Heart of Darkness
This is an excerpt from the paper...
In 1890, while working for the Belgian Societe Anonyme pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo, Joseph Conrad traveled on a steamer boat up the Congo River in Africa, "in order to collect a company agent named Klein" (Young 388). Nine years later, Conrad's experiences on the Congo were published as the novel Heart of Darkness. In that novel, Conrad represented himself as the character Marlow, and Klein as Kurtz. Garnett has noted that Heart of Darkness is "an impression, taken from life, of the conquest by the European whites of a certain portion of Africa" (387). Marlow, the narrator of the novel, encounters a psychological horror in Africa which is symbolized as darkness and which remains with him even after he returns to London. However, the darkness that he encounters is not that of Africa or the Africans, but rather that of the European imperialists who were exploiting Africa's resources and labor. On this point, Singh has noted that the title Heart of Darkness does not refer to a place or a people, but rather to "the evil practices of the colonizers of the Congo" (270). Garnett has agreed that the overall theme of Heart of Darkness is "the white man's uneasy, disconcerted, and fantastic relations with the exploited barbarism of Africa" (387). Singh has even gone so far as to claim that Heart of Darkness is "one of the most powerful indictments of colonialism ever written" (268). In the late nineteenth century, the Congo region of Africa was under European domination.
. . .
ous crimes back home. Because of this, it was the imperialists, not the natives, who were lacking civilization. Conrad "felt the danger, not in savagery itself, but in the potential for savagery.in civilized man when boundaries of rational society are lacking" (Young 388). Thus, Heart of Darkness deals with the darkness in the heart of the imperialists who were driven by greed and were thus willing to dominate others for the sake of money and power.
Although Heart of Darkness is obviously a commentary against imperialist practices, some critics have accused Conrad of being a racist because of the points of view expressed in the novel. In particular, the university lecturer Chinua Achebe has claimed that Conrad's novel is filled with racist overtones (Sarvan 281). The main argument to support this criticism is that the character Marlow represents Conrad and that Marlow displays racist attitudes. While noting the hypocrisy of others, Marlow himself is hypocritical in that he lacks real compassion for the plight of the African workers. In this regard, Singh has pointed out that "Marlow's sympathy for the oppressed blacks is only superficial" (272). However, as noted by Sarvan, Conrad the author maintains a detached tone whi
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
Heart Darkness, Africans Sarvan, Marlow Conrad, Exploring Expedition, Congo River, Congo Conrad, Darkness Europeans, Kurtz's Intended, Darkness Marlow, Ironically European, heart darkness, european imperialists, darkness heart, chelsea house, 3rd ed ed, marlow notes, york norton, robert kimbrough, ed ed, kimbrough york, edition 3rd, ed ed robert, critical edition 3rd, edition 3rd ed, robert kimbrough york,
Approximate Word count = 1773
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
|
Customer Service
to Over
32,000 Professionally Written Papers!!!
