Supremacist Ideologies in Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness colludes with the ethnocentric attitude of Europeans towards the native people of Africa. At the turn of the century, European imperialism was viewed as "a crusade worthy of this century of progress" by King Leopold of Belgium. Although Conrad was critical of imperialism, his novella reveals to the reader an undeniable Victorian provenance. It endorses cultural myths of the period and reinforces the dominant ideology of the British gentleman. Its Victorian provenance is revealed in the representation of race, which is constructed through the character Marlow. His powerful narrative viewpoint reinforces what Chinua Achebe called Europe's "comforting myths" about Africa and Africans.
The text consistently constructs black people as 'other'. This is achieved primarily by Marlow, who acts to construct the natives from the vantage point of the British gentleman. When he "looked at them", he searched not only for their "impulses, motives, capacities" but also for restraint, a value that he champions throughout the retelling of his story. When he can't find it, he remarks "Restraint? What possible restraint?" Marlow's first encounter with the natives is at the Outer Station, where his ambivalence towards them is foregrounded by his obsession with the miraculously efficient first-class agent. The natives are effectively dehumanised because they are presented as nothing more than "black shadows" and "acute angles"; and Marlow is far more interested in the fact that the accountant kept his books in "apple-pie order" than with the dying black men outside. Similarly, when Marlow stumbles across "a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the...
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...t inexorably associates the continent and its people with darkness. We have the natives described as "black shapes", "strings of dusty niggers" and "a whirl of black limbs". This imagery also often associates Africans with supernatural evil. Near the Inner Station:
"A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms, across the glow. It had horns... some sorcerer, some witch-man, no doubt; it looked fiend-like enough"
The African landscape is not only culpable for Kurtz's wrongs, but it is also a place of darkness and of evil, a place of paganism, with "the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations"; a place of "lurking death", cannibalism, disease and insanity - all of Marlow's reality is filtered through the European consciousness, and all of his narrative serves to endorse European supremacist ideologies.
... himself. It seems that Achebe was closed-minded in his essay regarding racism. He did not propose any other possibilities regarding the novel, only to say that a conceivable reason for this is that "it is the desire in Western psychology to set African up as a foil to Europe" (Achebe, p.251). Achebe only set forth his views and did not take into account other interpretations of the same passage, as did Saravan.
Kurtz" and he also says that Africa was just used as a "metaphysical battlefield devoid of all recognizable humanity". Hence Africa was described in the novel as only the setting of a complex events happen on it. It was quite the opposite of what Achebe says and turns into a criticism towards what the Europeans did in the African land. The depiction of Africa also highlights what the Europeans did in order to achieve their purpose and contain the ivory of Africa under the mask of enlighten the
During the novella we see many quotes made by Marlow and others that relate to racism towards the native Africans. In the first section of the story we see some comments that relate
Marlow has always been mystified and curious about the parts of the world that have been relatively unexplored by the white race. Ever since he was a little kid he used to look at many maps and wonder just what laid in the big holes that were unmapped. Eventually one of these holes was filled up with the continent of Africa, but he was still fascinated especially by this filled in hole. When he found out that he could maybe get a job with a company that explored the Congo area in Africa he sought after it and got it. After all, it was as a steamship captain on the mighty Congo river. This was "a mighty big river...resembling an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar over a vast country, and its tail in the depths of the land" (p. 2196). This snake like river was full of mystery to the adult Marlow and seemed to call him to it.
Marlow, the main character in Heart of Darkness, often recognizes the Europeans' dehumanization of the Africans. As Marlow approaches the company offices at the Outer Station he sees "a scene of inhabited devastation" (Conrad 24). He catches sight of a chain gang of half starved, animal-like Africans. Trying to rationalize the situation, Marlow tells himself that these Africans are criminals, and somehow deserve their ...
The natives who attack the steamboat as the pilgrims near the Inner Station are seen only as ‘naked breasts, arms, legs, glaring eyes.’ The effect is to cause the reader to never picture the natives as fully human.” By emphasizing the barbaric nature of the natives, Marlow shows how inconsiderate humans can be toward other humans. We look down on people who are different than us, simply because they are distinguished from us. He regards them and describes them as if they are lower life forms than him, which simply isn’t true. But the important question is why does Marlow (and all of The Company) think that these natives are simply animals? It’s because the Company holds power that the natives do not have. This goes back to the original thesis of this paper: without God serving as a strong figure in our lives, we look to
"I don't want to bother you much with what happened to me personally,' [Conrad] began, showing in this remark the weakness of many tellers of tales who seem so often unaware of what their audience would most like to hear" (Conrad, 9). Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad's best-known work, has been examined on many bases more than I can possibly list here, but including imperialism, colonialism, and racism. I would reason that all bases of analysis are perfectly acceptable through which to critique Conrad's novella, or any piece of writing. I would reason this, were some of these bases mainly, racism not taken to an extreme level. In arguing racism, many critics seem to take Heart of Darkness as Conrad's unwavering view on Africa, Africans, life, or whatever else one may please to take it as. I, therefore, propose that Heart of Darkness be taken for what it truly is: a work of fiction set in late 19th century Europe and Africa.
