Western Colonialism by Joseph Conrad and An Image of Africa by Chinua Achebe

This essay will aim to substantiate Joseph Conrad’s critique of western colonialism and in doing so to simultaneously defend it against Chinua Achebe’s An Image of Africa. The reason for a focus on the latter is to ensure that Heart of Darkness cannot be misconstrued as a validation of western colonialism, as for that to be the case Conrad would have to be, as Achebe claims, “a thoroughgoing racist” .

Conrad presents to his audience a metaphorical journey into the Heart of Darkness, represented by the Congo, in order to illustrate his views on the colonialistic endeavours of the west. Assuming Imperialism is “A policy of extending a country’s power and influence”,[ Oxford English Dictionary] Colonialism is thus a subcategory whereby a country engages in“The policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically”.[ Ibid] As Marlow advances deeper towards the heart of the Congo, a story unfolds detailing the progression of colonialism. At first he encounters a French man-of-war “firing into a continent” (p.15), representing the initial, often quite aggressive, takeover. He then ventures on and finds the manager of the first station, a “flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly.” (p.18) This is an allusion to the superficiality of colonialism, a sharp critique of its vast failings to care for their fellow man. Yet it is what he says next about this devil that hints at this continuing journey of colonialism: “insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles further.”(p.18) It is here he discovers the central station, where the natives have been enslaved beyond the point of...

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...rible scene of human suffering, of “disease and starvation” (p.19), that he would go on to describe as “intolerable and appalling” (p.20). Whilst these scenes comment on the circumstances Europe has inflicted upon the natives, it is through Kurtz that he renders his most vivid critique on western colonialism. Kurtz is used as a figure to represent the future of colonialism, and it is in his final moments that he renders an ultimate verdict. Kurtz is considered a “first class agent” (p.22) by his peers; these are the “flabby devils” (p.24) who look at where colonialism is going and consider it a bright future. So when he “pronounces a judgment upon the adventures of his soul” (p.91) as he lay on his deathbed, it should perhaps strike the reader to wonder why. Kurtz is used as a figure of judgment who fails to realise until it is to late the sort person he has become.