The Meaning of Heart of Darkness in the Post-Colonial Climate
Since its publication in 1899, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness has rarely been disputed on the basis of its literary merits; in fact, it was long seen as one of the great novels of the burgeoning modern era, a sort of bridge between the values and storytelling styles of the waning Victorian period and those of the modern era (Gatten), and regarded a high-ranking space amidst the great literature of the century, if not the millennia (Mitchell 20). Conrad’s literary masterpiece manages references to other great literature, universal themes which cut to the heart of philosophical questions of the innate goodness or evil of man, and historical references such as the Belgium and Roman empires (Kuchta 160), among other accomplishments, and so has garnered a lexicon all its own in the annals of literary criticism, debate, and analysis.
Much consideration given Heart centers around a pivotal concern of the era in which it was written: that of what, in hindsight, were the early death rattles of the heyday of European colonialism, specifically in Africa. There is some debate amongst critics as to whether the novel, ultimately, is a morality tale about human greed, power, and evil (one could toss in deceit, cowardice, and a host of psychological considerations as well), or more a sociological commentary upon the morality of colonialism and imperialism from the point of view of a highly disillusioned expatriate turned agent for the empire, turned anti-imperialist (the character of Marlow in the novel: Conrad himself, in spite of his best efforts to disguise his input behind characterization) (Films for Humanities and Sciences). The truth is almost certainly, ...
... middle of paper ...
...erald. Teaching the Politics of Heart of Darkness. An Introduction to Literature. Terry, Joseph. New York, NY: Longman, 2001. 1691-1692
Kuchta, Todd. “Envisioning Africa: Racism and Imperialism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness.” Victorian Studies 44 (1 October, 2001): 159.
Mitchell, Angus. “New Light on the ‘Heart of Darkness.’” History Today December 1999: p20-28.
Mwikisa , Peter. “Conrad's image of Africa: Recovering African voices in Heart of Darkness.” Mots Pluriels: April 2000.
Ngugi Wa Thingó. Writers in Politic: A Re-engagement with Issues in Literature and Society. Revised and enlarged ed. Nairobi, Oxford and Portsmouth: James Currey,East African Educational Publishers and Heinemann, 1981.
Zeger, Barry. “Sometimes a Cigar is a Large Black Phallus.” Spy Magazine; July/August 1996: 13.
Watts, Cedric. 'Heart of Darkness.' The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Ed. J.H. Stape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. 45-62.
After exploring the backgrounds of Joseph Conrad and Alan Paton, we realize the differences in their upbringings and how that may have had an effect on their outlooks of Africa. These authors grew up in completely different settings in completely different time periods; Joseph Conrad in a predominantly white area amongst those who would be the colonists of Africa in the future, and Alan Paton in the Africa itself amongst those who the colonization affected most greatly. These factors contribute to the different viewpoints that are apparent in their respective works. From analyzing the content of their writings, it is apparent that, although, both authors have the same overall opinion of colonialism, these opinions are due to two very different reasons.
Joseph Conrad’s s novel “Heart of Darkness” portrays an image of Africa that is dark and inhuman. Not only does he describe the actual, physical continent of Africa as “so hopeless and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness”, (Conrad 2180) as though the continent could neither breed nor support any true human life. Conrad lived through a time when European colonies were scattered all over the world. This phenomenon and the doctrine of colonialism bought into at his time obviously influenced his views at the time of “Heart of Darkness” publication. Very few people saw anything amiss with colonialism in Africa and the African people. From a Eurocentric point of view, colonialism was the natural next-step in any powerful countries political agenda. The colonizers did not pay heed to the native peoples in their territories, nor did they think of the natives as anything but savages. In the “Heart of Darkness”, Joseph Conrad uses Marlow to contradict the acts of man and the destruction they brought forth to Africa and their people. Conrad shows, through fiction, that the blindness and lack of morality in Africa allowed for the release of the darkness from the hearts of the colonists.
