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Blindness And Lack Of Morality In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

1392 Words6 Pages

Kareem Mansour
IB1 HL English
Mr. Key
Blindness and Lack of Morality
Joseph Conrad’s s novel “Heart of Darkness” portrays an abominable image of Africa that is outlined with darkness, gloominess and inhumanity. At Conrad’s time, the idea of exploration and colonization was flourishing. The phenomenon of exploration and expedition of the unknown has influenced Joseph Conrad’s views as he wrote the “Heart of Darkness”. Colonialism was known to be the norm, and not many people saw anything amiss. From a European point of view, the natural next step of any powerful European nation’s political agenda is embarking on voyages of exploration and colonialism. The European Colonizers were pitiless towards the neglected natives as they were nothing but …show more content…

As Marlow goes deeper into the heart of the continent, Conrad’s depiction of Africa is infused with a sense of fear loathing and abomination coupled with a sense that there is some dire evil at work; a malevolent force that carries out the acts of inhumanity. Illustrations of Joseph Conrad’s don’t only focus on Africa as a continent but also carries on the physical and mental characterization of the natives. The author describes Marlow’s first encounter with an African ceremony as, “a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes rolling” (Joseph 57). Joseph Conrad goes portrays Marlow’s reaction to this somewhat bewildering frenzy of the natives “as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in a madhouse” (Joseph 58). Conrad’s description of these people shows them as deranged, frenzied, and intense feverish savages, not an image any modern day western writer would dare to warm up to. Nor could his English speaking readers understand the natives to be nothing but animate beasts and fascinating embodiments of sorrow. Joseph Conrad continues to reveal the ignorance of white men towards the African continent, as he depicts Africans as though they are “the other”, not to be considered as civilized human counterparts, but rather as brutes ready to be enslaved for a “better” cause. The impaired ideology of men and women alike agreed on this representation of the black race, yet they are heedless towards their certainly horrifying capacity to brutally yet ineffectively ameliorate an entire

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The book serves as a sharp contrast with the deception of Colonists as well as a symbol of solid realness within a fantastical dream where truth is impossible. When describing the book, Marlow’s diction are highly positive, using words like “honest”, “humble” and “simple”. The direct expression and singleness of intention serves as a contrast with the lies the Colonists tell to conceal the reality in Africa. Europeans justify their bloodthirsty conquest as something they did for a greater cause. In 1876, at the Geographical Conference on Central Africa, King Leopold justified “To open to civilization the only part of our globe which it has not yet penetrated, to pierce the darkness which hangs over entire peoples, is, I dare say, a crusade worthy of this century of progress” (Cleary).

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The novel has, however, also been analyzed from a great many other perspectives, these include feminist and gothic perspectives. The novella also showed the dark side of the European mission to civilize Africa and the darkness potentially inherent in all humans’ hearts. It was called Heart of Darkness and it depicted Marlow a sailor who recounts his voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State. This critical response will explore ho changes to the novella like being written in recent history may change the perspective of different groups in society, and how it can change the victims and the audience of the novella.

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Ignorance of another's personal values or situation results in an impassable schism between the two parties. People fail to understand each other, and as such, they regard each other in lower lights. In “Heart of Darkness”, Joseph Conrad, through Marlow, writes his novella through a lense of ignorance and the perspective of the typical white person of the time in order to relate his story to the reader. Marlow and the accountant are contrasted with Kurtz to display the effects of evil on an individual.

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I concur with the opinion that Joseph Conrad’s portrayal of Africans is considered racist due to how Conrad merely describes and portrays their characters. Most if not all their descriptions and actions are flat descriptions of how the Africans are barbaric or monstrous. For example, while describing an encounter with the Africans Conrad writes “When one had got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages- hate them to death.” Rather than discuss the Africans reasons for defending themselves from European imperialism, he portrays them as savages. I disagree with the idea that Joseph Conrad’s portrayal of Africa and Africans is racist due to the fact that this is a narrative based off of other information or rather, and other narrative.

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As such, it can be said that the novel seeks to represent the Blacks of Africa as lowlife beings, prehistoric barbarians and savage creatures that have no rights to say anything for themselves. However, Conrad also shows a flipside to the typical ideology of Whites being superior to Blacks by representing the Blacks as a strong and restrained group of people, confined only due to helplessness. In the novel, the natives of Africa are first introduced with the use of animal imagery. The sentence “A lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants,” describes the Africans that were building the railroad.

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In the novel, Heart of Darkness, the reader experiences Marlow’s story from the eyes of a emblematic imperialist. Authority and the inner workings within European exploitation convey the abuse of the tribal communities of Africa. Marlow’s story is an investigation into the ethical concerns of trading through coercion. On Marlow’s journey, he experiences the dehumanization of Africa and the darkness that pervades over humanity. While traveling through the Congo, Marlow reflects on the abuse of African Americans around him.

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Conrad uses examples of order and chaos throughout his novel to aid in the delivery of the differentiation of the truth of human nature and the sham of civilization. In these examples, order represents civilization and chaos represents the wilderness of Africa. When Marlow finally left the central station to retrieve Mr. Kurtz, he and his crew stop at an abandoned cottage in the middle of the jungle where a European once lived and noticed an old book on the table. Marlow says, “Not a very enthralling book; but at the first glance you could see the singleness of intention, an honest concern for the right way of doing work, . . . The simple od sailor, with is talk of chains and purchases, made me forget about the jungle and the pilgrims in a delicious sensation of having come upon something unmistakably real” (78).

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