Heart of Darkness. The controversy sti!

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364 IAN WAIT HEART OF DARKNESS AND RACISM 365
presence? And what are we to make of a " d" ,
herent properties, and they have a structural, rather than a merely b ' f goo entIty I'k
I' ecommg, 0 all things, a controlling part of a "bad" I ~ a heart
illustrative, function.
ness? Heart of DaTkness was a fateful event in th h' one lIke dark
The analogy is equally close as regards subject matter. Heart of
and t.o announce it Conrad hit upon as hauntin e thlstory of fictionj
Darkness shares many of the characteristic preoccupations and
struslve, an oxymoron as Baudelaire h d f g, o~gh not as ob
themes of the French Symbolists: the spiritual voyage of discovery, du Mal,6 a or poetry WIth Les Fleurs
especially through an exotic jungle landscape, which was a com
• • •
mon symbolist theme, in Baudelaire's "Le Voyage" and Rimbaud's
"Bateau ivre/' for instancej the pervasive atmosphere of dream,
nightmare, and hallucination, again typical of Rimhaud; and the
HUNT HAWKINS
very subject of Kurtz also recalls, not only Rimbaud's own spectac
ular career, but the typical symbolist fondness for the lawless, the
depraved, and the extreme modes of experience. , Heart of Darkness and Racismt
More generally, we surely sense in Heart of Darkness Conrad's
supreme effort to reveal, in Baudelaire's phrase about Delacroix, In 1975 in a speech at the Uni ' f
"the infinite in the finite."4 This intention is suggested in Conrad's Image of Africa" Ch' A h bvemty 0 Massachusetts titled "An
. " ,mua c e e declared Conrad
H
title, The Symbolist poets often used titles which suggested a much raCIst. He has repeated this ch' " was a bloody
S 1 arge m an artIcle m the T L
larger and more mysterious range of implication than their work's ary upp ement in 1980, a lecture in London' 19 tmes iter
overt subject apparently justified-one thinks of the expanding ef the University of Texas in 1998 d . . m 90, a speech at
. . ' an m passmg reference . I
fect of T, S, Eliot's The Waste Land, for example, or of The Sacred IDte~e:vs. The original speech was ublished ism severa
Wood. This centrifugal suggestion was sometimes produced by an RemetV m 1977 and in a revised ~ . 198 8n The Massachusetts
obtrusive semantic gap-a coupling of incongruous words or im tion of essays Hopes and Impedt' mveerntsslOans wme II t hetihn' Adc hde"b e's collec-
ages that forced us to look beyond our habitual expectations; there Norton Heart of Darkness Since th 't h bITe IlIon of the
, f' . en I as een reprinted
is, for instance, the initial puzzling shock of the titles of two of the times, 0 ten m conjunction with C d' many
great precursive works of symbolism which appeared in 1873, Rim novel Things Fall Apart is also now f~~ra s lnovella. Ac.hebe's own
sti!~~n~; ~~~:~:'gI~ed
baud's Une Saison en enf er, and Tristan Corbiere's "Les Amours Heart of Darkness. The controversy lnext. to
jaunes."5 gone on for three decades and shows no signs of a~ /c ~at~on
Compared with the particularity of Conrad's earlier and more a standard topic for school assi nments d a mg. t as
~as fostfe~ed
traditional titles, such as Almayer's Folly or The Nigger of the "Nar impression that racism is the main orgeven th ann!
cissus", Heart of Darkness strikes a very special note; we are some pOItarlce' C d' k ' e 0 y, Issue 0 Iffi-
studi:~ wh~~r~e sd:vort' Ironically, it has given new life to Con-
how impelled to see the title as much more than a combination of " n mg 0 narrow thern.
two stock metaphors for referring to "the centre of the Dark Conti An Imahg e oldf Africa ",A. c h e b e comes close to saying that Heart
nent" and ((a diabolically evil person." Both of Conrad's nouns are (,s ou cease bemg taught. Mter noting that it has been
densely charged with physical and moral suggestions; freed from '''aluateads permanent literature-read and taught and I
the restrictions of the article, they combine to generate a sense of .• , by seriou d·" h constant y
, "TSonalizes ~ aca femhlcs, e asks whether a novel "which de-
II puzzlement which prepares us for something beyond our usual ex ..... a portion? t e human race, can be called a eat
pectation: if the words do not name what we know, they must be of art. My answer IS: No, it cannot" Finallv he ob' t gr
IItod h . Jec s agamst
III asking us to know what has, as yet, no name. The more concrete of ay p~r aps the most commonly pJ'r escribed novel in
the two terms, "heart," is attributed a strategic centrality within a WellIA:ielhh"bcelou;ri literature courses." In his later interviews how-
I ' formless and infinite abstraction, "darlmess"; the combination de 200~ ~ e 'd b clear he isn't calling for censorship. For e~ample
fies both visualisation and logic: How can something inorganic like e sal a out Heart of Darkness, "I am not Ayatollah Kho-
I
I darkness have an organic centre of life and feeling? How can a '
III shapeless absence of light compact itself into a shaped and pulsing Th.e .flowers of evil (French). [Editor]
Ongmal version published "Th I
14.3 (1982): 163-71; u da~;d and :x~ue ~f RaCIS~ in Heart of Darkness," Conradiana
Norton Critical Edition PRe rinted b ensl~elJ.' reVIsed by the author especia:Jly for this
1'1 4. Oeuvres completes, ed. Ruff (Paris, 1968), p. 404. , are the author's. . p y penOlSSlOn of Texas Tech University Press. Notes
I 5. A Season i.n Hell and "The Yellow Loves" (both French). [Editor]
I'
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1,1 ,
, I,
I I
366 HUNT HAWKINS HEART OF DARKNESS AND RACISM
367
· d 'bl'vein b annm. g books , but they should be read carefully balanced picture of an African culture. Moreover, it pro
meinl. I on t fr e Ie t' the novel b anned, I t eahc it. " I Indeed, vides a context for, if it does not exactly condone, some practices
carefully. Far om wan Inhg t' that readers are passive re~
h' eds on t e assump IOn . , that Conrad presents as savage and disturbing. The human sacri
censors Ip proce d h' h uld stimulate active, cntIcal
ceptacles whereas goo teac ~nDg s kO ess such reading is especially fice of Ikemefuna is dictated by the Oracle. And Okonkwo has
d· I the case of Heart DJ ar n . brought home five human heads from war, drinking from one on
rea mg. n .. h a dense complex text. On many tOPICS,
great occasions. For many years Conrad's Heart of Darkness may
important beca~se It IS s~c h t ar'e multiple, ambiguous, ambiva~
including race, It offers ~ews t a ultimately incoherent. well have been the only book set in Africa that students were as
signed. Thus it is important that they read Things Fall Apart and
lent, confli~ting: an~ per ~ps :"::h of Heart of Darkness dehuman~
other works to get a fuller, more accurate portrayal.
