Human beings are complex, not only because of their intellectual ability, but because of their sentient nature. They use their senses and mind to develop concepts and associate them with the experiences and activities they engage in. A good example the application of this principle manifests in Said’s work on Orientalism. Basically, the concept of Orientalism delineates the interaction between the Europeans and the Asian culture in the early history (Said, 1979). Apparently, the Asian culture was new to European people so they decided to understand and define it as best as they could. The context within which the Europeans understood and defined the Asian culture is what Said refers to as Orientalism (Said, 1979). This essay examines the concept of Orientalism as projected by Said and proceeds to analyze how the same concept applies to the novel The Heart of Darkness, which describes Africans in a more or less similar way.
As already noted, Orientalism refers to the context within which the Europeans understood and defined the Asian culture and everything that was associated with it. According to Said, Orientalism is a science that explains the encounter between the Europeans and the Asians when they first met. The Europeans are therefore referred to as orientalists while the Asians are referred as Orients (Said, 1979). Since the two groups were new to each other, the Orients saw the Orientalists as non-human and categorized everything around them in terms of what belonged to them and what belonged to the Orientalists.
The result of this interaction was that the Europeans developed a particular attitude towards the Asian people. In comparison to what they had left back at home, they considered the Asians uncivilized, lazy, irrational, and crude (Said, 1979). These attributes made it necessary, according to the Europeans, to colonize the Asians in order to civilize them so that they would be able to operate their own systems. Therefore, the whole idea of Orientalism revolves around the fact the Europeans, based on their own judgment, perceived Asians as lacking in the ability to ‘manage’ themselves and decided to ‘manage’ them for a while simultaneously teaching them how to do it on their own.
The same attitude, although not expressly called so, is quite evident in Joseph Conrad’s novel The Heart of Darkness. The novelist describes Africans as primitive, backward, poor, and diseased (Conrad, 1999). He additionally describes them as, barbaric, bestial, and ugly (Conrad, 1999). All these descriptions originate from a comparison between the Whites and Africans as the Europeans did in their description of the Orients. Besides the comparison, this description clearly shows that the novelist had a somewhat negative attitude towards Africans.
Based on Conrad’s description of Africans in his novel, one would argue that he was capable of offering some form of help since he was from the civilized world, which seemingly had solutions to some of the problems of these people. Instead, he goes to great depths to vividly describe the misery of these people with the aim of showing how uncivilized and helpless they were. Again, like in the case of Asians, one can see that the novelist seems to suggest that Africans needed help in the form of civilization.
Finally, Conrad depicts Africa as the other world, with his reference point being Europe. Again, an element of Orientalism is manifest in this depiction. The interaction between the Orients and Orientalists the idea of ‘ours’ and ‘theirs’ was evident. Thus, when Conrad refers to Africa as the other world, he falls prey to the British attitude of Orientalism. Conrad’s novel is dotted with other instances of this attitude. However, for purposes of this essay the outlined examples will suffice.
Reference
Conrad, J. (1999). Heart of darkness (1st ed.). Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview Press.
Said, E. (1979). Orientalism (1st ed.). New York, NY: Vintage Books.
