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Imperialism: Conrad's Heart of DarknessAuthor(s): Jonah RaskinSource: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 2, No. 2, Literature and Society (Apr., 1967),pp. 113-131Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/259954 .

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Imperialism: Conrad' s

H e a r t o f Darknes s

Jonah Raskin

Nearly forty years ago and long before the Heart of Darkness

'craze', Ford Madox Ford foretoldthe critical fate of Conrad'snovella. He noted that it 'gainedwhen it was written a certainvividness from its fierce lashings at the unspeakablecrew that

exploited the natives in the Congo,' and predicted that when

'imperialism' anished,andby imperialismhe meant'spoliationof

subject races', the 'masterpiecewill then stand by its poetry.'lAlthough mperialism emains,by Ford'scriteria f not by Lenin'sandHobson's, iterarycriticshaveneglected mperialism ndhavetransformedhenovella ntoa timeless

mythaboutthe

explorationof the human soul andthe metaphysicalpowerof evil. These are

only some of the more radicalinterpretations; here are others

which,if theyshed somelight, still distortthenovella,whichgivesus a concreterecordof Belgiancolonialismn the Congoandtrans-forms a personalexperience nto amythabout mperialdecadence.

Despite D.H. Lawrence'swarning,'Never trust the artist.Trustthe tale', Conrad'sown conceptionof his tale shouldnot be over-looked.The idea of the novella,he told his publisher n I899, was

the 'criminalityof inefficiencyandpure selfishnesswhen tacklingthe civilizingworkin Africa',and the 'subject s of our time dis-

tinctly,'though'nottopically reated'.The storywasintendedas acriticism of colonialists in Africa. Many of his friends agreed.Hugh Clifford,writerandcolonialadministrator,alled t a 'studyof theCongo',while EdwardGarnettdescribed t as 'animpressiontaken from life, of the conquest by the Europeanwhites of acertain portion of Africa, an impression in particularof the

civilizing methods of a certain great EuropeanTrading Com-1 Ford Madox Ford, in A Conrad Memorial Library: The Collection of George

T. Keating (Garden City, I929), p. 82.

II3 8



CONTEMPORARYHISTORY

pany'.2SoonafterConrad'sdeath n 1924writersand criticsbeganto interpretHeartofDarknessI899)alongdifferent ines,focusing

on particular mages and scenes and not the novellaas a whole.T.S. Eliot read it as a workabout evil, life's bleakhopelessness,and moral emptiness, neglecting the 'affirmation'and 'moral

victory'andtransforminghe 'horror'which refersparticularlyo

the BelgianCongoto a horrorof life in general.Somewhat ater

BertrandRussell claimed that Conrad'spoint of view was 'the

antithesisof Rousseau's,'andanalysedHeartof Darkness s a tale

of 'a ratherweak idealist... driven madby horrorof the tropical

forest and loneliness among savages.'The Conradof Russell's

making thoughtof civilizedandmorally olerablehuman ife as a

dangerouswalkon a thin crustof barelycooled lavawhichat anymoment might breakand let the unwarysink into fiery depths.'EvenAndreGide, who read Heartof Darknessor the fourthtime

while on his Congotrip, and felt that 'This admirablebook still

remains profoundly true ... There is no exaggeration in his

picture; it is cruellyexact',was more interested n Conrad'sde-

scriptionsof primitivecultureand the junglethanin his recordof

Belgiancolonialism.3Eliot, Gide, andRussell, ookingat Conrad'snovellain the light of theirown preoccupations ndthe concerns

of their own time, detectedimportant hreads n the narrativeand

broughtit new meaning,but they also transformed he tale and

distracted eaders romthe 'heartof darkness',whichwascolonial-

ism.As existentialism ndJungianarchetypeshave becomecritical

tools, the novella has been disfigured; Conrad would hardly

recognizehis own hand.

Both the colonialismof the turn of the centuryand Conrad'simage of it have been misread. Alberto Moravia, for instance,does both, for he claimsthat Conraddefinedthe 'old colonialism'

in its 'picturesqueness'and with 'its decadent bungalows, its

Victorianhotels, its slave-likebars, its dusty shops'. Yet the old

colonialismwas in its essentialsnever like this nor did Conrad

describe it in this fashion. Heart of Darkness s anything but

2 William Blackburn,ed., JosephConrad,Lettersto WilliamBlackwoodand

David S. Meldrum(Durham, I958),

pp.36-7; Hugh

Clifford, 'The Art of

Joseph Conrad', The Spectator, 29 November I902; Edward Gamett, 'Mr

Conrad'sNew Book', TheAcademyandLiterature,6 December I902.3 BertrandRussell, Portraits rom Memory New York, I963), p. 87; Andre

Gide, Travels n theCongo New York, I930), p. i andpassim.The book was

dedicated'To the memoryof JosephConrad'.