Achebe IS qUIte rIght t at M I w often uses frankly deroga~
Afrj Conrad's narrator, ar 0 , h h It would be a mistake, nonetheless, to read Achebe, any more
izes cans.. .' them At various points in t e story e
than Conrad, as representing all of the cultures and situations on
torf y languthag e IIaIs d"essacvnbaIglels~ , (mI'g g•e rs, )) and ((rudimentary sobu lhs ." .H e the continent. Achebe's Ibo live at approximately the same time but
re ers to em '. t their appearance or e aVlOr:
applies the following ~~jeci t~;~~fi °d' h" and "satanic." Achebe's more than a thousand miles from the upper Congo depicted by
"horrid" ug y en IS , h h Conrad. Therefore, it would be wrong simply to see Things Fall
i< grotesque, )) , , "t ems with Africans w ose u-
Apart as the truth concealed behind Heart of Darkness, When Con
1980 article notes that the stbory e dermined by the mind-
· . d 'tted in theory ut tota lly un . rad visited the upper Congo in 1890, it had been devastated by both
mamty IS a ~I d the retty explicit animal Imagery
P Belgian exploitation and thirteen years of Arab slaving run by Tippo
lessness of Its contexlt ~n I' 't nimal comparisons are with
d' 't"2 Marows explCi a , f rib, a coastal trader whom Henry M. Stanley had transported to
saunrtsro, uhny emnags , 1h .o rses, an d_ b ees. Thus th. e image Conrad projects 0 Stanley Falls (Conrad's ((Inner Station"). Thus the tribes of the
African life can hardly be called flattenng. region-specifically, the Bangala, the Balolo, the Wangata, the
* • * Ngombe, the Bapoto, and the Babango-were a great deal more dis
. h b observes that Africans are barely pres- ordered and violent than tribes in other parts of Africa. When
In a related pomt, Ac e e C d' stOl"V none of the African
· H rt if Darkness In onra s ~ j) George Washington Williams visited in the same year as Conrad, he
ent m ea 0 vVtth the exception of Kurtz's mistress_: no was appalled by the Belgians and became the first total opponent
characters has a name. h We do not go mto
African appears for more than a futhll P~:~~~~n 'from their point of of King Leopold's regime. But at the same time he was shocked by
h . d f ny Africans to see e SI f 'd the Africans. In an open letter of protest to Leopold, Williams re
t e mm s 0 alb' g limited to a total of our pi _ that ((Cruelties of the most astounding character are prac
view. In fact, they barely sPbea <., 'demth t Conrad failed to portray
, It might e sal a I by the natives, such as burying the slaves alive in the grave of
gm sentences. little of their culture, having spent ess
dead chief." He also said, "Between 800 and 1,000 slaves are sold
Africans because he knew tl in the company of white
h . ths in the Congo, mos Y I be eaten by the natives of the Congo State annually.)J Thus, al
tm eann, SaInXd m W~Int hout knowI e d ge 0 f any African. langusa ghee. Idno ehsi sg nivoev ein -s Williams denounced the cruelty of Leopold's soldiers, one
t in the Far East where he spent some SIX ye~r , h " complaints against the regime was, ironically, that it was "de
sdeiv idual portraits. , StiI ,II'l l hI'S 1896 story sekti m t e . in the moral, military, and financial strength necessary to
f p )) Conrad does have spea ng, "3
Outpost 0 rogr~ss, d of such characters in ,
And he imaginatIvel~ crea~es ~zer:s here he spent less than is uncertain to what extent Conrad may have witnessed any
tromo, his novel set III ~atm d e~lCa w d neglect of Africans ' practices. He made no mention of them in his Congo diaries,
k So his comparatIVe re uction an he did later tell Arthur Symons, "I sawall those sacrilegious
wee . h b en deliberate.
Heart of Darkness r:n~st a:r; he t his Things Fall Apart as a "4 Unlike most other Europeans, however, Conrad did not
such rites, even conceived at their worst, as a justification for
Achebe has exphcltl~ SaI e WIO e b t it also answers Heart
I t Joyce Cary's Mtster Jo h nson, u f lb' subjugation. In a protest letter sent to Roger Casement in
PD aYr kn0 ess. A c h e b e )s nove1 about the British t.a keover a an o.
lage at the end of the nineteenth century gIVes a "
Washington Williams, "An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Leopold II," in
I,h" U", Franklin, George Washil1gton Williams: A Biography (Chicago: U of Chicago
1. Quoted I. n M aYd Ja ggl',' 'Ston'l}t-eller of the Savannah: P rof il e 0 f Chinua Achebe, 248 [see thc selection in this Norton Critical Edition].
2. GCuhainrduiaaAn c(h1e8b Ne,o "vVemiewbepro i2n0~t,, O)T..u nes L~' te rary Supplement , 1 February 1980, 113. "A CSietyt ,o Nf YS:i xD" oinub Ale dCaoyn, rDado rMane,m 1o9ri2a9l) ,L ipb, ra1r7y0· , The Collection of George
368 HUNT HAWKINS
HEART OF DARKNE{;, JS AND .nl lA. CISM
1903 as a contribution to the fledgling Congo refonn movement) hI·S artI.e I e "T h e Origin of H R 369
Conrad declared, published in 1864 W. 11 uman aces and the Antiquity of M "
. I ,a ace argues that 0 . h an
Barbarism per se is no crime deserving of a heavy visitation; surVlva and natural selection I!the b wmg .to t e struggle for
and the Belgians are worse than the seven plagues of Egypt in~ aUf race would therefore iner' ~tter and hIgher specimens of
would give way and successlealsed~n spread, the lower and brutal
somuch that in that case it was punishment sent for a definite ve y Ie out and th .
transgression; but in this the Upato man is not aware of any ment 0 f mental organization ld ' at rapId advance_
WOU
transgression, and therefore can see no end to the infliction. It lowest races of man so far h h ochcur, which has raised the very
. h a ave t e rutes d .
must appear to him very awful and mysterious; and I confess WIt scarcely perceptible m difi' ... an ,m conjunction
that it appears so to me too.5 won d erf u I m. tellect of th 0G catIO. ns of fo rm, h as d eveloped the
. h e ermamc races"7 B th d
nmeteent century this view f h . Y e en of the
Conrad became a staunch, if complicated, opponent of European
had become firmly entrenche: uman social and racial evolution
expansion. Heart of Darkness offers a powerful indictment of impe
. There is no doubt that Conr'ad .
rialism, hoth explicitly for the case of King Leopold and implicitly tionary trope in Hearl D k mcorporated the temporal evolu~
0.(
(despite Marlow's comments on the patches of red) for all other upn•v er as I 'traveling bac:Jk toa rt hnee sesa. rMl' arlow d. es~n' b e d h·IS J. ourney
European powers. As Marlow says, HAll Europe contributed to the
and the Africans as'.:" he h' . lest begmmngs of the world"
making of Kurtz." He declares, 'The conquest of the earth, which . t pre Istonc man" B t h h
t hIS trope to support imp . I· C . u rat er t an using
mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different ena Ism onrad . d
site. First of all, he points out th ' E uses It to 0 the oppo-
complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty own ideals as civilizers In I tt at ur~peans don't live up to their
thing." His story graphically demonstrates how ugly it could get. . a e er to hI hI· h
wood, Conrad said of his p. "Th s p~ IS er, William Black~
In his 1975 speech Achebe did not mention Conrad's anti d I roJect, e cnminal'ty f· ffi
an pure se fishness when tacklin th .... lOme ciency
imperialism, but in his 1988 revised version, he concluded, "Con justifiable idea."8 In the st h g e cl\'lhzmg work in Africa is a
rad saw and condemned the evil of imperial exploitation." Conrad When Marlow's aunt app~ryud e. sugg~stli~ the)deals are mere sham.
