English 113 S1
November 22nd 2007
Apostles of Civilization and Dark Savages: Exploring the Consequences of Imperialism in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness (referred to as HoD hereafter) is the story of colonial “emissar[ies] of light” bringing the torch of civilization to the “dark content” only to find the devils of savagery within themselves (Conrad 79). Once hailed as one of these “lower sort of apostle[s]”, English seaman Charlie Marlow becomes the text’s eyes as he recollects his time in the Belgian Congo amidst the thriving ivory trade of the late 19th century (Conrad 79). I will argue that through Marlow’s brutal descriptions of Company stations in HoD, the text dispels the myth that Europe has brought the good of civilization to the African Continent when, in fact, it has brought a savage evil. HoD offers a negative view of Imperialism through Marlow’s witness of the evils of rape, pestilence and death in the Belgian Congo. I will use portions of Anne McClintock’s “'Unspeakable Secrets': The Ideology of Landscape in Conrad's Heart of Darkness”, Terrence Bower’s “Conrad’s Aeneid: Heart of Darkness and the Classical Epic” and Sung Ryol Kim’s “Witness to Death: Marlow in the Heart of Darkness” to support my view.
HoD shows the savage rape of the African landscape as Marlow arrives at the outermost station. The scene is littered with awkward mechanical carcasses and surrounded by these technological failures Marlow expresses disgust at the useless machinery defiling “reasonable” nature (Conrad 85). Anne McClintock points out that “the landscape is anthropomorphised, [and] animate” (42). Conrad gives the landscape a spirit. By making the landscape a character that both feels and expresses inner attitudes, HoD inspects the environmental consequences of company actions in a moral light. Their actions are placed on a continuum of right and wrong; of good and evil. “[A] vast artificial hole somebody had been digging on the slope, the purpose of which [Marlow] found impossible to divine” coupled with a “scar in the hillside” enforces imagery congruent with the idea of ravaging and raping the Congolese landscape (Conrad 85). This digging up and disturbing of nature is found to be of “wanton” motive and method by Marlow, who cannot see the generous introduction of technology to primitive peoples as a justification for the atrocity (Conrad 85). The acts of the Company in their attempt to bring civilized technology to uncivilized Africa result in a savage, and evil corruption of her landscape.
Still wandering about the outermost station Marlow describes the general population of natives “as in some picture of a massacre or a pestilence” (Conrad 85). The evil of European influence in the Congo is described as having the same effect as a black plague or dark disease. The text specifically dwells on the images of dead bodies: “black bones” and “bundles of acute angles” (Conrad 84). A deathbed tone engulfs Marlow’s narrative as the natives move and react as men in their final hours – “They were dying slowly, it was very clear” (Conrad 84). This slow death is not due to a natural disease or obstacle but the work of the Company and the savagery of its operators, “strong, lusty, red eyed devils, that swayed and drove men” (Conrad 83). Marlow strips bare any “sentimental pretence” of a Godly mission, or noble calling, saying all members of the company are self seeking and greedy devils (Conrad 72). The Companies’ roads are strewn with abandoned villages as if some horrible plague had come and swept the natural inhabitants away. Terence Bowers suggests that “the abandoned settlements whose inhabitants have been scared off or driven out by the Europeans—all attest to the mindless violence that pervades the imperial domains” (122). HoD thus exposes the savage means of Imperialism and its evil consequences in the Belgian Congo.
Marlow’s description of death in the innermost station condemns the actions of Kurtz, the Company, and Imperialism. At the innermost station Marlow witnesses the “ornamentation” of Kurtz’ shelters: human faces mounted on pikes, for “there was nothing on earth to prevent [Kurtz] killing whom he jolly well pleased” (Conrad 132). Marlow, specifically, finds savage evil in Kurtz’ lack of just cause. As it turns out, Kurtz did believe in a cause, stating that: “Each station should be a beacon on the road toward better things, a centre for…humanizing, improving and instructing” (Conrad 105). Kurtz brings what he believes to be the light of civilisation, but in the consequences of his method the text presents a dark evil. He abandons civilization’s ideals of law and structure, self restraint and logical observation, for a murderous campaign attempting to “exterminate all the brutes!”, “going at it blind” (Conrad 125; 72). Marlow links this evil done by Kurtz with the evil done by the company when he describes the impaled heads at Kurtz’ station “a savage sight…[in] a lightless region[,]…pure, uncomplicated savagery[,]…something that had a right to exist – obviously – in the sunshine” (Conrad 134) He binds the lusty red eyed devils of regular company members with the rapacious and weak-eyed of Kurtz in brotherhood. He points out that Kurtz is not a tragic regression of Imperialism, but rather a microcosm of it. Marlow also confirms that the natives were not “enemies”, they were not “criminals” and they were not “rebels” (Conrad 135). Their death was not in the wake of a noble war, or just cause but “murder on a grand scale” for “the taking away of the world from those with a slightly different complexion, or flatter nose” (Conrad 72). Marlow believes, however, that this act of mass murder is redeemable by an “idea” (Conrad 72). Sung Ryol Kim, when addressing the question of justification, points out that “Heart of Darkness demands that this question be asked; for its many death scenes undergird the moral framework of the novel, and the prevailing moral context of the period was full of just such questions on the legitimacy of the imperialist and racist system”. She attests that the scenes of death do demand moral justification. If justification is found, Europe may be seen as bringing the good of civilization at a high cost, still holding an upright moral position. But by Marlow’s inability to delineate, or conjure up any solid form of this grand “idea” of justification, HoD quietly condemns the meaningless death at Imperial hands as evils irredeemable by any idea, including the apostolic spread of civilization.
The unnamed narrator of HoD describes the Thames as a river on which many superior men had gone out into the darkness, often with a torch as “bearers of a great spark from the sacred fire” (Conrad 69). He alludes to Prometheus carrying the fire of gods to the dark places of the world for the betterment of all humanity; envisioning Prometheus as a symbol of Imperialism, carrying the light of civilization in an altruistic quest. Marlow undercuts this notion with his dark tale critiquing the impact of Empire. In his autobiographical account his descriptions of Company stations in the Belgian Congo express the evil consequences of Imperialism. He is appalled and horrified at the corruption of the Congo’s animate landscape when examining the outermost station. The empty villages and sickened native slaves testify to the evil acts of an Imperial plague. And ultimately the meaningless death paraded at Kurtz’, and all company, stations is left as an unjustified evil brought to the Belgian Congo in the name of Imperialism. By Marlow’s description Company stations, with rape, sickness, and death skulking in the air, HoD exposes these “promethean imperialists” to be dark apostles. They bear a savage evil into Africa, rather than the good light of civilization.
I state that all work produced here is entirely my own, that I have not previously received credit for this, and that all external assistance has been duly documented.
November 22, 2007