“An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness,” by Chinua Achebe, addresses the issue of racism as seen throughout Joseph Conrad's work. There is a certain degree of subtlety that Achebe uses to begin to confront the racism issue, but as the story goes on it is easy to tell his opinion. Achebe states his opinion not only on Heart of Darkness but also makes clear his opinion concerning Conrad by the end of the essay. The tone in “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness” changes dramatically from start to finish.
Watts, Cedric. Conrad's Heart of Darkness: A Critical and Contextual Discussion. Milan: Mursia International, 1977.
Achebe, Chinua. An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness. New York: Wylie Agency, 2006. Print.
* Conrad, Joseph. “Heart of Darkness” in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, M.H. Abrams, general editor. (London: W.W. Norton, 1962, 2000)
Gerard Manley Hopkins was an innovator whose poetry was not published until decades after his death. Hopkins was born in Stratford, Essex, which is near London. He attended Balliol College, University of Oxford. While attending the university, Hopkins was sporadically occupied with verse writing. His passion for religion becomes clearly evident during this time through his poems. His poems revealed a very Catholic character, most of them being abortive, the beginnings of things, ruins and wrecks, as he called them. (Gardner 6) In 1866, he converted to Roman Catholicism, during the Oxford movement. John Henry Newman received him into the Roman Catholic Church. He left Oxford to become a priest, and entered the Jesuit Order in 1868. This is the time when Gerard Manley Hopkins presented a conflict of a man torn between two vocations, religion and the aesthetic world. He also presented a heroic struggle of a man who was so dedicated to one profession that he deliberately sacrificed another profession based on the belief that God willed it to be so.
Hines, R. D. (1991). The FASB’s conceptual framework, financial accounting and the maintenance of the social world. Accounting organizations and society, 16(4), 313-331.
It was not until 1975 when Chinua Achebe gave his famous lecture, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” that the issue of race was tackled head on in Conrad’s work. It is this lecture that has become the cornerstone of writing and criticism of Heart of Darkness. It would be hard to find an essay since then that doesn’t in some way discuss or acknowledge Achebe’s essay. Even critic’s who do not use take into account historical or auto-biographical details of a work, such as Miller, have written responses to Achebe. In Miller’s essay “Should we read Heart of Darkness” he discusses, in his own way, the essence of Achebe’s argument that the novella should not be read because of it’s racist undertones. On critic has even gone on to say that Achebe’s essay has become a work included in the literature canon.
Colonialism and Beyond in Chinua Achebe's An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness, No Longer at Ease, Things Fall Apart, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Emmanuel Nelson's Chinua Achebe, Postcolonial African Writers, Willene Taylor's A Search for Values in Things Fall Apart, Colin Turnbull's he Lonely African
In “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness," Achebe takes note of the ways that Conrad degrades Africans by reducing their religious practices to misconceptions, belittling their complex geography to just a single mass of jungle, telling them to remain in their place, and taking away their capability of speaking. Achebe criticizes Joseph Conrad for his racist stereotypes towards the people of Africa. Achebe also sensibly labels these stereotypes and shows that Africa is, in fact, a rich land full of intelligent people who are, in fact, very human. Works Cited Achebe, Chinua. JSTOR.com - "The New York Times" Indiana University Press, 1978.
Jackson,, Marques. "Diabetes Effects on Society | EHow.com." EHow | How To Do Just About Everything! | How To Videos & Articles. Web. 27 Feb. 2011. .
An Image of Africa Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad has been depicted as “among the half-dozen greatest short novels in the English language.” Chinua Achebe believes otherwise. In Chinua Achebe’s An Image of Africa: Racism is Conrad’s Heart of Darkness he simply states that, “Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist” [pg.5]. Achebe argues that the racist observed in the Heart of Darkness is expressed due to the western psychology or as Achebe states “desire,” this being to show Africa as an antithesis to Europe.
Achebe, Chinua. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Heart of Darkness: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Essays in Criticism. 3rd ed. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. New York: W.W. Norton, 1988. 251-262.