criticized imperialism on many grounds, one being the hypocrisy of s Impena sm for II . h
miI I ions from their horrid wa s weanmg t ose ig-
the "civilizing mission." In liThe White Man's Burden," published J! "
Company was run for profit" ThY' hIe I ventured to hint that
in 1899, the same year as Heart of Darkness, Rudyard Kipling . e on y 'impro d .
see, such as the firem . ve speCImens"
posited that colonizers selflessly and thanklessly better the lives of 'oxplc)it'LticlTI an, are parodIes. Oth' .
,~ and violence. Conrad I I erwlse, we Just see
their "new-caught, sullen peoples,/Half devil and half child," coax very c ear y expr h·
o f European cruelty. esses IS con~
ing them from the bondage of their "loved Egyptian night." The ship firing blindly into :~ such ~emorable scenes as the
trope here is temporal, conceiving Europeans (and the Americans assumed to have started :h co~tment, the beating of the
Kipling was encouraging to take over the Philippines) as adults carriers found dead i here at the Central Station
advanced while non-Europeans were children and primitive. This n arness on the c I '
a bullet-hole in his for h d aravan trai, the man
trope, which provided the chief ideological support for late Ipil:grilns" sho f fr e. ea as a part of road "upkeep" th
teenth-century imperialism, derived largely from Charles n"rwin', o mg am theIr steamer the c .' e
chain-gang bUilding th '1' rew not bemg given
theory of evolution. Darwin did not take up the question of Imlluishiing in the "g f d ehral way; and the contract-laborers
tion of human societies in his Origin of Species in 1859, but in rove 0 eat h" . . .
addition to pointing out th
Descent of Man in 1871, he concluded, ({There can hardly be !Icivilizing mission" e ypocnsy WIth whIch the ideals of
doubt that we are descended from barbarians. The astortisl'ID<'" were espoused ConI' d h
t h e validity of those ideals th~ a may ave ques-
which I felt on first seeing a party of Fuegians on a wild and report, written while Kurtz was Sti~:elves .. Marlow says of
shore will never be forgotten by me, for the reflection at Th . n emIssary of progress
rushed into my mind-such were our ancestors."6 The co-found. e opemng paragraph h 0:vever . h '
of evolutionary theory, Alfred Russel Wallace, was more explicit. tthio n, strikes me now as'o mmous f, HIne tb eeg l ight .o hf laht er informa~
at We whites, from th . d an Wit t e argument
e pomt 0 evelopment we had arrived
5. The Collected LetteT~; ofJ oseph Conrad, eds. Fredenck Karl and Laurence Dayjes
Wallace, "The Origin of Human Races d h "
bridge: Cambridge UP, 1988),3:96. . of Natural Selection' "Journal if ~t ~ e AntiqUIty of Man Deduced
6. Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (New York. . , ' 0 nt Topological Society of London
pleton, 1896), 618. Conrad,2:139_40.
370 HUNT HAWKINS HEART OF DARKNESS AND RACISM 371
at, "must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of festatio.n .s of imperialism and raC'I sm as I, t si It I
supernatural beings-we approach them -with the might as of a t ha t cntIque in ways that b h mu aneous y presents
can e c aracte' d I
deity. ... By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a and racist."2 In a number f nze on y as imperialist
power for good practically unbounded." get beyond the evolutiona; tassaged however, Conrad reaches to
tainly and ambiguously, rope an racism, though often uncer~
The ideals themselves carried a hubristic arrogance. Edward Said,
and before him Wilson Harris, have observed that Conrad's very Fran~es B, Singh has argued that Co d' .
and theIr evil is what has co t d K nra Viewed Afncans as evil
style with its first~person narrators, framed narratives, time jumps, " . rrup e urtz She ' ,
D ar kness carries suggestio th h ' ' mamtams Heart of
fractured sentences, and addiction to adjectives upsets the notion
is to be associated with Afr,ns atht e evIl which the title refers to
of absolute truths assumed by the ((civilizing mission."9 Both fault lcans t eir custom d h '
t h at Conrad would have us b I" Af' s, an t elr rites" and
Conrad, probably correctly, for not shovving non~European resist · e leve ncans ((have th
t h e w hIte man's heart black "3 F h e power to tum
ance and not imagining an alternative to imperialism, but both ap
makes clear that Kurtz's c' o,r t e most part, however, Conrad
plaud him for attacking European domination. Conrad likely didn't orruptlOn comes not f Afr'
fr o~ E urope and from Kurtz himself. K rom lcans but
show more of the Africans because he wanted to focus on the Eu~
stramts provided in Euro e b . uru no longer has the rep
ropeans. As Abdul JanMohamed notes, iiDespite what writers like Since he is Ilhollow at t~ coy p~hlcemkien and gossiping neighbors.
Chinua Achebe say about the denigration of Africans in Heart of 'b re, ac ng intern I .
