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Heart of Darkness and Postcolonialism
Heart of Darkness
Postcolonialism
The term "Postcolonialism" refers broadly to the ways in which race, ethnicity, culture, and human identity itself are represented in the modern era, after many colonized countries gained their independence. However, some critics use the term to refer to all culture and cultural products influenced by imperialism from the moment of colonization until today. Postcolonial literature seeks to describe the interactions between European nations and the peoples they colonized. By the middle of the twentieth century, the vast majority of the world was under the control of European countries. The literature and art produced in these countries after independence has become the object of "Postcolonial Studies," a term coined in and for academia, initially in British universities. This field gained prominence in the 1970s and has been developing ever since. Orientalism, is a seminal text for postcolonial studies and has spawned a host of theories on the subject. However, as the currency of the term "postcolonial" has gained wider use, its meaning has also expanded. Racial discrimination is a theme that runs throughout postcolonial discourse, as white Europeans consistently emphasized their superiority over darker−skinned people. This was most evident in South Africa, whose policy of apartheid was institutionalized in national laws.
Joseph Conrad was one of the most important postcolonial writers in English literature. Conrad was ethnically Polish. He was born in the Ukraine as Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski on December 3, 1857. He joined the British navy in 1880 and became a British citizen in 1886. In 1890 he traveled to the Belgian Congo, a difficult trip that provided the background for Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, first published in serial form in 1899 and 1900. Heart of Darkness is a paradigmatic work not only of colonialist literature but also of modernist literature.
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness begins and ends in London; on the Nellie on the Thames. The most part, however, takes place in the Congo (now known as the Republic of the Congo). African exploration was quite popular in Conrad's day. As exploration was popular, so was the adventure story - tales of African exploration were available in abundance. Imperialism was also a popular theme at this point in the late nineteenth Century. Conrad's novella, whilst to contemporary critics (Achebe, for example) may appear racist; at the time was accepted as another piece of work from a very much published genre. The novella is literally filled with literal and metaphoric opposites; the Congo and the Thames, black and white, Europe and Africa, good and evil, purity and corruption, civilization and 'triumphant bestiality', light and the very ‘heart of darkness’.
Heart of Darkness attacks colonialism, its effects on natives and the Congo. Conrad experienced colonization as a young boy when Poland was under Russian occupation. He gives the reader an overview of how the Africans were mistreated during colonization. The title of the book is a metaphor. The real darkness cannot be in Africa, but is originally from Europe. The heart is not for black Africans, but all the whites who get involved in the colonialist expedition.
The critical postcolonial approach to Heart of Darkness was declared by Chinua Achebe in a lecture in 1975. According to him, the novel portrays the image of Africa as the other world, and the contradictions between Europe and Africa. Conrad’s narrative makes it possible for the reader to analyze the text in two ways; first, it allows the imperialism to offer the world for the Europeans. They leave their old colonies, but they preserve them not only as markets but as a place on the map which they continue to rule ethnically and psychologically. Secondly, Conrad saw Marlow and himself restrained to time and place.
The horror is described in the book when Marlow discusses about the Roman colonization of ancient Britain. Conrad portrays British imperialism in the perhaps naive character of Marlow, who is glad to see the "vast amount of red" on the Company's map; signifying the British territory. The "heart of darkness" in the title is thus not strictly Africa, as readers might initially expect, but the heart of a white man, who proves capable of incomparable evil. Heart of Darkness is also considered an example of Modernism, with its sometimes unaware narrator, its departure from chronological order, and its questions about the so-called civilized human nature when it remains beyond the constraints of social and civic order. The reality of the colonialism is portrayed by Conrad in the form of the District Manager; a real imperialist, taking full advantage of his position and that of the colony. Marlow sees the Manager's only positive quality as the fact that he was never ill.
The consequences of such an unconditional belief in the concept of Empire are brought to the fore, and as a whole the story demonstrates that the very idea of imperialism in itself. Conrad speaks of colonialism as a religion, calling it a "sacred fire". Heart of Darkness presents the double-frontier dilemma, the issues of alienship and otherness in conflict with a sense of individual, political or national identity and responsibility. Marlow’s sense of double loyalties to his country on the one hand and to his idealistic credo on the other is, as in a number of postcolonial texts, illustrated by geographical symbols of nationhood, maps, frontiers, fences and borderlines connected with an unspecified sense of lethal threat. As in all colonizing contexts, imposing the language of the invader's superior culture becomes coterminous with civilizing.
