An Analysis of Heart of Darkness

Tarih Kultur Ve Sanat Arastırmaları Dergisi, 2013

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness tells the journey of Marlow through the African jungle and his search for the European Kurtz who exploits the natives by imposing violence on them. It is mainly based upon Conrad's own experience in Congo when he learned how Europeans exploited and traded the natives for their own benefits during his own journey. The book is regarded as an attack on imperialism and criticizes immoral treatments of the European colonizers in Africa in the 19 th century. Keith Booker states that "the book deals with issues such as imperialism, capitalism, race, and gender that were very much at the forefront of the turn-of-the century European mind. Conrad's ambivalent treatment of these issues is extremely representative of the way they were treated in any number of European discourses of the time" (217). Besides, Chinua Achebe in his An "Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" comments that "Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as 'the other world', the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant bestiality" (338). Although Achebe puts forward that the novel displays colonialism, I consider that Conrad does not intend to write it to appreciate colonialism and therefore the purpose of this paper is to approach Conrad's Heart of Darkness from post-colonial perspective by taking European imperialism and colonialism over Africa into consideration in order to clarify how Conrad has

Dennis Smith, 2019

At the time of writing Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad had, much like the character of Marlow, journeyed at the behest of a Belgian trading company up the Congo River in service as a steamboat pilot. Perhaps due to the trauma of his experiences during his time in Africa in 1890 to 1891, Conrad penned the novella Heart of Darkness. Within its pages Conrad displays through the retelling by the story’s main character Marlow, the disturbing venture in to a nightmarish world of unchecked savagery and human cruelty. When left to their own devices, the individuals navigating the forefront of European commerce on the newly explored land pillage the continent of its resources, force its native populations in to hard labor, and go mad with guilt upon the confrontation of their committed atrocities.

The progress of humanity over the last few millena has been substantial. From the ancient cities of Sumer in the cradle of civilization to the present day the scale of development has been extensive. The more outstanding of these achievements have been termed 'civilization'. Since those early days when societies rallied and overcame the limitations imposed by their environment to subsequent eras when new heights were reached in diverse fields, progress always found a way. However, the fact that progress has happened and has continued to happen for so long is not something that should be taken for granted. The ruins of many forgotten cities are scattered across the planet, whether overgrown by the tropics or obscured by sand, they serve as a reminder of a perilous existence. Periodic declines of societies and empires throughout history illustrate that progress can be easily stalled and even reversed if circumstances change and there is not enough force to resist these new developments. The advance of civilization is only possible when there is enough manpower to not only maintain what was achieved but to push things forwards. This implies that civilization, which is often taken for granted, may not be as firmly entrenched. But for the sake of progress, civilization learns from its mistakes and there is a substantial body literature examining what happens when things do go wrong. One such book is Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness which examines the frailty of civilization as personified by people that try to build it. The main events of the book take place in the jungles of the Belgian Congo 1 and it is this extreme environment that throws into relief those things that would have been difficult to detect in a normal setting. Civilization and the Darkness: To understanding what defines civilization, the method is to examine how individuals coming from a civilized environment react to one that is diametrically opposite. This environment, the 'darkness', prevails in the jungle. There is also the 'heart of darkness' which prevails in the absolute depths of the jungle. The topics of interest are the actions, reactions and interactions of those that chose to come to the jungle with their surrounding environment. Regardless of their purpose they all had the same starting point, they were the products of civilization, they all came from societies that had varying degrees of structure and order. It was then left to the individual merits of those people as to how well they would fare when the atmosphere to which they were accustomed was no longer present. By looking at the actions of the different characters in the book as they are exposed to the darkness and then the heart of darkness, we can try to deduce the traits that are necessary to overcome a difficult environment and progress. The book contains several themes that are recurrent throughout. Though each of them by itself is important, extra insights can be gained by examining their interactions. The main themes of the book examine the effects of the omnipotent entity that Conrad terms 'the darkness' on those that choose to engage it, both the successes and the failures. The book is interesting in that a summary of the main conclusions of these interactions is given at the beginning 2 , while the explanation takes the rest of the book. It is only after reading the entire book that the weight of the statements at the beginning is fully 1 Joseph Conrad made a trip to the Belgian Congo in 1890. A sailor by profession before he became a writer, the characters described in the book are based on people he met there and throughout his travels. p.8, Murfin, R. 2 Marlow reminiscing about the Romans coming to what was now Britain ­ lines (ll.) 125­225 in the referenced text