susceptl Ie to the whisper f th 'Id a restramts, he is
Dofa rrekpneresss,e nAtfartiicoann,s ianr eth aen n ionvceindae.n"tl al part, and not the main objects laus rkMin agr I io nw t hreea slitzreese tbs yo tfh Ber ue0 n d 10 fe tWhd Ie hsetorrnye, sI.sS ' nTohte J. uds att Ii( n W A1' Ifdrie cran ebsust,
Conrad also used the trope of evolution in Heart of Darkness to sse s an overing h Th
dee d , it is cosmic as shown in a ,over t e ames, In ~
attack imperialism by suggesting that Europeans in colonies could
Earth suddenly seemed shru k t senhten,ce m the manuscript: ({The
slide backwards on the evolutionary scale. Kurtz is the main exam~ h f . n ot eSlzeofape .. ,
pIe. In Africa the wilderness whispers to Kurtz ((things about him eart 0 an Immense darkness." It is K" a spmnmg III the
lake tribe rather than the oth urtz who has corrupted his
self that he did not know." His "forgotten and brutal instincts" are does suggest the Africans w e~.waYdaro~nd, At one point Conrad
awakened. And he passes beyond '(the bounds of permitted aspira~ He says Kurtz took a seat I' ors lppe evIl prior to this corruption
tions," indulging his greed and lust, placing the heads of iirebels" amongst t h d 'I f h '
only time Conrad appll'es th d '( e eVl sot e land." But the
on posts around his house, presiding at "midnight dances ending e wor satan'" t Afri
nection with their chanting K 'b IC 0 cans is in con~
with unspeakable rites" (probably human sacrifices), and commit I I as urtz IS eing take C
arge y resis ts the lead of Ki I' h n away. onrad
ting the hubris of setting himself up as a god, Marlow himself feels devil" H t k . P 109, W 0 called non~ Europeans 'Ih If
, e a es care to dIstinguish b t h a ~
the temptation to go ashore for iia howl and a dance" though he re~
what the Africans do and h'I h fie ween w at Kurtz does and
sists it. And while no match for Kurtz, the other Europeans have mer, he finds little ~th th: ~ ~t e ~d,s great fault with the for
become animalistic. The uncle of the manager has a ((short flipper when he wrote: ilBa b' a e~, lO his letter to Casement
of an arm" and the members of the Eldorado Exploring Expedition Da r kn ess exoneratesr thaen sAmfr ipcearn ss eb IS hno' c rime ,J!o Cnrda 'lO Heart of
are "less valuable animals" than their donkeys. seemed at one bound to h b y aVlng Marlow say of Kurtz iiI
Conrad's effective use of the evolutionary trope against imperial ave een transported . t I'
region of subtle horrors wh lO 0 some ightless
ism, however, can still be described as racist since it continues to I' , ,ere pure, uncomplicated
assume Africans are at the low end of the scale. Thus Achebe fin ,us.lv_ _i nre Ief, being something that had . h sava~ery was a
a the sunshine," a ng t to eXlst-obvi~
ishes his sentence, iiConrad saw and condemned the evil of imperi
Still, while resisting the comma
alist exploitation but was strangely unaware of the racism on which Conrad continues t n conte~porary demonization of
it sharpened its iron tooth." Similarly, Patrick Brantlinger observes, and "barbarian" H 0 pl~ce them m the category of ((sav-
«Heart of Darkness offers a powerful critique of at least some mani- e
text where he pr'aise: t1:Afrsils. lghtlYffurthhe.r in several places in
, K ' cans or t elI ener 'tal' d
urtz s mistress is liSUp b ' gy, VI lty, an
er '" magmficent ... stately." The
9 See Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York Knopf, 1993), and Wilson Harris,
"The Frontier on Which Heart of Darkness Stands," Research in African Literatures, 12:1
(Spring 1981), 86-93. Patrick BrantlingUePr, R l if D 1m
I. Abdul JanMohamed, "The Economy of Manichean Allegory: The Function of Racial D~' (Ithaca' Cornell 1~8~)op, ;~7 ess,' British Literature and Imperialism 1830-1914
fGearetensc eJr . in(C Chioclaognoi:a lUis to Lf Citehriactaugroe "P , in1 9R8a6c)e, ,p ,W 9r0it,i ng, and Difference, ed, Henry LowS 4P4ra, nees Singh, "eTh C 0 Ion'i allstJ B,ia s of Heart of Darknes~'," Co nrad t' ana 10' ( 1978): 43,
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372 HUNT HAWKINS
HEART OF DARKNESS AND RACISM
373
black paddlers off the coast have "a wild vitality, an intense energy AFricans as "bleeding heart sentiments" S .
of movement." And Conrad has Marlow commend the cannibals in as I'liberalism" Marlow's react" th· peclfically, he describes
II
his crew as i'fine fellows ... men one could work with." Moreover, Marlow doesn't fully recognizel ~~ ~ e .grove of dea~h." Perhaps
the cannibals possess a mysterious inner restraint in not eating the ingAfricans, though his statemen~ J::::~:~;,,~nd equalIty ~,f the dy
whites on board even though they are starving. Thus, in a novel rage at the waste of the Belgian . orror-struck and his
s seem SIncere en h And
that is a relentless, skeptical inquiry into the basis of moral behav h aps one can fault Marlow for th·nl . f oug . per-
ior, one that questions morality founded on principles or provi hand over a biscuit and to tell h' lung 0 nothing better to do than
dence, the cannibals with their f'inborn strength" provide one of boat on the Thames 0 lIS story years later to four men on a
. ne can a so perh f I C
the few signs of hope. All of these examples, however, are under ing more himself when h t d aps au t onrad for not do-
e re ume to Engla d f . .
cut by phrases that continue to associate Africans with the un horrors of the Congo Arth C n a ter wltnessmg the
. ur onan Doyle and M k" . b
civilized. The mistress mirrors the wilderness. The paddlers are became actively involved in the C ongo R el.cO rm Aasr ..tw.a m oth
«natural." The honor of the cannibals is ((primitive." Nonetheless, wrote books condemning Leo old A a . SOCIation and
Conrad does accord them a certain respect. In contrast -with the Casement, which Conrad anO\~ed t·o b~ : from hIS 1903 .letter to
hypocrisies of Europe, they are "true" and «wanted no excuse for tributed, he declined to becom f th prolduced and WIdely dis-
e ur er mvoved C h
being there." ever, forgave him because he d' . asement, ow-
Conrad goes even further in a number of passages where he has fighting an almost incapacitatin~a~ ee~ I~ work o~ Nostromo and
Marlow recognize, or almost recognize, or struggle to recognize the the C.R.A., Edmund Dene Mo espan. asement s co-founder of
humanity of the Africans. Unlike Kurtz, Marlow resists the tempta 1909 after the Congo h d breI, . also forgave Conrad and in
tion to exploit Africans. Instead he does what little he can to help that Heart of Darkness, W~ich ;:~c~~~pped fr~~ Leopol~, declared
a
by giving his biscuit to the man in the "grove of death" and by Marlow's, was the IImost 0 f I h. muc arger audIence than
ject."4 p wer u t mg ever ""Titten on the sub-
pulling his whistle so' the "pilgrims" cannot slaughter Kurtz's fol
lowers. As a result of his experience, Marlow seems to overcome his RaCIsm in Conrad's time was end . .& p .
