I wrote this essay for an introductory module to postcolonial theory, I’m pretty happy with it! The only thing I’d really change would be to talk more about the context of Belgian colonialism but I was approaching the word limit assigned, maybe I’ll revisit this at some point.
Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is considered one of the great European literary classics of the late 19th Century. Published in 1899, the novel follows the sailor Charles Marlow’s steamboat expedition into the Congo Free State via the Congo River to retrieve Kurtz, an ivory trader who has gained notoriety with local tribes who revere him as a deity. The Belgian Company, who trade in ivory, have lost contact with Kurtz and subsequently employ Marlow to find him. Broadly, the text deals with issues of morality and power under European colonial rule, revolving around the concepts of ‘savage’ and ‘civilised’ peoples and the little difference Conrad sees between them. In some academic circles, Heart of Darkness is taught as an anti-imperialist book, questioning and even undermining the colonial project as a whole. However, following the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978, the practice of re-reading ‘classics’ through a critical lens emerged, seeking to evaluate whether they questioned or perpetuated colonial discourses (McLeod, 2010). Heart of Darkness was one of the most influential texts analysed in this way. Chinua Achebe’s An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness provides potentially one of the most scathing critiques of Conrad’s work, finding him guilty of perpetuating colonial representations of colonised peoples. Does this then undermine the book’s supposed anti-imperialist theme? Can Conrad’s critique of the European colonial project be separated from his perpetuation of colonialist discourses?
The plot of Heart of Darkness is heavily inspired by Conrad’s own visit to the Congo in 1890, he states that it is ‘experience pushed little (and only very little) beyond the actual facts of the case’ (Conrad, 1899 quoted in Baines, 1986, p.272) There he witnessed the brutal conditions that colonised people were living in under the barbaric colonial rule of Leopold II of Belgium. Conrad had travelled to Africa with the express intent of inspiration for his novels and was faced with the realities of colonialism, lifting the veil of mystery and adventure that enveloped ‘undiscovered’ regions of the continent. The treatment of the African interior as a ‘place to be explored’ is inherently a colonialist and orientalist concept, by mystifying the area as dangerous and untamed, writers such as Conrad play into the colonialist dogma of the ‘White Man’s Burden’ to ‘explore the unexplored’ and bring the unknown into the known. The consequence of this is the representation of the local people in a similar manner to the location itself, by association they are deemed not as subjects but as objects to be investigated and explored. This is seen in Heart of Darkness through the complete lack of ‘human expression’ on Africans (Achebe, 2010), an issue Achebe discusses at length in his critique. Achebe claims that Conrad portrays Africa as “the other world”, in contrast with Europe and therefore ‘civilisation’ (Achebe, 2010). This problematic ‘image of Africa’ created within Conrad’s work is, according to Achebe, not the fault of the author but Conrad nevertheless perpetuates colonialist stereotypes, presenting Africa as merely a ‘foil to Europe’ (Achebe, 2010).
Despite this critique, Heart of Darkness is still considered a classic in academic circles and is taught in institutions worldwide as retaining a rarely seen European critique of the colonial project as it was occurring. Whilst in the Congo, Conrad shared a room with Roger Casement a diplomat stationed within the Congo Free State to assess Leopold II’s rule. The Casement Report exposed the brutal realities of the country under the private ownership of the Belgian Monarch. Conrad’s shared sympathies with Casement can be seen within the novel in explicit anti-colonial sentiment, ‘The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much’ (Conrad, 1973). This sentiment however, is not absolute. In this extract Conrad outlines colonialism as ‘not a pretty thing’ but notably not as unnecessary; To Conrad it is not that colonialism is itself an evil, but that specifically Leopold II’s private colonialism is overly brutal. By inference, Conrad implies the existence of not only an acceptable level of brutality but of an acceptable colonial project.
To conclude, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness contains an early European critique of colonialism but one that is quite narrow, reserving its criticism to the brutality of the Congo and leaving room for an ‘acceptable colonialism’ to occur. Chinua Achebe’s critique of the novel is especially prominent as his emphasis on the lack of humanity afforded to the colonised people within Conrad’s novel reveals his antipathy towards African people despite his perceived sympathies. Overall, Heart of Darkness remains useful as an account of the colonial barbarism that took place within the Congo Free State and also as a reminder of the importance of a critical analysis of literature considered integral to the European literary canon.
Thankyou for reading! I realise this is my first post in a while, I’m hoping to post more, I have a few essays ready to go but I want to be sure I’m happy with them before I post.
Bibliography
Achebe, C., 2010. An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. London: Penguin UK.
Baines, J., 1986. Joseph Conrad A Critical Biography. 3 ed. London: Penguin Books Ltd.
Conrad, J., 1973. Heart of Darkness. 1 ed. London: Penguin Books Ltd.
McLeod, J., 2010. Beginning Postcolonialism. 2 ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
