Picture of European Colonialism and Imperialism in Joseph Conrad's Heart of

Darkness

The violence of beast on beast is read

As natural law, but upright man
Seeks his divinity by inflicting pain.

-A Far Cry from Africa by Derek Walcott

The novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is not a critique of European

colonialism and imperialism in the post-colonial term. Certainly when the
novel was published the colonialism was an accepted matter all over the
world. Nobody questioned the audacity of colonialism. As a novelist Conrad
himself is much criticized by post-colonial thinker like Chinua Achebe for his
anthropocentricism and Eurocentricism. In spite of all these the novel
contains many elements that are definitely post-colonial in nature and can
be interpreted as an attack on the ruthless colonial exploitation

Now lets, like Marlow himself, make a journey into Heart of Darkness to see
Conrads treatment of colonialism in Africa. Imperialism was not just the
practice of the European acts of colonization of other lands and people;
imperialism was a philosophy that assumed the superiority of European
civilization and therefore the moral responsibility to bring their enlightened
ways to the "uncivilized" people of the world. This attitude was taken
especially towards nonwhite, non-Christian cultures in India, Asia, Australia,
and Africa. This idealistic view of imperialism was represented by Marlow.
But through the disillusionment of Marlow the novelist shows the false basis
of this imperialistic philosophy.

Marlow as a device

In fact Marlow is a device through which the novelist shows the real picture
of the colonialism. Marlow believes that European men truly represent the
good of imperialism. But the truth is just the opposite. The reality of
European imperialism in Africa is total greed and evil. Marlow begins outside
of London then travels to Brussels, then to Africa, the Outer Station, the
Central Station, and finally, the Inner Station (detailed below), where
Marlow meets Kurtz and has his last remaining illusion shattered.

Picture of colonialism is same

The picture of colonialism is same all over the world. It knows no time and
no boundaries. This picture of colonialism is given at the beginning of the
book. I was thinking of old times, when the Romans first came here,
nineteen hundred years ago. may it at last as long as the old earth
keeps rolling! But darkness was here yesterday. Marlow describes the
struggles of the Romans with the weather, disease, savage inhabitants, and
death while conquering the British Isles. He also states that the Roman
explorers were "men enough to face the darkness." This reference to the
early Romans' hardships and conquest in England is parallel to the hardships
of the British in Africa. Marlow compares these ancient explorers to the
modern European explorers, whom he regards as lesser men. For Marlow the
only thing that "redeems" the "robbery" of imperialism is that there is a pure
idea behind it. So we see that this is same thing that happens to the African
people. This so-called bringers of light were themselves agents of darkness.

Marlow sings a contact with company

After he signs a contact with the trading company Marlow visits his aunt who
supports the business of the company enthusiastically as if it were purely
altruistic. She regards Marlow as "something like an emissary of light" and
she talks of the Christian missionary goal of "'weaning those ignorant
millions of their horrid ways.'" Marlow believes that his aunt's ignorance
about the profit motive of the company arises from women's inability to deal
with the reality of the world. Feeling like an impostor, Marlow sets sail for
Africa, what he calls the "center of the earth," (which is also appropriately
known as the location of hell).

Marlows first impression at the outer station

Marlows first impression of colonialism is horrible. At first he arrives at the

Outer station. He watches the "sordid farce" of imperialism and begins to
think that his trip is not a pilgrimage but a nightmare. Marlow himself sees
the Outer Station as "a scene of uninhabited devastation."

As Marlow approaches the company offices, he sees the waste -- the

discarded machinery laying about in disrepair, he hears "objectless blasting"
of dynamite nearby, and he sees a chain gang of Africans who look starved
and animal-like to Marlow. He descends further down the hill to get away
from the chain gang and comes upon a gloomy place--what he calls a "grove
of death"--where a number of Africans is dying. They are starving, wasted
creatures gathered in "contorted collapse." Obviously, there is no sympathy
on the part of the Europeans to the plight of the natives, as evidenced by
the accountant's callused attitude and by the picture of death and
destruction caused by the white man's greed for ivory and money resulting
in the horrors of the "grove of death."
Marlow turns and quickly walks toward the station. When he is near the
buildings, he sees a white man, the Chief Accountant, who is dressed in
starched, neatly ironed and brilliantly white clothing; in total contrast to the
dying black natives he has just seen. Marlow respects this man, in an ironic
way, for keeping up appearances even though he looks like a "hairdresser's
dummy." However, it is appropriate that the man who keeps the books for
the ivory operation is perfectly dressed in white, with a perfectly ordered
office, while all around him is found the dark chaos caused by the ivory
trade.

