LITERATURE

Legacies of Empire: Racism and Imperialism in ‘Heart of Darkness’

Is ‘Heart of Darkness’ a fair critique of Western imperialism?

“They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force — nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.” ― Heart of Darkness

Much of the debate on Heart of Darkness (1902) centres around Joseph Conrad’s intentions behind the novella and whether or not it stands as a critique of Western imperialism. It seems one can never be sure of whose side Conrad is essentially on. Indeed, as E. M. Forster points out, “[Conrad] never gives himself away”.

Of course, no critical consensus has of yet been achieved regarding Conrad’s famous novella.

Racism, Achebe and a Portrait of Africa

Heart of Darkness is often accused of being a racist text that fails to accurately portray the experience of Africa.

But can it claim to be a tale about experiencing Africa?

Virginia Woolf argues the affirmative, deeming Conrad an “accurate and unflinching observer”. His ability to convey the individual experience of Africa is praised, then, by some. Yet, others would argue that he fails to do justice to the objective experience.

Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe, is one such critic who argues this case. Branding Conrad a “bloody racist”, he declares the novella to be a “grossly inadequate” portrait of African civilisation and concludes: “travellers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves”.

Achebe’s statements are reasonable to an extent, since Marlow only speaks through the filter of his own Eurocentric worldview. However, Marlow acknowledges his limitations as a narrator when he declares:

“No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence” (27).

This should settle any doubts a sceptical reader might have on his reliability as a narrator. After all, Conrad himself is warning us not to wholly trust Marlow’s account of Africa.

For Achebe, however, Marlow’s limited ability to tell the whole truth does not give Conrad license to reject the “human factor” of Africans and their culture. This is problematic as it dismisses Heart of Darkness as a defective critique of Western imperialism.

But though Achebe’s statements remain reasonable, he fails to recognise the significance of Marlow as a limited narrator.

As a modernist text, Heart of Darkness’ purpose is not to convey an ideal and comprehensive portrait of Africa, but to demonstrate the difficulty in conveying the outer world through the medium of the inner. This is a point emphasised by numerous critics, particularly Paul B. Armstrong who notes that — as a self-reflexive text — it “dramatises the impossibility of capturing the Other in writing”.

Postcolonialism and Edward Said’s “Orientalism”

Scrutinising Heart of Darkness through a postcolonial lens can offer some further insight into the ways the text explores this notion of the “Other” that Armstrong picks up on.

Edward Said’s revolutionary work, Orientalism (1978), laid the groundwork for the postcolonial movement and has since become a staple work of postcolonial discourse. It examines Western narratives of Third World cultures and the power relations that exist between the West (the Occident) and the East (the Orient/Other).

In his reading of Said’s Orientalism, philosopher Etienne Balibar explains how the identity of the Other is constructed through an “alienated Self”, with its characteristics being “inversions and distortions” of the Self.

We see this illustrated in Heart of Darkness, where the European colonisers understand the Africans as inverted mirror images of themselves; the Africans are what they are not. On first witnessing them, Marlow observes that each sports “black rags” and an “iron collar” around his neck (15). Later, when meeting the chief accountant, Marlow describes him with having a “starched collar”, “white cuffs” and “snowy trousers” (18).

The parallel Conrad sets up between the coloniser and the colonised demonstrates Said’s notion of the “alienated Self”. The Africans are portrayed as the inverted and distorted versions of the Europeans. In reality, however, they are more alike than they wish to believe.

Portrayed, then, as the alter-ego of the colonisers, Conrad is pointing out the dependency the European colonisers have on the Africans to define their sense of self. By controlling the identity of the Africans, the Europeans accordingly control their own identity; they have an identity-dependence on the Africans.

In essence, they cannot be what they are unless they have an Other to contrast themselves to.

Imperialism and the Abuse of Power

There are no shortage of remarks, then, in Heart of Darkness mocking the ideals and ideologies of Western imperialism; Marlow is certainly no blind advocate of it.

Rather, Marlow can often be found interrogating the beliefs European empires were built upon. On reflecting upon the Roman conquest, Marlow observes that:

“your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others” (7).

