"Exterminate all the brutes!" An Exploration of Alienation within Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

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Recommended: Analysis of Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

In the eyes of Conrad and his European readers of the time, the African Congo must have been seen as the complete opposite of European society, a part of a completely different planet altogether. Savage versus civilized, dark versus light - the duality of these two worlds run throughout Conrad's novella, Heart of Darkness. In that sense, a collision between worlds acts as the catalyst for all of the "horrors" in the story. Conrad does not only use this dualism to illustrate the absurdity of "progressive imperialism" - the idea that Europeans could tame this wild and foreign environment, but also as a cautionary tale to demonstrate the danger that must follow when products of two completely conflicting cultures collide.
Right from the start of the novella we see characterizations of the African and European worlds. Marlow tells his story while drifting down the Thames River, which is described as tranquil and "nearly calm". Conversely, as a British citizen Marlow describes the expedition up the Congo River as a "journey up a prehistoric earth". The juxtaposition of the two rivers is significant because it establishes Europe and Africa as two opposing cultures and paves the way for further comparisons. Similarly, Marlow introduces most characters as accountants or doctors or lawyers, denoting them by only their occupation, because he sees them as anonymous products of the society that created them. When Marlow mentions the Pilgrims or the Cannibals, the reader is instinctively reminded of the world they belong to. Their behaviour comes to characterize Europe and Africa as a whole.
For the most part Europeans and Africans tend to stay in their respective societies, but as Marlow travels deeper into the Congo, he s...

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...“” but makes no attempt to educate them. hrmmm
Perhaps Marlow's decision to lie to the Intended was in recognition that when the product of two completely different worlds collide, things start to fall apart. The Ivory of Africa corrupts the Europeans. The isolation of the wilderness removes Kurtz's restraint. Throughout the novella, Conrad also associates Europeans with being "in the dark" about the true nature of the exploitation within Africa. Perhaps Marlow, recognizing this, realizes that the dark horrors of Africa have no place in European society. It is only by lying to the Intended that Marlow prevents these two worlds from colliding once again, sparing her from a truth that would have been "too dark altogether".

Works Cited

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Ed. Judith Boss and David Widger. Chapel Hill: Project Gutenberg, 2006. eBook.

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