Marlow comes to know about Kurtz

Here the Chief Accountant tells Marlow of Mr. Kurtz, a first-class agent, a
"very remarkable person,". This creates some hope about the idealism of
European colonialism.And from now onwards Marlow will seek to know about
Kurtz throughout the remainder of the story.

Marlow leaves for the central station

Marlow leaves the Outer Station in a walking caravan of sixty men for a
difficult two hundred miles trip. He finds the population of the areas through
which he walks totally depleted and guesses that the African people have
been forced into work for the company or have fled in desperation. After
fifteen strenuous days, Marlow again sees the Congo River and reaches the
Central Station. He finds that the European men who run the station are
faithless and unreal.

When Marlow meets the Station Manager, who is described in detail, he finds
him to be poorly educated, disturbing, petty, and shallow. He suspects that
"there was nothing within him." The Manager informs Marlow that the
situation up river at the Inner Station is dangerous, but its chief, Mr. Kurtz,
is his best agent and a very important man to the company.

The portrait of a woman and a positive view of Kurtz

Marlow is invited to visit the room of the brick-maker and sees a sketch in
oils of an evil-looking, blindfolded woman carrying a torch. A picture that
symbolizes the evil ivory company that is blind to the needs of the Africans.
Marlow learns that Mr. Kurtz had painted it. A fact that indicates that Kurtz
has an understanding of the horror of imperialism. To Marlow's questions
about Kurtz, the brick maker replies that Kurtz is "an emissary of pity, and
science, and progress, and devil knows what else." He predicts that Kurtz
will quickly rise in the company because he has ideas to justify the plunder
of African resources. Marlow begins to meditate more and more on Kurtz,
who in contrast to the Europeans around him, "had come out equipped with
moral ideas of some sort."

Kurtz is further idealized

As he finds himself surrounded by European men whom he finds morally

repugnant, he begins to identify with Kurtz, the only European who seems to
have come to Africa for idealistic reasons. However, stories of Kurtz are
contradictory. Even though Kurtz is supposed to be against the Europeans'
materialistic presence in Africa, he sends back more ivory than any other
agent.
One night Marlow overhears the conversation between the Manager and his
uncle.From their conversation he Marlow comes to know about Kurtz's
idealism -- that "each station would be like a beacon on the road towards
better, things, a center for trade of course, but also for humanizing,
improving, instructing."

Marlow for the inner station

Marlow finally begins his trip up the Congo toward Kurtz's station, a long,
tedious voyage that takes two months to accomplish. He has only one goal
in mind -- to push onward to the inner station in order to meet the
mysterious Kurtz, about whom he has heard so much and with whom he
already identifies.

He describes a group of twenty African workers on his steamer, who he says

are cannibals, but who are fine men to work with. They do a good job of
pushing the steamer off sandbars and keeping the boilers burning with
wood. Marlow also considers the cannibals on board and wonders why, since
they are paid by the Manager only in thin pieces of brass wire and are not
fed, they do not attack and eat the Europeans. Perhaps the white men are
not even appealing to starving natives, or perhaps they simply have more
self-control than the white men display.

In "dark" Africa, with no policemen and no laws to prohibit certain behaviors,

the natives act out of their sense of right vs. wrong and faithfulness to
human goodness. Ironically, the white men, with their police and their laws
to control their behavior, act in inhumane and brutal ways, forsaking the
sense of right vs. wrong or human goodness.

The Manager, in particular, represents the inhumane European as he starves

the Africans on the boat and as he starves Kurtz at the Inner Station by
withholding supplies. The Manager's lies and inhumanity are repulsive to
Marlow. The manager is a common trader and symbolizes all the immorality
of European colonization. His agents have also turned ivory into a god. So
Marlow calls them faithless pilgrims and that also shows that the
cannibalistic appetite for material gain, and also the savage and dualism of
colonialism.

The statue of Kurtz falls apart

But all his idealism about Kurtz falls apart as soon as Marlow reaches the
inner station and meets a Russian. From the Russian, who is a devoted
follower of Kurtz, Marlow learns that Kurtz is a dangerous man.

The savage policy of Kurtz

As the Russian speaks to him, Marlow scans the station with his binoculars
and is startled to realize that the knobs on the upper ends of the poles are
black human skulls, a symbol of the evil side of Kurtz. Marlow tells his
listeners that the skulls indicated to him that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint, that
he had something missing from his moral fiber in spite of all his eloquence.

Marlow speculates again that Kurtz was "hollow at the core."