prejudices enough to acknowledge the IIclaim of distant kinship') was so assumed that the word dId :::c. S ~te~ Flrchow notes, it
put upon him by his helmsman through their shared work and sensitIvity to raCIsm came fro h . yet eXI.st. Part of Conrad's
shared mortality. Getting to Kurtz, he says, was not worth the loss the end of his life, he spoke E~ lAi:~l bte:~~ subject to it hImself To
g t
of this life. Marlow urges his audience to recognize IItheir human he was dIfficult to understand ~u.ch a heavy accent that
f.ug
ity-like yours." But these examples are also ambiguous. Marlow glophIle, Conrad's sense of extr~me /n many ways an An
can't say whether the person he hands the biscuit is a man or boy story IIAmy Foster" In which E ~ lena IOn IS suggested by his
because II-with them it's hard to tell." The sentence after IItheir hu southern England after a sht:re~~ ~opean IS washed ashore in
manity-like yours" consists of a single word: CiUgly." And Marlow of his stran elan ua ~ . an presumed msane because
IIno~ ofg:~rEr~~~~h(2Vl2s)It?'lrskto
quickly throws the body of his helmsman overboard because, lected him;s Cponlrahd In Kent recol-
. , lea OIS jew"(40) "h
amongst the cannibals, a "second-rate helmsman" might become a conventIOnal stage Hebrew" (67) "s· " "( )" . ' t e
"first-class temptation." This wavering may be a sign of inner strug isms" (104)" 0 . ' Imlan 96, onental manner
, very nental indeed" (109) " I I -
gle or simply indicate ongoing ambivalence. '(113,) "a n 0 nental face" (lIS) (( ' spMe ctacu ar y a for -
The most impressive steps Marlow takes toward recognition, "like a monkey" (138) 6 Whil c' seml- ongolian" (126),
.. . e onrad may ha d
ones overlooked by Achebe, are when he turns the tables. He imag racIst attItudes himself, he aCIdly attacked h' ve :xpr:sse
ines that Englishmen would soon clear out the road between Deal p~~~aps ~ost c1~arlY ~~::~~: Sl~O~:
In his Malayan nove';:
and Gravesend if African colonizers started catching them to carry
c~~ ~::~: s~{~nw:~tl:r~~n:~~i%~m :uperion~
heavy loads. And he realizes that in Africa drums may have "as basis solely
found a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country." in An Outcast of the Islands Wh g. xample IS Peter
. en WIllems falls in love
where drums represent savagery, and Marlow!s excited re';pame
tells him he's kin to Africans because he also contains primal E~mund Dene Morel, HIS/OJ)' of the UCPo n1 90 6R8 efr:
~n Je~ Stengers (London: OxforJ ) mn Movement, ed. William Roger Louis
but in this passage he sees they are kin to him because they et~~ Flrchow, Envisioning Africa. Racism an :: ,p. 2050.. .
have reverence. "Qess (~exington. U of Kentucky P, 2000) Imperlaltsm tn Conrad)s "Heart of Dark-
Achebe dismisses Conrad's expressions of sympathy for su,ffeJring (IoUwoat aCtioitnys' Uta okef nI owfrao mP, ·T1o9> §b)h. Ca nrad: iIPnte 11.l.w ws and Hecollecfions, ed. Martin Ray
374 HUNT HAWKINS
HEART OF DARKNESS AND RACISM
375
with Omar's daughter, Aissa, he feels he is "surrendering. to ,a .,:ild
ing all the nigg~rs before the country could be made habitable."2,
creature the unstained purity of his life, of his race, of hIs cI~hz~~
Kurtz .scrawls h.Is statement at the bottom of his report for the In~
tion." Later, after the love is gone, Willems cannot stand A'issa s
ternatIOnal S~clety for the Suppression of Savage Customs as if it
staring at him. He calls her eyes lithe eyes of a savage; of a damned
were the logIcal outcome of that proTect the 'ieYTlosition of
mongreI" half-Arab half-Malay. They hurt me! I . am whiteb!' I 1s"w7 ear meth ~d. JJ I t 's uncI e ar how much Conrad Jwa,s warning" Larg ainst actuaal
to you I can't stand this! Take me away. I am w~~te! All W lte" .
geno~l~e. He Was certainly familiar with the theories of the Social
~en Achebe revised ilAn Image of Mrica, he de-AnghcIzed
DarWll1lsts, but they had not yet been put deliberately in practice,
"bloody racist" to "thoroughgoing racist." We must ask, though,
although Europeans had already wiped out several native popula~
how thoroughgoing Conrad was. And we must distinguish de~ees
tions through disease and displacement. In the Congo somewhere
and kinds of racism. Whatever may be said of Conrad, he certamly
between hvo and ten million Africans were killed during the
did not share the most extreme racism of his time. He did not ~sh
twenty-th~ee ~ears of King Leopold's rule but not through a policy
the annihilation of all non-Europeans. But Achebe seems to thmk
of extermmatlOn. They died through the brutality of forced labor
so. In his original version Achebe compared Conrad to. iiAlI th.ose
reprisals, and privation. But in October 1904, when the Herer~
men in Nazi Germany who lent their talent to the servIce of.~ru~
tribe in Southwest Africa resisted German colonization, General
lent racism." Achebe removed this sentence in his 1988 reVIsIOn,
Adolf von Trotha gave orders for all eighty thousand of them to be
but in his interview in 2000 when again denying the value of Con~
killed. ~ver t~e next two years the Germans succeeded nearly com~
rad's work, he said, i'I've not encountered any good art that pro-
motes genocide."g .. pletely 111 .doll1g so and a new word entered their vocabulary:
Konzentratwnslager or concentration camp. In his 19 I 5 essay
The almost inevitable trajectory of Social DarWInISm was geno
IiPoland Revisited," Conrad observed that the Germans were "with
cide. Darwin himself concluded in The Descent of Man: "At some
a consciousness of superiority freeing their hands from all moral
future period not very distant as measured by centuries, the civi~
bonds, anxious to take up, if I may express myself so the 'perfect
lized races of'man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the • b d '''3 H· d '
man s ur en. IS wor s now seem prescient, but they weren't
savage races throughout the world'· (156). Alfred Russel Wallace
really. The 'iperfect man's burden" was simply an extension of the
end e d hI· s 1864 article by sav)~i ng , "the higher-the morde md tellecJ J liwhite man's burden," and the genocides of the twentieth century
tual and moral-must displace the lower and more degra e races had already begun.
(clxvix). Eduard von Hartmann in his 1869 Philosophy of the Un
The las.ting polit~cal legacy of Heart of Darkness, more than any
conscious, a book Conrad read, wrote that it wasn't humane to pro~ confirmatIOn o~ raCIsm, has been its alarm over atrocity. Its title has
long Hthe death struggles of savages who are on the verge of
entered our leXIc.on as code for extreme human rights abuses, usu~
extinction .... The true philanthropist, if he has comprehended the
ally those commItted by whites in non Western countries but also
natural law of anthropological evolution, cannot avoid desiring an L
those committed by non~whites and those committed in Europe.
acceleration of the last convulsion, and labor for that end."9 And in
for example the titles of just three recent books: Jacques
1894 in Social Evolution Benjamin Kidd observed, (The Anglo
In~o th~ Ifeart of Darkness: Confessions of Apartheid's Assas~
Saxon has exterminated the less developed peoples with which he
Tuntzs Confronting the Heart of Darkness: An Interna~
has come into competition."l
Symposium on Torture in Guatemala, and Ferida Durakovic's
The man in Heart of Darkness who writes UExterminate all the
of poems titled simply Heart of Darkness about the Serbian
brutes!" is of course Kurtz. He may only be referring to his la~e
of Sarejevo and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Durakovic thanks
tribe, but pretty clearly he's referring, in the spirit of the ~ocl.al
Conrad, who realized long before others that darkness had
Darwinists to all Africans. His statement echoes that of Carh~r In
uAn Outpo~t of Progress," who voiced "the necessity of extermmat- and the heart had darkness."4 Far from condoning geno
Conrad clearly saw humanity's horrific capacity and gave it a
7. Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands (Ncw York Doubleday; Page, 1924), pp 80,
271. h"
98.. QEduuoaterdd bvyo nJa gHgai ritnm "aSntno,r yPtehlilleors oopf hthy eo Sf tahve aUnncnonasc.f.O us (1869,. London.. {~~f)h, pC. olnOrSad. , "An Outpost of Progress" in Tales of Unresi (New Yorlc Doubleday, Page,
1. B18e9nj3a)m,2i.n1 2K.i dd, Social Evolution (1894; rpt. New York: G . P. P utnam•s So n,, {~~f)h' pC. o1n4r7a.d , "Poland Revisited" in Notes on Life and Letters (London: John Grant,
p.49.