I14



IMPERIALISM: CONRAD)'S HEART OF DARKNESS

picturesqueand the worldof colonialismMoravia maginescomes

straight romPierreLoti's Le Romand'unSpahi(I88I), a storyof

decadentFrench colonialism.Moraviaclaims that the colonialismConrad described is fundamentally different from the 'neo-colonialism'of the world after I945, but GrahamGreene,whosenovel TheHeartof the Matter(I948) has affinitieswith HeartofDarkness,wrote in I959 from West Africa that much 'had not

changedsince Conrad'sday'. Dr ConorCruiseO'Brien,relatingCongoleseevents of the I96os, findsit instructive o turnto KingLeopold'sCongoundertaking, ecalling hatit was 'anexercise n

rapacity .. presented o the publicas a humanitariannterprise'.'The realtragedyof the missionaries f Katanga'he writes,'... isnot so very far from the tragedyof Kurtzin Heartof DarknessKurtz who, towards the end, scrawledacross his careful, high-minded thesis on the eradicationof barbariccustoms the threewords: "Exterminate he brutes".'And finallyit is important osee the novella in the context of colonialism, or Conradbelievedthat 'Fiction is history, human history, or it is nothing', that a'novelist s a historian, hepreserver, hekeeper, heexpounder,of

humanexperience'.4

Accounting for the genesis of Heart of Darkness,as for most

masterpieces, s a complexaffair.A number of influenceswere atwork - some personal,some social and political.What is parti-cularlynterestings thatConrad ransformed personal xperienceinto a fictionof generalhistoricaland culturalsignificance.Withlittlesenseof strain,hemoved fromself to society; t wasoneof hiseccentricities o

mythologizeanhistorical

elf,to

placehis

ownlifeat the heart of historicalconflicts.He wasthe'PolishEnglishman',Easternerand Westerner;he saw himself at the centre of rivalEuropeannationalisms,andclaimedthathis 'wasthe only caseofa boy of my nationality and antecedents taking a ... standingjump out of his racialsurroundingsand associations'.As a sailorhemadeofhimself'thelastseamanof a sailingvessel',andboastedthat if he livedlong enoughhe would 'becomea bizarrerelic of adead barbarism, a sort of monstrous antiquity, the only seaman

... who had nevergone into steam'. In the Congohe stood in a4 Alberto Moravia, 'Images of Africa', PartisanReview,Fall I963, p. 392;

Graham Greene, In Search of a Character (London, I96i), pp. I5, i8, 48, 51;Conor Cruise O'Brien, 'Mercy and Mercenaries',The ObserverLondon), 6December I964; and To Katanga and Back (London, I962), p. 164.

!I5



CONTEMPORARYHISTORY

bordercountrywhichlinked the primitiveAfricanworldwith themoder European.Conradplaced himself at and was fascinated

by frontiers- mythical frontiersbetween Poland and England,civilizationandsavagery, ndustrialism ndpastoralism, ndthesesocialand historical ensions were made the tensionsof his novels.He believed that 'the bitterest contradictionsand the deadliestconflicts of the world are carriedon in every individualbreast

capableof feelingandpassion'.Forhimthe conflictshe witnessedin the Belgian Congo illuminated the conflicts of the modem

world;he hadonly to give them shapeandsignificance, et them

down on paper,to chroniclea phaseof history.In

writingout of

his self he was mythologizing he contemporaryworld.The times, too, worked on Conrad's imagination and the

memories of the Congowere recalledwhen the rapacityof Leo-

pold's enterprisebegan to be suspectedand when both jingoismand anti-imperialismhockedEnglandat the turn of the century.He had writtenof the colonialscene in his first novels but they

conveylittle senseof its socialframework. n I897, with 'An Out-

post of Progress', and then in I899, with Heart of Darkness, he

drewcloserto the colonialismof his day. BeatriceWebbnoted inher diary, 25 June I897: 'Imperialism in the air! - all classes

drunk with sight seeing and hystericalloyalty', and it was this

atmospherewhichbentConrad'sartin the directionof colonialism

in Africa,and which somewhat aterprovokedhim to attackthe

'idiotic'BoerWarand to regretthat 'All that's art, thought, idea

will haveto step backand hide its head beforethe intolerablewar

inanities'.We knowfromhis friendsand fromhis lettersthat the

politicalissues of I897-I902 returnedhim to his own experiencewith colonialismand impressedhim with the belief that Englishreadersneededurgently o see colonialismn Africa.5Therewasa

public interestedin tales about the empire, about savages and

white traders, and Heart of Darkness, written for Blackwood's

Magazinewhich specialized n 'talesfrom the outposts',answers

that curiosityandreadsin partslikethe popularmagazine iction

of the day. The descriptionsof shouting and franticblacks at-

tackingMarlow'ssteamshipandthe whites

firingback,andof the

beautifulNegro mistressof the white colonialist,satisfiedreaders

looking for romance and adventure. But Heart of Darkness

5 Beatrice Webb, Our Partnership (London, 1948), p. I40; G.J. Aubry, Life

and Letters of Joseph Conrad (London, I927), I, p. 284.