Marlow understands that colonisers and conquerors alike hold no inherent power of their own.

Here, he is declaring that the power European colonisers hold is contingent upon the powerlessness of the Africans. That is, their national dominion only exists because there are weaker nations for them to dominate. If such weaker nations also gained power, their dominion would cease to be.

Marlow is, in essence, drawing attention to the fact that Western empires are fundamentally built upon the abuse of power.

Heart of Darkness’ skill as a narrative comes from showcasing the destructive consequences of this abuse of imperial power. With no legally-recognised human rights and no established justice system for the Africans to appeal to, colonisers were free to act as they pleased. Crimes in other contexts no longer become applicable when committed in the unnamed continent Marlow visits.

For as one coloniser passionately declares in passing: “Anything — anything can be done in this country” (32).

Kurtz and a Modern Identity Crisis

Thus, no longer held together by the values their empire stood for, the colonisers have become the very thing which they feared they would become.

Colonialism is therefore symptomatic of the colonisers’ need to control and stabilise their national identity.

As a Modernist author, Conrad writes in response to the alienating conditions twentieth-century modernity brought on. Just how the coloniser no longer understands who he is in the depths of the alienating Congo jungle, so too does the individual in the depths of the modern concrete jungle.

Lillian Feder notes how Marlow essentially “probes the depths of his own and his nation’s conscience”. Marlow’s journey thus becomes an allegorical decent into the Western psyche — a descent into hell. The doctor that he visits before setting out is merely “shabby and careless”, with only “ink-stains” on his jacket (11). Far away from the barbarism of the continent, he is not as corrupted as those Marlow later encounters, such as the brickmaker who “feared neither God nor the devil” (28).

The various colonisers — or “agents” — we meet along Marlow’s journey form a part of this collective Western psyche. They are the “hollow men”, with each one acting as a vessel to convey the ideologies of the empire. As the foundations of this collective Western psyche break down, so too does the foundations of the coloniser’s sense of Self.

This breakdown is dramatised through Kurtz — a man whose very “soul was mad” (66). He embodies the dark reality hiding behind the façade of “elegance” Marlow finds in the other colonisers (18). His degeneration and eventual death stand for the decline and death of the empire.

As Marlow’s old Self has decayed, he must find a new Self. As “all Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz”, Kurtz is what Marlow believes his new Self must be (49). On finally discovering him, however, Kurtz is not the glorified spirit of the empire he is expecting to find, but rather a “withered [and] spoiled fool” with “no restraint” (51).

Marlow’s failure to find his Self is the ultimate crisis of the novella. This failure is, in essence, the failure of Europe to achieve the epitome of a civilised nation.

So, is Heart of Darkness a fair critique of Western imperialism?

Whether or not Conrad intended to create a racist depiction of Africa is unfortunately something we will never be sure of. Achebe’s statements — though wanting — are not to be disregarded. To dismiss the text entirely on the grounds of racism, however, is unfair.

Heart of Darkness is a tragic tale about the failings of European civilisation during the twentieth century and of its many empires. It illustrates a modern identity crisis that goes beyond the boundaries of all empires.

In the words of Paul B. Armstrong, however, it is ultimately a “calculated failure” to critique Western imperialism.

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua, ‘An Image of Africa’, Research in African Literatures 9, 1 (1978), 1–15.

Balibar, Etienne, ‘Difference, Otherness, Exclusion’, Parallax 11, 1 (Leeds, England, 2005), 19–34.

Bendle, Mervyn F., ‘The Crisis of “Identity” in High Modernity’, The British Journal of Sociology 53, 1 (2002), 1–18.

Conrad, Joseph, and Paul B. Armstrong, Heart of Darkness, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006).

Feder, Lillian, ‘Marlow’s Descent into Hell’, Nineteenth-Century Fiction 9, 4 (1955), 280–292.

Forster, E. M., Abinger Harvest, (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1963).

Said, Edward W., Orientalism, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978).

Woolf, Virginia, The Common Reader, (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1925).

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