The Russian explains that no one can remove the skulls, for Kurtz wants
them there and he alone makes the rules and controls the place. He explains
how the chiefs of the surrounding tribes would come to see Kurtz and crawl
to him. Marlow abruptly yells for him to stop talking. Marlow tells his
listeners that he cannot understand why he finds this information more
intolerable than the sight of the skulls on the stakes, but he does. The
Russian then tries to convince Marlow that the skulls are the heads of rebels,
but Marlow does not believe him, remembering how the starving Africans on
the chain gang near the Outer Station had been casually and falsely labeled
as criminals. Even as the young Russian talks about the hideous skulls, he
defends Kurtz and says that he has been shamefully neglected at the Outer
Station, a fact that Marlow knows to be true.

The philosophy of Kurtz

Marlow then describes a report that Kurtz gave to him for safekeeping. It
was written for the International Society for the Suppression of Savage
Customs and is an eloquent argument that whites must appear to "savages"
as superhuman beings and that whites can very easily exercise great power
for the good over the natives. Scrawled at the bottom of the last page,
Marlow reads Kurtz's last instruction, apparently written much later:
"Exterminate all the brutes!" Marlow is horrified at these words, but tries to
explain them away by telling his listeners that Kurtz went insane in the end
and participated in "midnight dances ending in unspeakable rites."

Finally Marlow admits that he learned more from Kurtz that he ever wanted
to learn, for Kurtz does not live up to his pure philosophies. Kurtz has power
over the natives and his charmed them into submissiveness while elevating
himself to a godlike position.

The Manager ,more evil than Kurtz

As a sort of moral relief, Marlow turns to an idealized image of Kurtz as a

sort of ally.Marlow is repulsed by the Manager's callous pettiness, and sees
him as totally vile. He feels he is in the midst of unspeakable secrets, vast
corruption, and the darkness of impenetrable night. By contrast to the horrid
Manager, Marlow is again drawn to Kurtz as the lesser of two evils. He
admits that he has a "choice of nightmares," and he chooses Kurtz, telling
the Manager that Kurtz is a remarkable man (and, in truth, he is remarkable
to have survived this long when the evil Manager has been trying to cause
his death.). Marlow then assures the Russian that he is Kurtz's friend and
will safeguard Kurtz's reputation.

Unnecessary bloodshed by the pilgrims

The next day Marlow guides his steamer away from the Inner Station. A
large crowd of natives, estimated to be close to two thousand and including
the magnificent black woman who is Kurtz's mistress, comes out of the bush
to the shore to watch the departing vessel. They call to Kurtz in their native
tongue, which Marlow calls "some satanic litany." To avoid trouble from
them, Marlow blows the loud whistle on the steamer, which startles and
disperses the crowd except for the beautiful black mistress. She walks down
to the edge of the river and stretches her arms after the boat that is taking
her lover away. As she watches sorrowfully from shore, the Europeans on
board the boat take out their guns and fire away, probably needlessly killing
the black beauty.

The horror, symbol of colonialism

One night, when Marlow enters his cabin with a candle, he finds Kurtz
conscious and with a look full of pride, terror, and despair. He mumbles that
he is ready to die. Then at the moment of Kurtz's death, Marlow hears the
man softly cry out, "'The horror! The horror!" as if summarizing the whole of
imperialism in Africa. Here "the horror" refers to the abominable deeds he
committed out there in the jungle. Marlow blows the candle out and leaves
the room to join the Europeans in the dining room. Momentarily, he hears
the announcement from the Manager's boy, "'Mistah Kurtz--he dead." He is
buried the next day in a hole by the river.

Conrad's last chapter contains the end of all of Marlow's illusions and his
decision to act in complicity with the ideological supports of European
imperialism. Contrary to Marlow's beliefs, Kurtz does not turn out to be the
great white hope. Instead, he is totally ruthless. Kurtz, just like the other
Europeans that work for the company, has used the ideas of white
supremacy and the technology of progress to subdue the Africans in mind
and body and to take their natural resources without payment.

Though Marlow feels repugnance for the white man's greed and his brutal
inhumanity to his fellow man, yet he longs for evidence that Europeans can
display pure purpose, rational power, and benevolent dominance over Africa
and Africans. He retains notions of the supremacy of Europeans from his
own education and even when he sees evidence which refutes that
supremacy, he wishes to retain a belief in it.

Marlow can never see the Africans as fully human and he can never bring
himself fully to condemn the imperialist project in Africa. When he lies to the
Intended, he participates in the lie that says imperialism is justly supported
by sound ideals. By doing nothing to stop the devastation caused by the
imperialism in Africa, he tactfully accepts the inhumanity of mankind to its
fellow man and allows it to continue on the Dark Continent.

Thus the novel emerges as the first major work on colonialism. Being
colonized as a young boy in a Poland under Russian occupation, Conrad had
also bitter experience of colonialism. He relays these experiences through
the eyes of his character Marlow who is a riverboat captain as well. In his
Heart of Darkness he attacks colonialism directly throughout the book.
Obvious and scathing statements are made telling of the horrors of
colonialism.