For a long time, Heart of Darkness was praised as one of the greatest English literary works. The novel by Joseph Conrad is about a journalist who sailed to Africa up to the Congo River; and who later becomes a station manager. The novel gives the accounts on how the sailor was made the indigenous Africans to worship him. In his book, he referred to the Africans as savages. In 1977, Chanua Achebe discredited the book terming it as a racist piece of literature (Pozar 6). From the moment the book was first released in 1899, they have been several critics who believed that the book was created as a tool to hail and to make imperialism invisible.
The narrator was able to conjure a picture a great British sailor who travelled all the way to Africa for exploration. It portrays the greatness of the voyage and the readers could imply that such voyages were of secret and high purpose to the Great Britain. According to most of the critics, the book conveys the endeavor by the glorious Great Britain to explore the world and to disseminate knowledge to the entire globe. What most of the leaders don’t realize is that the book was a true reflection of imperialism and colonization of Africa by the European countries (Pozar 19). There was nothing ambiguous of the text; rather, it was clear that Conrad was being racist. The book was able to provide the right picture of the level imperialism and dehumanization of the African community.
In his book “An Image of Africa”, Chinua Achebe took an antagonizing position against Conrad. He claimed that the novella should not be acclaimed of such a dehumanizing literary work. Achebe believed that Conrad was a racist who depersonalizes a given race, the therefore should not be considered as a great novella. To show that the novel was racist, we can observe how Conrad had a great obsession with the skin color. Instead of focusing on individual character, Conrad focused on black skinned men with long black hands and long black legs (Sabrah & Iman 28). One would argue that Conrad was just writing what the narrator Mallow told him. But it is important to note that it is the work of the writer to use the right language to convey given information to the audience. Conrad had the powers to include an additional layer to the novel so as to bring some levels of euphemism that do not blatantly portray the level or racism the European had towards other countries.
According to Conrad, everything is always supposed to be in place. What he doesn’t realize is the kind of tragedy that befell the Africans the moment the “fine” Europeans set foot in African. Why would he call the book “Heart of the Darkness” in the first place? There could have been better titles but he used one that gave an impression of Africa as a dark continent. Marlow referred to Africans as cannibals and savages. He used unrefined languages which portrayed Africa as a world that existed before the mediaeval age. By travelling to Africa, Marlow made it appear as traveling back to the beginning of the worlds. What he didn’t know was that cannibals and savages can be very good people if left alone.
The book also portrays how the Africans were used as improved specimen. Mellow would fire up boilers and use the Africans to test the progress. When he defined the two rivers, one would think that they travelled into a very dark place which did not have any light or peace. He described Africans as incomprehensibly frenzy black individuals he lived as though they existed in the prehistoric period. The contradicting part of the book is that the African are described as leaping and hallowing, and not inhuman; this means that at one point he realized that these savages and cannibals were not inhuman (Sabrah & Iman 19). This makes one to wonder who was really inhuman in the first place; the Africans who were invaded or the European who traveled miles away to conquer the Africans. I believe that the latter are more savages and cannibals than the former.
The novel Heart of Darkness portrayed imperialism in very many ways. As Marlow walked through the African forests and the Congo Rivers, he was able to witness instances of slavery, cruelty and torture among the Africans. This book is able to bring into picture the harsh reality of colonialism and the inhuman actions by the British against the Africans. However, Marlow hypocritically endeavored to justify imperialism by providing evidences that the Africans required the intervention of the European than the other way round. The book describes the conquest in Africa as a mere trade and at the same time convinced the readers to believe that the European conquest was a charitable endeavor to spread civilization to the “dark” continent (Svensson 2). Contradictory enough, the book explains how the ivory was taken by force; this leaves a critical reader to wonder what kind of trade that was. The book blatantly explained how the European ruled the Africans with violence, oppression and intimidation, Marlow even made the blacks to kneel in front of him.
It can therefore be argued that “the Heart of Darkness” portrayed a biased imperialism against the non-Europeans. The book gives the entire picture of colonial violence and the oppression against the Africans. The intent of the Europeans was nothing to do with spreading civilization, all they needed was to conquer more land and extend their rule all over the world. The novel succeeded in unveiling the hypocrisy and racism during the operations of imperialism.
Works Sited
Pozar, Przemyslaw. "Marlow's Autobiografiction: Revisiting Joseph Conrad's Porte Parole." (2015).
Sabrah, Hammad, and Iman Morshed Mohammad. "Imperializing Femininity: Falsehood Production and Consumption in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Arab World English Journal 3 (2015).
Svensson, Morgan. "Critical responses to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness." (2010).
