Heart of Darkness by Joseph Comrad

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Recommended: Literary analysis of heart of darkness

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad informs us about the Kurtz who first long for bringing light to the natives in African ends up exploits the natives by killing the natives who does not listen to him through the eyes of a 32 years old sailor, Marlow. After I read the novel, I agree that Conrad did show his sympathy towards the native. On the other hand, via Marlow, Conrad also narrates the native in the Africa through his Eurocentric point of view.
According to Lajiman (2011), “Eurocentrism is constituted by “beliefs that postulate past or present superiority of Europeans over non-Europeans.” Eurocentrism can be said to develop out of Orientalism as a body of knowledge of the West about the East while always maintaining European culture on the higher civilisational scale.” For example, the Company in the novel believed that they are great, superior and more civilize compared to the native in Africa. “In the discourse of Orientalism, the Orient was immoral and it was the “white man’s burden’, as Rudyard Kipling famously put in, to improve the Orients’s morals.” (Sharp, 2009, Page 20). The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language defines “white man’s burden” as the supposed or presumed responsibility of white people to govern and impart their culture to nonwhite people, often advanced as a justification for European colonialism. Therefore, the Company proclaims and ingrains their propaganda into the minds of European saying that it is their duty to go to Africa and bring “light” to civilize the natives. However, the Company who portrayed as good and “white” actually do the opposite in Africa. In fact, they violated the land and the natives in the name of greed. From here, we can see the ambiguity the Conrad plays her...

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...ut it is more on his Eurocentric point of view when he narrates the “Heart of Darkness”. In “Heart of Darkness”, for me, I think that Conrad is more on his people side and being racist towards the Africans as we can see very clearly while Marlow is defending Kurtz by saying that what he saw in Africa cannot all be blamed on one man.

Works Cited

Conrad,J. (1995). Heart of Darkness. London:Penguin.
Lajiman Janoory. (2011). Colonial Prientalism, Racism and Gender: An Overview. Selangor:
Seri Kembangan, Universion Press Sdn Bhd.
Moran, D. (2000). Cliff Notes Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and “The Secret Sharter”. New
York.
Sharp,J,P. (2009). Geographies of Postcolonialism: Spaces of Power and Representation.
Wiltshire: Trowbridge, The Cromwell Press Ltd.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. (2000).
Houghton Mifflin Company.

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