In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Charles Marlow relates to his listeners aboard the Nellie the story of his service with a European company operating in the African Congo. Arriving in this European country to interview for employment, Marlow recalls, "I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a white sepulchre. Prejudice no doubt" (73). But whose prejudice is he speaking of: his or that of the citizens of that commercial center? Either way, his image is prophetic. The white sepulchre contains the remains of the countless Africans slaughtered by these colonizers--not in the form of corpses, but in the wealth that has been stolen from the African continent. The significance of the sepulchre's whiteness (and that of the longed-for ivory) lies in the contrasting images of a piece of white worsted and the starched white collars that Marlow comes upon in the jungles of the Congo. While the collars represent the violence, oppression, and hatred that dominate the European's treatment of the African, the white worsted is an attempt by ...
Heart of Darkness is a novel based on European imperialism in the late nineteenth-early twentieth century. During the turn of the century in 1900, the more significant countries in Europe (i.e. England, France, Germany, et al.) had gotten to a point where expansion within Europe was no longer foreseeable, so for financial, political, and egotistical reasons, these countries looked south to their neighbor Africa, the "black continent." "God-forsaken wilderness." Marlow says of Africa. (Page 73) Trade routes were established and the home countries found reliable executive willing to travel and develop relations in the country. In Conrad's novel, Kurtz was this man. He started out with a noble goal, i.e. to modernize Africa, but suffered the effects of a deadly disease, greed. "It was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage." Said Marlow (of what Kurtz and the ivory company had done to Africa.) (Page 102.)
Apart from the discernable darkness depicted in England and Belgium, and the Congo, each places’ surface traits are not comparable. The civilized European cities are portrayed as refined, but also as a “whited supulchre,” with “prejudice no doubt” and a desire to “make no end of coin by trade” (Conrad 14). The term “whited supulchre” is a biblical allusion, referring to a person who is superficially pure, but categorically deceptive. In its literal sense, a supulchre is a coffin, and in being whited, it is beautiful on the outside but contains horrors on the inside. This bleak and inhumane place characterizes itself to be civilized, and there in lies the people who willingly welcome the burden of edifying the unfortunates in Africa. Alternatively, the primitive life along the African Congo strikes a glaring disparity to pristine European society. Not only are the riverbanks “rotting with mud” and “thickened with slime,” but also, a “general sense of vague and oppressive wonder” sets a sinister tone to the land and people of the Congo (Conrad 11). The notable absence of description of its inhabitants furthers Africa’s and Africans’ depiction as indistinguishable and incoherent to the European perception. Actual people living in this environ...
“ The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.” (Conrad 65) So stated Marlow as though this was his justification for ravaging the Congo in his search for ivory. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness shows the disparity between the European ideal of civilization and the reality of it as is evidenced by the domination, torture, exploitation and dehumanization of the African population. Heart of Darkness is indicative of the evil and greed in humanity as personified by Kurtz and Marlow.
It is evident that Marlow is one of the few white men on the journey that questions the belief at the time that the natives of Africa are "inhu...
As Marlow, the main character of the novel, comes across Africans along his journey, his racism shows through his reflections on what he observes. When Conrad refers to Africans through his characters, it seems as if he views them as animals. “Mostly black and nake...
By the time Marlow and Kurtz meet, Marlow is already well aware of the similarities they share. Both are imperialists, and while Marlow detests the treatment of the natives by his employers (Belgian colonists), he also makes apparent his abhorrence toward the Africans. On the other hand, Kurtz abandons the pretense of helping the natives achieve civilization, as displayed by the Europeans. Instead, he adopts their customs and becomes their leader in the never-ending quest for ivory. "He began with the argument that we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, 'must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of the supernatural beings- we approach them with the might as of a deity' (Longman, 2000, p. 2226). Marlow also admired Kurtz' resourcefulness and survival skills, especially his perseverence through jungle fever. "The wilderness had patted him on the head....it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation. He was its spoiled and pampered favorite." (Longman, 2000, p. 2225).
At the beginning of the novel, Marlow is traveling the jungle and the many scenes of life can be seen. Africa has seems to be taken over by many travelers which makes one wonder what is there ulterior motive? Africa is a third world country, which makes it easy for someone to come in and talk on their soapbox. It is very easy to tell that these men are not the biggest fans of colored people, so it is plausible that they have come to instill a sense of imperialism. As Marlow passes through the waters of the Congo it is easily visible the trouble of the natives. “Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth half coming out, half effaced with the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair.” (20) Show that the holding of these colonies has started. The soldiers have come in and taken the inhabitants and are destroying them and taking from them the one thing they deserve over everything, life. The imperialists seem to not care about the Africans and are just there for their land.