Ferida DurakoviC, Heart of Darkness (Fredonia, NY: VVhite Pine Press, 199B), p. 109
336 CHINUA ACHEBE AN IMAGE OF AFRICA 337
the long grass near the path, VV.l t h an empty water gourd and his had just read Things Fall Apart.2 One of them was particularly
happy to learn about the customs and superstitions of an African
long staff lying by his side." I d d s not make up an ordinary
All h' must acknow e ge, oe b 9 tribe,
t IS, one 1" the letter of Novem er ,
light travelogue. T~ere is no li~~ e lIon~i~: after returning from the I propose to draw from these rather trivial encounters rather
1891, Conrad recelV~d ~ro~ ~ g~trd and seriously depressed: ((I heavy conclusions which at first sight might seem somewhat out of
proportion to them. But only, I hope, at first sight.
Congo, and while P YSlca y 1 s~ ~ t mperament you ought to
The young fellow from Yonkers, perhaps partly on accollnt of his
am sure tha: w~th you~ me :~~o 0 :ssi~istic conclusions. I advise
avoid all medItatIOns w~lch ~ef h P and to cultivate cheerful age but I believe also for much deeper and more serious reasons, is
you to lead a more actwe h e t an ev~r d lacking ''The obviously unaware that the life of his uwn tribesmen in Yonkers,
"2 U 'I guage on certam pages, an New York, is full of odd cllstoms and superstitions and, like every
habits. ne~~n In anm '(Heart of Darkness" nevertheless re body else in his culture, imagines that he needs a trip to Africa to
Secret Sharer s econa dY' k dit tions in literature, and one of
mains one of the great ar me a t encounter those things.
the purest expressions of a melancholy temperamen . The other person being fully my own age could not be excused
on the grounds of his years. Ignorance might be a more likely rea
son; but here again I believe that something more willful than a
CHINUA ACHEBE
mere lack of information was at work For did not that erudite
British historian and Regius Professor at Oxford, Hugh Trevor
An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Roper, also pronounce that African history did not exist?
If there is something in these utterances more than youthful in
Heart of Darknesst
experience, more than a lack of factual knowledge, what is it?
Quite simply it is the desire-one might indeed say the need-in
lki one day from the English De-
In the fall of 1974 I was wa ng ki g lot. It was Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place
h U ' 'ty of Massachusetts to a par n
partment at t e mvers} h d friendliness to passing of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison
. suc as encourage
a fine autumn mornmg h' in all directions, many of with which Europe's own state of spiritual grace will be manifest.
strangers .. Brisk youngster.s w~:~r fi~~:~h of enthusiasm. An older This need is not new; which should relieve us all of considerable
them o~vlOusly freshmen m I turned and remarked to me how very responsibility and perhaps make us even willing to look at this phe
man gomg the same way as d Th n he asked me if I was a nomenon dispassionately. I have neither the wish nor the compe
e
young they came these days, I agree , Wh t d'd I teach? African tence to embark on the exercise with the tools of the social and
student too. I Sal'd n0, I was a theach 'erd . becaa useI he knew a fe II ow biological sciences but more simply in the manner of a novelist re
literature. Now that was funny, e ~al "t was Mrican history, in a sponding to one famous book of European fiction: Joseph Conrad's
who taught the same thing, or pefr afPs 1 here It always surprised Heart of Darkness, which better than any other work that I know
C 'ty College not ar rom· Af
certain ommum h had thought of rica as displays that Western desire and need which I have just referred to.
him, he went on to say, becaus~ e n~v;lr this time I was walking Of course there are whole libraries of books devoted to the same
having that kind of stuff, you h' ow, II behind me: "I guess purpose but most of them are so obvious and so crude that few
much f aster. "Oh well," I hearfd i d1 m sa"y na y, people worry about them today. Conrad, on the other hand, is un
I have to take your course to d n out. touching letters from high doubtedly one of the great stylists of modem fiction and a good
A few weeks later I receive tw~ v~ry h -bless their teacher story-teller into the bargain. His contribution therefore falls auto
school children in Yonkers, New or , w 0 , matically into a different class-permanent literature--:-read and
taught and constantly evaluated by serious academics. Heart of
h ad Lifo a nd Letters (1927),1:148. k
2. G. Jean-Aubry, Josep hC~19'88' Ih'·'d Norton Critical Editlon of Heart ()f Df"'M""",hP.P. Darkness is indeed so secure today that a leading Conrad scholar
t R25ev1i-s6e2d . vOerrsigioinna lfloyr dte leiv ered as aIT Chancehllor,s Lbefth:ed aut ntdheer Utnhiev etristiltey "0A n Iamssaag e o.f , has numbered it "among the half-dozen greatest short novels in the
Aseftrtisc,a "A min h T ehrset ,M aos.~na1c8h.u 5FeeUb.sm RaenLtJr.n 1~9,7 51. ' ~ (t 1e9nt7 7tp)h'u 7 18I9S27 -79 4v~ rUsisoend I Sb ygpiveem"nu isns ItOhen n ooft etSh.e Uanu~, English language."3 I will return to this critical opinion in due
thor.VVhenAchebc'srcvisionsareSlglll. cah " e .
Achebe's great novel of Africa (1959). [Editor]
1 l"eNsso win dtihcaatt ewda, st hfuen ontyh, ehr en ost~asld,a bee cthaues . ~u~eoh:d never thought of Africa as having that Albert J. Guerard, Introduction to Heart of Darkness (New York: New American Library,
1950), p. 9.
. lund of stuff, you know" [1977].
338 CHINUA ACHEBE
AN IMAGE OF AFRICA
339
course because it may seriously modify my earlier suppositions conflict with the s hI' I '
P yc 0 oglca pre-disposition f h· d
about who mayor may not be guilty in some of the matters I will t h e need for him to contend ·th th. . 0 IS rea ers or raise
WI elr reSlS tance H h h
now raise. o f purveyor ~f comforting myths. . e c ose t e role
Heart of Darkness projects the image of Mrica as "the other The most mteresting and reveal·
world/' the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a are, however about people I 109 passages in Heart of Darkness
place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally reader to qu~te almost a who I must fcrave the indulgence of my
oe page rom about th 'ddl f
mocked by triumphant bestiality. The book opens on the River story wh en representatives of E . - e fil e 0 the
Thames, tranquil, resting peacefully "at the decline of day after Congo encounter the denizens o~rz~:~ a steamer going down the
ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks." But
the actual story will take place on the River Congo, the very an~ We were wanderers on a reh· .
