The Importance Of Imperialism In Africa

Imperialism is often the most surprising topic covered in a typical high school history class. The idea that a nation could just take over a smaller civilization and use it to gain resources, power, and fortunes; this is an unacceptable practice in society today. Hitler and Lenin are remembered as arrogant, greedy, and heartless, but what about all of the other nations that partaked in colonization? The world’s second largest continent often goes forgotten. Today, Africa is still found in shambles as result of the ruthless imperialism that occurred. The typical players are remembered: France, Britain, Italy, Portugal, Spain. What about Belgium? Unlike these other Eurasian powers, Belgium did not colonize off result of Military power and force,

Still to this day, the argument is as strong as ever. Was Conrad in favor of or against the idea of imperialism? This is the big question. Imperialism as a whole is subjective to a level; on paper it looks like a successful political technique to allow for a nation to grow, while helping a smaller entity flourish, but this was barely ever the case. Instead, slave-like labor, endless and rewardless work, and a small group of white men getting unnecessarily rich was the outcome. In this case Mr. Kurtz is that white man, a god figure to the natives that work under him. Although main character Marlow, who is retelling this story on a boat off of the Thames River, spends two thirds of the book explaining the excitement he will experience when meeting Kurtz, it quickly turns to disgust at fault of the heads on the sticks and the mental sickness. At the hands of the subjective content, Conrad catches many critic’s attention to his unknown take on imperialism, but when realization comes in that Marlow actually is created to be a character that is the great flaw of imperialism, that is when the reader can tell Conrad is against imperialism. Through constantly present satirical elements in the novella, the reader can understand that author Joseph Conrad is condemning the practice of