The Characteristics Of Animals In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

Charles Darwin said that “Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal” (Darwin). In this context, Darwin was referring to animals outside of the human species. However, he mentions that humans have enslaved the animals and treat them as inferiors. In some instances, humans deem other races and civilizations as inferior and enslave them in the same way. In the novel Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad suggests shows the divide between races by paralleling the actions and descriptions of animals and those of the native people of the Congo. However, towards the conclusion of the novel, the differences between the two races become indistinguishable and almost nonexistent.

One of the first times the natives of the Congo are mentioned in the novel is when Charlie Marlow bids goodbye to his old aunt. The aunt is happy for Marlow, as he is an “emissary of light”, a teacher, a trainer who is about to embark on a mission to train and tame the native people. He, in her eyes, is doing a charitable thing to help “‘[wean] those ignorant millions from their horrid

He describes watching the fireman “…as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind-legs” (33). Marlow is saying that this man was basically an animal dressed like a human, trying to do a human’s job. Imagining a dog in pants and a frivolous hat is very comical. Thus, comparing the fireman to this sight is making fun of him. The entire image of the native man working hard and manning the boiler was just too ridiculous to be taken seriously. On top of that, the only reason this man was useful was because “he had been instructed” (33). The fireman became useful only after some generous white man trained him to complete this one simple task. To Marlow, this was as if a man had taught a dog to man a boiler (How ridiculous, it called “manning” for a