wore the aspect of an unknPownlS\~~C earth, on an earth that
tithesis of the Thames. The River Congo is quite decidedly not a ':Ve
ourselves the first of men takin p et. could have fancied
River Emeritus. It has rendered no service and enjoys no old-age
heritance to be subdued t th g posseSSIOn of an accursed in-
pension. We are told that "Going up that river was like travelling ' a e cost of profou d . h
o f excessive toil. But suddenl n angms and
back to the earliest beginnings of the world." there would be a glimpse of ru\as ~t struggled round a bend
Is Conrad saying then that these two rivers are very different, one burst of yells, a whirl of black ;im~: s, of peaked grass-roofs, a
good, the other had? Yes, but that is not the real point. It is not the of feet stamping, of bodies sw . ' a mass of h~nds clapping,
differentness that worries Conrad but the lurking hint of kinship, of droop of heavy and mot' I aytnfg'l.o eyes roIlIng under the
common ancestry. For the Thames too ilhas been one of the dark I IOn ess 0 lage The st ·1 d
a ong slowly on the edge of a black· . earner to~ e
places of the earth." It conquered its darkness, of course, and is now frenzy. The prehistoric man wa . and mcomprehensible
. s curslOg us pravin t I
in daylight and at peace. But if it were to visit its primordial relative, commg us-who could tell? V\li 'l~ g 0 us, we -
the Congo, it would run the terrible risk of hearing grotesque echoes hension of our surround. e were. cut off from the compre
of its own forgotten darkness, and falling victim to an avenging re wondering and secretly a;;:l;~;e glIded past like phantoms,
crudescence of the mindless frenzy of the first beginnings. an enthusiastic outbreak in a rn~;~ sane men would be before
These suggestive echoes comprise Conrad's famed evocation of stand because we were too f douse. We could not under
the Mrican atmosphere in Heart of Darkness. In the final consider cause we were travellin in th ar ~n could not remember, be
ation his method amounts to no more than a steady, ponderous, that are gone leaving h~rdl e ~lght of first ages, of those ages
fake-ritualistic repetition of two antithetical sentences, one about The earth 'seemed unea:t~l sIgn-and no memories.
upon the shackled £; f y. We are accustomed to look
silence and the other about frenzy. We can inspect samples of this
there you could looko~a ~hi: conquered monster, but there-
on pages 34 and 35 of the present edition: a) It was the stillness of
earthly and th g monstrous and free. It was un-
an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention and b) e men were No th
Well, you know that was th' . . . . ey ~ere not inhuman.
The steamer toiled along slowly on the edge of a black and incompre
not being inhuman. It wou~ :~:.t o~ltlthls suspicion of their
hensible frenzy. Of course there is a judicious change of adjective
and leaped and spun and d he s .ow y to one, They howled
nom time to time, so that instead of inscrutable, for example, you you was just the thought mfa the . orhrI d fac~s, but what thrilled
might have unspeakable, even plain mysterious, etc., etc. 0 elf umamty-like h
th ough t of your remote kinshi with th.. your~-t e
The eagle-eyed English critic F. R. Leavis drew attention long ago
uproar. Ugly. Yes it was I PhIS mId and paSSIOnate
to Conrad's iladjectival insistence upon inexpressible and incompre enough you would admit tug y eno~g , but if you were man
hensible mystery." That insistence must not be dismissed lighdy, as th~ faintest trace of a resp~:S~~~~het~at ~~er~ waks in you just
many Conrad critics have tended to do, as a mere stylistic flaw; for nOIse, a dim suspicion of th b. errl e ran ness of that
it raises serious questions of artistic good faith. When a \iVrlter while you-you so remote from thee rnei he lOgf afi meaning in I. t W h·I C h
pretending to record scenes, incidents and their impact is in reality prehend. g t 0 rst ages-could corn-
engaged in inducing hypnotic stupor in his readers through a bom
bardment of emotive words and other forms of trickery much more Herein lies the meaning of He f D k
s
has to be at stake than stylistic felicity. Generally normal readers are holds over the Western min;.rt((~ ar nes. and the fascination it
well armed to detect and resist such underhand activity. But Conrad thought of their humanit I'k' at thnlled you was just the
H ' y-l e yours, , , , Ugly."
chose his subject well-one which was guaranteed not to put him in
avmg shown us Mrica in the mass, Conrad then zeros in, half a
340 CHINUA ACHEBE AN IMAGE OF AFRICA 341
page later, on a specific example, giving us one of his rare descrip She was savage and s b 'ld
tions of an Mrican who is not just limbs or rolling eyes: She stood looking at u~P~tho: -e~ed and. magnificent. ...
itself, with an air of bro d' a Stl~ and like the wilderness
And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was , 0 mg over an Inscrutable purpose.
fireman. He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a ver TIns Amazon is dr . . d
tical boiler. He was there below me and, upon my word, to dictable nature for ~wnor eIa n consp I , erablhe detail) albeit of a pre-
, sons. lrst s e is' hId
look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of can win Conrad's special brand f ' I m er p ace an so
breeches and a feather hat walking on his hind legs. A few a structural requirement of th 0 t ap~rova and second) she fulfills
months of training had done for that really fine chap. He ref i ned, E uropean woman who e s'I Io ryt . a f savha ge counterp a rt t 0 t h e
squinted at the steam-gauge and at the water-gauge with an VVl s ep ort to end the story:
evident effort of intrepidity-and he had filed his teeth too, the She came forward all in black with a I .
me in the dusk Sh . , pa e head, floatmg toward
poor devil, and the wool of his pate shaved into queer patterns, . e was In mourmng She t k b h
and three ornamental scars on each of his cheeks. He ought to hands in hers and murmured III h d h' . 'd' 00 ot my
Sh h d a ear you were com' "
have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the i~~. e a a mature capacity1 for fidelity, for belief, for su~~~-
bank) instead of which he was hard at work) a thrall to strange
witchcraft, full of improving knowledge.
The difference in the attitude of the Ii h
is conveyed in too many direct and b~ove st to t ese two women
As everybody knows, Conrad is a romantic on the side, He might
But perhaps the most significa t d,u e way~ to need elaboration.
not exactly admire savages clapping their hands and stamping their ' n If fe rence IS the one' l' d .
feet but they have at least the merit of being in their place, unlike t he author s bestowal of hum' Imp Ie In
holding of it hom the other aIn ~xprlessllOn to the one and the with-
this dog in a parody of breeches. For Conrad things4 being in their . t IS C ear y not part of C d'
place is of the utmost importance. pose to confer language on th e " ru dl' mentary I" of nArafr ' s pur-
hEne fellows-cannibals-in their place/' he tells us pointedly. place of speech they made "a violent babbl /ou s °h lca. In
They I<exchanged short runti " eo uncout sounds."7
Tragedy begins when things leave their accustomed place, like Eu
wer;~o~t::e~~~~~e~mong_
rope leaving its safe stronghold between the policeman and the But most of the time the; themselves.
two occasions in the book h Y C Ir frenzy. There are
baker to take a peep into the heart of darkness. ) owever w h en onrad d
Before the story takes us into the Congo basin proper we are what from his practice and confe rs sp' eec h ,even Englisehp sa rts sho me-
given this nice little vignette as an example of things in their place: t he savages. The first occurs whe 'b I' peec ,on
them: n canm a Ism gets the better of
Now and then a boat from the shore gave one a momentary
contact with reality. It was paddled by black fellows. You could (Ie t h" "oht
an~ ~ fl~~ sSh::~:e~th '~:tl~~~~hot ;de~ing
of his eyes
see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistening. They
shouted) sang; their bodies streamed with perspiration; they YOU "edh') " I as k e d j "w h at would you d1om w. ithI vteh e1mm) "t oli Eu-st,"! ' uTIoI!
had faces like grotesque masks-these chaps; but they had h e sm curtly.... . a 1m.
bone, muscle) a wild vitality) an intense energy of movement
The other occasion was the famous announcement:
that was as natural and true as the surf along their coast. They
wanted no excuse for being there. They were a great comfort "Mistah Kurtz-he dead."
to look at.
