Heart Of Darkness Imperialism Analysis

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Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad centralizes the issue of imperialism. Imperialism is a nation’s policy of extending authority by territorial acquisition or by the establishment of economic and political hegemony over other nation. In the novella, Conrad shows sympathy for the native Africa and attempts to attacks on imperialism by criticizing the immoral and brutal treatment of European colonizers in Africa.
In Heart of Darkness, Conrad reveals that the colonialism’s idea of helping the natives and making them “civilised” is a major misconception among European. For example, “Something like an emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle. There had been a lot of such rot let loose in print and talk just about that time….. I ventured to hint that the Company was run for profit. (Pg. 28) In the novella, Marlow’s aunt expresses a naively idealistic view of the Company’s mission “weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways.” (Pg. 28) She feels that Marlow has been sent by the company to complete the great acts of “humanizing, improving, instructing” the native African besides as an agent to collect ivory. Marlow disagrees with her and faults her for being “out of touch with truth.” (Pg. 28) Through Marlow, Conrad criticises that the colonizers actually create an idealistic world by claiming that they are bringing civilisation to the colonised population although they are the real darkness or evil who exploit the trade the natives for their own benefits.
According to Lois Tyson, the colonizers think that they set up examples for the colonial people, so the colonised people “were considered ‘other’, different, and therefore inferior to the point of being less than fully human” In other words, the colonizers ...

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...me greedy. As Gene M. Moor has stated, Conrad hated imperialism in central Africa of its savageness, selfishness and devastation. Kurtz’s final words, ‘the horror’, ‘the horror’, are about how a civilized man can change to savagery when there is no restriction” Therefore, Kurtz can be considered as corruption brought to Africa from Europe. The death of Kurtz can be regarded as subversion of colonialism as it destroys both the colonizers and the colonised people.
Heart of Darkness reflects the realities of world in the 19th century, that is Africans suffered and died because of European brutality during slave trading and colonialism. Unlike others, Conrad does not defence European colonisation and degrade the native African. The purpose of degradation in this novella is to show the dark side of the European colonialism and the unfair treatment of the natives.

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