Heart of Darkness and Imperialism

 ECONOMIC PROJECT AT THE HEART OF IMPERIALISM:

 Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness presents a picturesque narration of the prevalent colonial practices. Although Conrad never explicitly criticizes the system, or the imperialistic system in the manner which was necessary, but simultaneously the poignant depiction of the disastrous experiences of the natives of Congo, as a result of colonial invasion in the novella.

  Conrad told his publisher in 1899, that the idea of the novella was the ‘criminality of insufficiency and pure selfishness when tackling the ‘civilizing work of Africa’ and the ‘subject of our time distinctly’ though ‘not topically treated.’ Beatrice Webb noted in her diary, about the novella, on 25th June 1897,

‘Imperialism is in the air!-all classes drunk with sightseeing and hysterical loyalty, and it was this atmosphere which bent Conrad’s art in the direction of colonialism in Africa and which somewhat later provoked him to attack the ‘idiotic ‘ Boer war.’ We can quote Ford Madox Ford’ observation to define imperialism, which he makes in the novella, that-when it was written, a certain vividness from its fierce lashing at the unspeakable crew that exploited the natives in the Congo.’ It delivers concrete documentation of the exploitation in Belgian Colony, Congo, and ‘transforms a personal experience into a myth about imperial decadence.’

 From the post colonial perspective, the Eurocentric sense of superiority, in the ruling class resulted in their belief that Western culture is superior to other cultures. The quintessence of the fact is Rudyard Kipling’s poem, The White Man’s Burden’: The United States and Philippine Island, published in McClure’s Magazine in 1899. It was propaganda for white people who are made to believe that it is their sacred duty to uplift the native people of their colony, culturally and socially. The poem expressed European ethnocentrism in an awkwardly explicit way.

   The exploitation, in the name of developing an economic project for the betterment of the native people has been unraveled by the author of the novella, through the perspective of the narrator, Charlie Marlow. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of darkness, the protagonist; Charlie Marlow joins a Belgian Trading Company. Marlow was appointed to the post, in which a fellow, named Fresleven worked previously. Conrad provides a minutely detailed picture of the company that occupies the pivotal position in the entire imperialistic system. The Belgian Colony, Congo was the hub of the ivory trade, where the company offices were established and workers and officers were employed to ensure feasibility. In this project, hard taskmasters were recruited to run the system smoothly. Most of the time, the workers were forced to do excessive hard work, though not paid properly or even remained unpaid. The deprived workers had nowhere to complain as there was no labour union formed to secure their rights. The entire system was intentionally constructed in such a manner to extract maximum profit out of the project. Precisely, it was a mere profit-driven enterprise, lucrative enough for the company to resort to torture and extortion in order to garner more profit. Men were sent to conquer territories for the profit of the organization. The French men were fighting against the natives to suppress unrest of any sort. Mr. Kurtz's character has been portrayed to substantiate the fact that the roots of corruption are not easy to be eradicated. Kurtz belongs to the African Community. He is admired and revered by his tenants. He worships ivory, as a god, takes part in savage rituals of the community and yet extorts them, unlawfully stores ivory for his own profit, and eventually, at the end of his report conclusively states to 'exterminate the brutes.'

  The notion of imperialism and jingoism were extensively discussed when Conrad started writing Heart of Darkness. Therefore, he utilized them to demonstrate the decadence of a Belgian colony. The novella  is a portrait of moral condemnation, corruption embellished with variegated images of Africa. We can conclude with Conrad's words-' the vilest scramble for loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience and geographical exploration.'

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Flowering Tree: A Woman's Tale by A.K. Ramanujan from an Ecofeminist perspective

  Ecofeminism or ecological feminism is a form of literary criticism stemmed from Feminism that explores the relations and similarities between woman and nature. The term was coined by French feminist   Francoise d’ Eaubonne in 1974.Ecofemism approach   aims to detect a certain similitude regarding the ill-treatment and oppression done by the patriarchal society in case of both women and nature. Women are as subjugated, exploited, and exploited by the phallocentric society as the environment, more precisely, the Mother Nature.   In the story of A Flowering Tree , ‘a sisterhood between a woman and a tree’ has been established subtly by the author who presented a metaphorical tale under the translucent cover of a folklore. The entire story reiterates the fact that one should treat a delicate flowering tree and woman with utmost care. There is also an implication that suggests a similarity between a flowering tree and a childbearing woman. The metaphorical ‘flowering tree’ is adroitl
Read more

Freedom to the Slave by H.L.V. Derozio:

About the poet: Henry Louis Vivian Derozio  (18 April 1809 – 26 December 1831) was an Indian  teacher  and assistant headmaster of Hindu College, situated in Kolkata,  a radical thinker who played crucial role in the Renaissance of Bengal and one of the first Indian educators to introduce Western learning and science among the young men of  Bengal . He was witnessing the tyranny of slavery, prevailing in the colonial India, part of which he adroitly reflected in the poem. About the poem: In this poem, the poet-persona expresses his notion of the true value of freedom to a slave. Only when human beings are free from the shackles of slavery, they can perceive the aesthetic aspects of life and human existence. To a slave, freedom is the feeling of being treated with the dignity that a man truly deserves. The poet persona imagines how the slave will feel, when he will be informed that he is no longer a slave. Receiving the news of his newly acquired freedom, his heart beats proudl
Read more

Sylvia Plath’s Mirror: Summary and Critical Appreciation

Sylvia Plath’s Mirror : Summary and Critical Appreciation    The poem is not at all enigmatic about its speaker as the very first line reveals the identity of the speaker-‘I am silver and exact’. In this poem the mirror describes its existence and its owner who grows older as the mirror watches. The first stanza describes the mirror, which seems to be like one of those people who don’t tell white lies-it’s truthful and exact but not cruel. The mirror describes itself as silver and exact. It is not judgemental about anybody but merely swallows what it perceives and reflects it back without any alteration. It considers itself a four cornered eye  of God, which sees everything for what it is .Most of the time the mirror looks across the empty room and meditates on the pink speckled wall  It has looked at the wall for so long that it describes the wall as ‘part of my heart’. The image of the wall is interrupted only by people who enter to look at themselves and the darkness that come
Read more