At first sight these instances mIght be mIstaken" d
Towards the end of the story Conrad lavishes a whole page5 quite of gener aSl' ty f rom C onrad. In reality th w.r unexpecte
unexpectedly on an African woman who has obviously been some best assaults I th f ey constitute some of , I
that had ~h n f e case ~ the cannibals the incomprehensible
kind of mistress to Mr. Kurtz and now presides (if I may be permit
adequate f us , ar serve them for speech suddenly proved in
ted a little liberty)6 like a formidable mystery over the inexorable r
nnsp<,ak:ab1°e Con:ad s. purpose of letting the European glimpse the
imminence of his departure: :t-orlsis,tellcy , crahv mg In their hearts . ,v{vXell'g hm' g t h e neceSSIty for
ad ~n t e 10rtrayal of the dumb brutes against the sensa
4. "(and persons)" [1977]. The next two paragraphs (£rom "Fine fellows" to "a great com van ages 0 securing their conviction by clear) unambigu~
fort to look at") were added in 1988.
65.. ""ga rleitattl ea titmenittaiotino"n [o1f9 C77o]n.r ad" [1977]. . Sentence added in 1988. I ,
'I
,!
',I
., 'I
, :1
....
----------------
342 CHlNUAAcHEBE AN IMAGE OF AFRICA
343
OilS evidence issuing out of their own mouth Conrad chose the tween white peo~le and black people. That extraordina mission
latter. As for the announcement of Mr. Kurtz's death by the iiinso a;;, ~ber~ S~hweltzer, who sacrificed brilliant careers in; :lUSic and
lent black head in the doorway" what better or more appropriate fi
t eo ogy m urope for a life of service to Mricans in much th
nis could be written to the horror story of that wayvvard child of
same areta ashCohnrhad writes about, epitomizes the ambivalence In:
civilization who willfully had given his soul to the powers of dark coromen w IC as often been t d S h .
Afr' .. d d quo e c weitzer saysi't "The
ness and "taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land" than the
Ican IS III ee my brother but my junior brother)) And
proclamation of his physical death by the forces he had joined? ceedc~ ~o blli~d ad hospital ~ppropriate to the needs' of jun~~r ~r~~~~
It might be contended, of course, that the attitude to the African e~s;t ~t~n ar hS of hygIene reminiscent of medical practice in
in Heart of Darkness is not Conrad's but that of his fictional narra
t l~ ~s be ore t e germ theory of disease came into being. Natu
tor, Marlow, and that far from endorsing it Conrad might indeed be
ra y e ecame a sensation in Europe and America P'I .
holding it up to irony and criticism. Certainly Conrad appears to go flocked, and I believe still flock even after h h d' I gnms
to considerable pains to set up layers of insulation between himself ess the d·' e as passe on, to wit~
n . pro IglOUS miracle in Lamberence on the ed f h
and the mor~l universe of his history. He has, for example, a narra pnmeval forest. ,ge ate
tor behind a narrator. The primary narrator is Marlow but his ac Conrad's liberalism would not tak h' . f
S h . h e l m qUIte as ar as
count is given to us through the filter of a second, shadowy person. c weltzer j s, tough. He would not use the word brother how
But if Conrad's intention is to draw a cordon sanitaire8 between qu~lified; the farthest he would go was kinship, When Marl~:;:
himself and the moral and psychological malaise of his narrator his AfrICan helmsman falls down with a spea . h' h h .
care seems to me totally wasted because he neglects to hint how wh I' te master one final disquieting look. r III IS eart e gIVes his
ever subtly or tentatively at an alternative frame of reference by
e
which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters. It And thd ih;ntimate profundity of that look he gave me when he
receIve s hurt remains to this d . .
would not have been beyond Conrad's power to make that provision y
claim of distant kinship affirmed in aa III my memory-hke a
if he had thought it necessary. Marlow seems to me to enjoy Con supreme moment,
rad's complete confidence-a feeling reinforced by the close simi It is important to note that Conrad ful .
d . ,care as ever wIth his
larities between their two careers. war s, IS co~cerned not so much about distant kinshi as ab
P
Marlow comes through to us not only as a witness of truth, but someone lay.m g a claim on it The blacl I I , out
h' " . (man ays a c 31m on the
one holding. those advanced and humane views appropriate to the ~ Ite n;,a\t IC: IS well-nigh intolerable. It is the laying of this
English liberal tradition which required all Englishmen of decency calm w IC, Ig tens and at the same time fascinates Conrad ({
to be deeply shocked by atrocities in Bulgaria or the Congo of King the thought of their humanity-like yours U I " ' '"
Th . f .... gy.
Leopold of the Belgians or wherever. e pomt a my observations should be quite clear b
Thus Marlow is able to toss out such bleeding-heart sentiments namely that Joseph C d h Y now,
. . oura was a t oroughgoing9 racist. That this
as these: ~lmpI~ truth. IS glo.ssed over in criticisms of his work is due to the
They were dying slowly-it was very clear. They were not en ,. act t at ,whIte r~clsm against Africa is such a normal way of think
emies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, ~;a~a~ ~ ~amfest.~ltiO~S go completely unremarked. Students of
nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation lying con so mu0 h a:thn~~ 0 te~ tell you that Conrad is concerned not
fusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of . c WI lca as WIth the deterioration of one Euro ean
the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in unconge tnhn ntd ecaudsed' by. solitude and sickness ,TWhey I'1 1 pom. t out top you
nial surtoundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, be a ~nra IS,. If anything, less charitable to the Europeans in the
came inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and . an he I,S t~ .t?~ natives, that the point of the story is to
rest. Eu~ope s Cl\'IhZIllg mission in Africa,) A Conrad student iu~
me
The kind of liberalism espoused here by Marlow/Conrad touched "e!:ration III Sco~land that Africa is merely a setting for the disin-
,- of the mmd of Mr. Kurtz.
all the best minds of the age in England, Europe and America. It
took different forms in the minds of different people but almost al teliminaltesiS partly.the point, Mrica as setting and backdrop which
the Afncan as human factor. Africa as a metaphysical
ways managed to sidestep the ultimate question of equality be-
"bloody" [1977].
8. Quarantine barrier (French). [Editor] The last clause (beginnmg ('that the pO'nt of . ")
, .. was added In 198B.