Philosophy, Social and Human Disciplines, 2019

Eurocentrism is a philosophy which makes of the European "I" the only reference for any judgement and evaluation. Europeans consider themselves as the embodiment of good culture while the other, the colonized, the non-European, is the incarnation of brutishness and savagery. In other words, Otherness is an image built up by a referent, who is superior, and who decides about the nature of the other. Subsequently, the image-making of otherness is the representation of the person, who projects his mind into it. Eurocentrism legalizes power and legitimizes domination and makes them central for the sake of effectiveness. Moreover, hegemony gives to the colonizer the right and responsibility to civilize the colonized. Colonialist discourse tries to impress and to make the other think of himself as inferior; thus, he needs to be civilized, colonized and guided. To be an "Other" is, then, to be silenced and dependent because there is no open possibility for him to change or to reach the European, the referent. The self-justification of imperialism was an idea of conquest of other people to usurp their riches and lands. Conrad's background of Heart of Darkness stems from the Euro-centric documents that acknowledge the subjective illegal right to dominate Africa and to make its natives an "Other."

This paper deals with the concept of racism, which is considered as a dark chapter in the history of the world.Throughout history, racist ideology widespread throughout the world especially between blacks and white. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness which is his experience in the Congo River during the 19th century dealt with the concept of racism, which was clear in this novel because of the conflicts that were between black and whites and it explained the real aims of colonialism and expansionism in Africa, which were for wealth and power. This paper shows Marlow’s limitations as a narrator, his ethnocentricity and color consciousness and inability to comprehend inscrutable Africa that lead him to side with the colonizers against the Africans and how his approach is shared by Conrad as well. A bitter irony lies in the fact that the people who look apparently civilized in the novel are most savage in reality. In fact, power, jealousy and greed for ivory or money have metamorphosed them into corrupt, monstrous, brutal animal. My point of argument is that Conrad in Heart of Darkness has biasness for European colonialism, though the biasness is not so much conspicuous but ostensible, covertly and allusively maintained throughout.

Journal of Philology and Educational Sciences

This study aims to examine Conrad's novella "Heart of Darkness" in terms of two diverse themes; identity dilemma and post-colonialism. This narrative follows the protagonist Marlow as he travels to the Congo River and discovers the harsh realities of colonization and its effects on the native people. However, apart from postcolonialism, this study also aims to shed light on how the novella represents the complicated and sometimes contradictory nature of identity via an investigation of the experiences and actions of the characters. At the same time, it is possible to realize that the novella includes a theme of identity dilemma, which can be examined in terms of the Hegelian master-slave dialectic. It represents the nature of oppression, subjugation, and resistance at some point.

An investigation into whether "Conrad"s portrayal of European society in Heart of Darkness is more critical than his portrayal of indigenous African culture."

Annals of the University of Bucharest - 2015, No.2, 2015

The present paper attempts to place Joseph Conrad’s canonical work, “Heart of Darkness”, in the context of its contemporary ideological debate concerning imperialism. The novel overtly manifests a sceptical attitude with respect to any practice of imperialism, as conceived either by corporate capitalism based on racialist thinking, or egalitarian socialism based on humanism. Contrary to the scepticism pervading the novel, both Marlow’s deeds and the representations of African otherness seem to work against the overt refutation of imperialism. Marlow is an employee of an imperialist company throughout most of the novel, while the images of native Africans fall back on dominant negative stereotypes. As a result, even if judged on its own terms, or according to present-day rhetorical sensitivities, “Heart of Darkness” itself seems unable to live up to its anti-imperialist intentions.

Heart of Darkness is an 1899 novella about a voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State. The plot centers round Charles Marlow, an English sailor, whose journey up the Congo River to meet Kurtz, an ivory trader who went mad. Marlow is appointed as the captain of a steamboat for an ivory trading organization called Company. While travelling up the river he encounters inefficiency and brutality at the Company’s native stations. He also witnesses the exploitation and oppression of the natives under the Company’s agents. The novel is a white man’s imaginative narrative of Africa, at once repulsive and desirable. Africa is a stereotypical landscape evolved from white man’s ambiguous attitude to it. Conrad’s Africa is a land of impregnable forests, throbbing drums, primitive customs, sudden sunsets, vultures and black water fever. He describes an Africa without meaning, coherence and order where rational human beings end up confused, overcome with obscurity and wilderness. The physicality of Africa is incomprehensible and maddening, creating a “heart of darkness” which is a site for various kinds of conflicts.