The women have two sets of characteristics; seemingly the accepted Victorian values and the post-colonial values. The Victorian reading would show the Intended as feminine, beautiful and saintly, rightly in a state of mourning, even a year after Kurtz's death. Her innocence would suggest her purity. The Intended would have symbolized civilization. The mistress would show as masculine, savage, careless of the fact that her loved one was leaving. The African woman would have symbolized the savage unknown that was Africa. The post-colonial reading would show the Intended as foolish, mourning a man she barely knew. Her innocence would suggest her naivety; her faith based upon a lie. The mistress would show as erotic, living on in independence without Kurtz. The African woman here would have symbolized the fact that Africa did not need Britain's 'salvation', contrary to the British belief, based upon a lie, propaganda symbolized by the Intended's faith.
Conrad has been accused of vagueness in his picture of Africa, of not stating his point clearly. Appearances, as critics have noted, are deceptive and inexact. From a postcolonial perspective, though, the fact that the borderlines between centre and periphery, between civilization and barbarism are blurred contributes to making the book less dogmatic and consequently more trustworthy.
Thus Heart of Darkness serves as an introduction to colonialist literature, thematically concerned with colonial expansion and informed by theories concerning the superiority of Western culture and the rightness of empire, expressing the imperialists' point of view. Postcolonial studies necessitate close attention to point of view. In Heart of Darkness, the position of the actual writer, the implied author and the first-person narrator is intriguing. Joseph Conrad, the writer and himself a man in exile, is not identical with Conrad the implied author. Nor should he be confused with Marlow, his first-person narrator in spite of all biographical similarities.
Mehmet TOKGÖZ © 2008
Bibliography
"Colonialism and Imperialism - Heart of Darkness and Post-Colonial Theory." 123HelpMe.com. 01 May 2008 .
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Norton, 1963.
Watt, Ian. "Heart of Darkness and Nineteenth Century Thought." Joseph's Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea, 1987. 77-89.
"Colonialism and Beyond." 123HelpMe.com. 01 May 2008 .
Farn, Regelind. Colonial and Postcolonial Rewritings of “Heart of Darkness”. Florida:Boca Raton. 2005.
Nassab, A. Sara. A Postcolonial and Pschological Approach to Heart of Darkness. Sweeden. 2006
Hansson, Karin. Entering Heart of Darkness from a Postcolonial Perspective. Sweeden. 1998
Postcolonialism
The term "Postcolonialism" refers broadly to the ways in which race, ethnicity, culture, and human identity itself are represented in the modern era, after many colonized countries gained their independence. However, some critics use the term to refer to all culture and cultural products influenced by imperialism from the moment of colonization until today. Postcolonial literature seeks to describe the interactions between European nations and the peoples they colonized. By the middle of the twentieth century, the vast majority of the world was under the control of European countries. The literature and art produced in these countries after independence has become the object of "Postcolonial Studies," a term coined in and for academia, initially in British universities. This field gained prominence in the 1970s and has been developing ever since. Orientalism, is a seminal text for postcolonial studies and has spawned a host of theories on the subject. However, as the currency of the term "postcolonial" has gained wider use, its meaning has also expanded. Racial discrimination is a theme that runs throughout postcolonial discourse, as white Europeans consistently emphasized their superiority over darker−skinned people. This was most evident in South Africa, whose policy of apartheid was institutionalized in national laws.
Joseph Conrad was one of the most important postcolonial writers in English literature. Conrad was ethnically Polish. He was born in the Ukraine as Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski on December 3, 1857. He joined the British navy in 1880 and became a British citizen in 1886. In 1890 he traveled to the Belgian Congo, a difficult trip that provided the background for Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness, first published in serial form in 1899 and 1900. Heart of Darkness is a paradigmatic work not only of colonialist literature but also of modernist literature.
Heart of Darkness
Heart of Darkness begins and ends in London; on the Nellie on the Thames. The most part, however, takes place in the Congo (now known as the Republic of the Congo). African exploration was quite popular in Conrad's day. As exploration was popular, so was the adventure story - tales of African exploration were available in abundance. Imperialism was also a popular theme at this point in the late nineteenth Century. Conrad's novella, whilst to contemporary critics (Achebe, for example) may appear racist; at the time was accepted as another piece of work from a very much published genre. The novella is literally filled with literal and metaphoric opposites; the Congo and the Thames, black and white, Europe and Africa, good and evil, purity and corruption, civilization and 'triumphant bestiality', light and the very ‘heart of darkness’.
