but with aims of bettering the system that was in place during Conrad’s experience in the African Congo. Conrad uses the character of Marlow and his original justification of imperialism so long as it was efficient and unselfish that was later transformed when the reality of colonialism displayed the selfishness of man, to show that colonialism throughout history displaces the needs of the mother country over the colonized peoples and is thus always selfish.
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. First Anchor Books Edition. New York, NY: Random House, Inc., 1959. Print.
Conrad’s interpretation of imperialism is an interesting view of the matter. He successfully portrays his perception of imperialism through his novella, Heart of Darkness. He developed his own impressionistic style within his novel and is coined as one of the most difficult authors to comprehend. His use of the tools within his area of expertise allows the novella to unfold before the readers’ eyes. His ability to manipulate the art of language into an intricately woven design made of simple words is an astounding capability and is a primary reason for the success of Heart of Darkness. In the final chapters of the novella, the protagonist Marlow is sailing away from the dark heart of the Congo with an ailing Kurtz. As the boat makes its decent from the depth of the jungle, symbolically, Kurtz is leaving the savagery in which he was engaged. With each passing mile, he becomes more civilized and ultimately comes to the realization of the error of his ways. Symbolically, as he leaves the darkness of the heart of the river, he becomes sane and civilized and comprehends th...
All the company men that Marlow came in contact with was there for the means of financial prosperity and no other reason. Marlow described the lot as “faithless pilgrims” who’s only prayers are to ivory and “to get appointed to a trading-post … so that they could earn percentages.” The economic potential describes the motivation many European men needed to risk disease and death to come to Africa on behalf of companies. Moreover, throughout the book the accountant, the manager, and others speak of Kurtz’ importance. Marlow assumes it is for Kurtz’ humane qualities, but in actuality, they are envious of Kurtz’ station that “Sends in as much ivory as all the others put together.” The need for Marlow to seek out Kurtz was because he had turned ill and severed communication with the company and they would not allow such a valuable station to be left
...ric, and blatantly naïve accounts by Joseph Conrad in his Heart of Darkness, Achebe brings to light the level of sophistication and complexity of pre-colonial societies. Rich with institutions of governance and traditions of belief, Achebe counters Conrad in the claim that Africa was a primitive and empty land that simply was the antithesis to Western society. Through the character of the District Commissioner, Achebe makes this ignorance of Igbo society - and pre-colonial civilizations in general – abundantly clear. After written an entire novel on the intricate life of Okonkwo up until his symbolic suicide, the District Commissioner – just as Joseph Conrad – encounters the protagonist and synthesizes his life – albeit his death - to a couple paragraphs. Only in the perspective of those with in pre-colonial Africa do we truly see how things really just fell apart.
In Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, a sailor named Marlow explains a voyage he took up the Congo river and his fateful encounter with an ivory trader named Mr. Kurtz to four others. The story itself takes place in the late 1890s during a period of great turmoil between white people and those of color in both London and the Congo river; however, it also shows the turmoil and struggles that Marlow himself faces as well. As he explains his journey to find and meet Mr. Kurtz objects always pop up, hindering his expedition and making an already tiring experience even more troublesome. Although Marlow’s trip incessantly slows down due to various elements of setting, he continues to press onward towards the future that he desires; human beings also experience such difficulties and roadblocks that they must choose to either face
In his novella Heart of Darkness (1899), Joseph Conrad through his principal narrator, Marlow, reflects upon the evils of the human condition as he has experienced it in Africa and Europe. Seen from the perspective of Conrad's nameless, objective persona, the evils that Marlow encountered on the expedition to the "heart of darkness," Kurtz's Inner Station on the banks of the snake-like Congo River, fall into two categories: the petty misdemeanors and trivial lies that are common- place, and the greater evils -- the grotesque acts society attributes to madmen. That the first class of malefaction is connected to the second is illustrated in the downfall of the story's secondary protagonist, the tragically deluded and hubristic Mr. Kurtz. The European idealist, believing the lies of his Company and of the economic imperialism that supports it, is unprepared for the test of character that the Congo imposes, and succumbs to the potential for the diabolical latent within every human consciousness.
The line between morally conscientious decisions blurs through Conrad’s use of Marlow as a vehicle for the process of reasoning through the savagery that allows him to explore the contradiction that lies beneath the accepted beliefs of the early 20th century. Evident through “Marlow’s withering condemnation of the colonial enterprise in general,” Conrad is fascinated and sickened by the lengths the European nations have taken to secure their imperialistic goals (Sewlall). These acts of degradation are committed in plain view of the rest of the world- an evil that occurs in pure daylight. The usually associated connotation of sunlight would indicate legality, purity and innocence; Conrad exposes imperialism to the core of its corruption and acts of cruelty horrifically being committed without protest from other European equals. Being a spectator to such exploitations should not rationally be plausible, however, human nature’s “fascination of the abomination” renders society helpless to disagree (Conrad 4). Regardless, humanity features nuances of both sides of the ‘good and evil’ pairing, seen through the parallel of the absolutes of light and
Shaffer, Brian. “. Rebabarizing Civilization: Conrad’s African Fiction and Spencerian Sociology,” PMLA 108 (1993): 45-58
In Europe, where people follow rules and regulations, these men are nothing, but in the jungle they are able to shine.However in the article, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” Chinua Achebe describes the novella, “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, as being racist.He supports this idea with examples from the text and with criticisms of the imagery used throughout the work. Achebe claims that by portraying Africa as “the other world and the antithesis of Europe,” Conrad is seeking to project Africa as the opposite of Europe and therefore,
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: Norton Critical, 1988.