Heart of Darkness attacks colonialism, its effects on natives and the Congo. Conrad experienced colonization as a young boy when Poland was under Russian occupation. He gives the reader an overview of how the Africans were mistreated during colonization. The title of the book is a metaphor. The real darkness cannot be in Africa, but is originally from Europe. The heart is not for black Africans, but all the whites who get involved in the colonialist expedition.
The critical postcolonial approach to Heart of Darkness was declared by Chinua Achebe in a lecture in 1975. According to him, the novel portrays the image of Africa as the other world, and the contradictions between Europe and Africa. Conrad’s narrative makes it possible for the reader to analyze the text in two ways; first, it allows the imperialism to offer the world for the Europeans. They leave their old colonies, but they preserve them not only as markets but as a place on the map which they continue to rule ethnically and psychologically. Secondly, Conrad saw Marlow and himself restrained to time and place.
The horror is described in the book when Marlow discusses about the Roman colonization of ancient Britain. Conrad portrays British imperialism in the perhaps naive character of Marlow, who is glad to see the "vast amount of red" on the Company's map; signifying the British territory. The "heart of darkness" in the title is thus not strictly Africa, as readers might initially expect, but the heart of a white man, who proves capable of incomparable evil. Heart of Darkness is also considered an example of Modernism, with its sometimes unaware narrator, its departure from chronological order, and its questions about the so-called civilized human nature when it remains beyond the constraints of social and civic order. The reality of the colonialism is portrayed by Conrad in the form of the District Manager; a real imperialist, taking full advantage of his position and that of the colony. Marlow sees the Manager's only positive quality as the fact that he was never ill.
The consequences of such an unconditional belief in the concept of Empire are brought to the fore, and as a whole the story demonstrates that the very idea of imperialism in itself. Conrad speaks of colonialism as a religion, calling it a "sacred fire". Heart of Darkness presents the double-frontier dilemma, the issues of alienship and otherness in conflict with a sense of individual, political or national identity and responsibility. Marlow’s sense of double loyalties to his country on the one hand and to his idealistic credo on the other is, as in a number of postcolonial texts, illustrated by geographical symbols of nationhood, maps, frontiers, fences and borderlines connected with an unspecified sense of lethal threat. As in all colonizing contexts, imposing the language of the invader's superior culture becomes coterminous with civilizing.
The women have two sets of characteristics; seemingly the accepted Victorian values and the post-colonial values. The Victorian reading would show the Intended as feminine, beautiful and saintly, rightly in a state of mourning, even a year after Kurtz's death. Her innocence would suggest her purity. The Intended would have symbolized civilization. The mistress would show as masculine, savage, careless of the fact that her loved one was leaving. The African woman would have symbolized the savage unknown that was Africa. The post-colonial reading would show the Intended as foolish, mourning a man she barely knew. Her innocence would suggest her naivety; her faith based upon a lie. The mistress would show as erotic, living on in independence without Kurtz. The African woman here would have symbolized the fact that Africa did not need Britain's 'salvation', contrary to the British belief, based upon a lie, propaganda symbolized by the Intended's faith.
Conrad has been accused of vagueness in his picture of Africa, of not stating his point clearly. Appearances, as critics have noted, are deceptive and inexact. From a postcolonial perspective, though, the fact that the borderlines between centre and periphery, between civilization and barbarism are blurred contributes to making the book less dogmatic and consequently more trustworthy.
Thus Heart of Darkness serves as an introduction to colonialist literature, thematically concerned with colonial expansion and informed by theories concerning the superiority of Western culture and the rightness of empire, expressing the imperialists' point of view. Postcolonial studies necessitate close attention to point of view. In Heart of Darkness, the position of the actual writer, the implied author and the first-person narrator is intriguing. Joseph Conrad, the writer and himself a man in exile, is not identical with Conrad the implied author. Nor should he be confused with Marlow, his first-person narrator in spite of all biographical similarities.
Mehmet TOKGÖZ © 2008
Bibliography
"Colonialism and Imperialism - Heart of Darkness and Post-Colonial Theory." 123HelpMe.com. 01 May 2008 .
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Norton, 1963.
Watt, Ian. "Heart of Darkness and Nineteenth Century Thought." Joseph's Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea, 1987. 77-89.
"Colonialism and Beyond." 123HelpMe.com. 01 May 2008 .
Farn, Regelind. Colonial and Postcolonial Rewritings of “Heart of Darkness”. Florida:Boca Raton. 2005.
Nassab, A. Sara. A Postcolonial and Pschological Approach to Heart of Darkness. Sweeden. 2006
Hansson, Karin. Entering Heart of Darkness from a Postcolonial Perspective. Sweeden. 1998
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