IMPERIALISM: CONRAD'S HEART OF DARKNESS

answers the romantictales about Africa- like Rider Haggard's'BlackHeartandWhiteHeart' with theactualitiesof colonialism.

It wasborn in partbecause here was apublicwhichwantedavidlyto readof Africabut it gavethem a Congo they knewlittleabout.

Much of what happened to Conradin the Congo is lost orconfused. He gave differentversionsof his voyageand it is sug-gested that the actualjourneywasmergedwith accountsof otherAfricantravellers those of Mungo Park, Bruce,Burton,Speke,andLivingstone-which Conradhadreadandwhichlingerednhis

memory.As a childhe hadread about Africanexplorersandfrom

theirstoriesconstructedaromanticworldof exploration, utwhenhe finallywent to the Congo t put 'an end to the idealizedrealitiesof a boy's daydreams!'However,Conrad'sDiary, which he keptfrom 13 June to i August I890, and his letters from the Congo

give us some hints. The Diary has few similarities with thefinishedstory, althoughbothdepicta journeyup the CongoRiver,andpassages rom t whichwouldhavedepicted he CongoConradencountered were omitted from the novella. Heart of Darknesshas no mention, as the Diary has, of Roger Casement,no de-

scriptionof the HattonandCooksonEnglish actory,no packingofivory in cases for shipment, no visits to African markettowns,plantations,or missions.The CongoConradsawin I890 with its

factories,plantations,missionaries,and commercial irms was amore highly organizedand 'civilized'region than the Congo ofHeartofDarkness,which is presented n the rudimentarytagesof

development.Correspondingly,he Diarybetraysno horrorof the

jungle or fascination or the primitiveon anythinglike the scale

of Heart of Darkness;nor is there the same degreeof bitternessand anguish,though occasionallyConradexpressedhis hatred ofthe Congo and the colonial enterprise. On 5 July he wrote,'Getting jolly well sick of this fun', and on 24 June that the'Prominent characteristicof the social life here' was 'peoplespeaking ll of eachother'.However,he waspleasedwith manyoftherepresentatives f European olonialismandfound theMissionof Sutili 'eminently civilized'. Roger Casement,whose reports

exposed Belgianatrocities n the Congo and were used by MarkTwain in his satire - King Leopold'sSoliloquy (I905) - was highlypraised. Nearly fifteen years later he changed his mind aboutCasementand characterized im as 'a limp personality'.Conradcalled him a 'Protestant rishman,pioustoo. But so was Pizarro',

II7



CONTEMPORARYHISTORY

andsuggestedthat 'There is a touchof the Conquistadorn him',andthat 'someparticleof Las Casas'soul hadfoundrefugein his

indefatigablebody'. Conrad nterpretedhistoryby drawingana-logies between the past and the present; hence the Casement-Las Casasparallel.The empirebuilders of the twentiethcenturywerethe 'modemConquistadores';KingLeopoldwasPizarroand

Thys Cortez.6He also believed there was an importantanalogybetweenthe Romanand modemEuropean mpiresand the begin-

ning of HeartofDarkness,whichis meantto put us in the approp-riate historicaland psychologicalsetting, describesthe civilized

Roman colonialist inEngland,

his confrontationwith British

savages,and his 'disease,exile, and death'.One of the ironiesof

Heart of Darknessis that the modern colonialist repeats the

historical experienceof the Roman empire-builder, hough his

exile and death is enacted in the Congo. The destructionof im-

perial societies, from the fall of Rome, and perhapsbefore, was

attributed o savage nvaders, o the barbariannroadson civiliza-

tion, andConradgavethemythmodem coinagewhenhe depictedthe modem imperiumendangered by African savages. In the

Spanishconquestof the Americas, oo, he saw parallelswith theBelgian conquest of the Congo, and while Conradin I903 saw

Casementas the modem Las Casas,andsuspectedhim of a ruth-

lessness camouflagedby piety, in I89o he thoughthim straight-

forward, ntelligent,andsympathetic.The earlierConradbelieved

the rhetoric of colonialism,while the later suspected that greedand thirst forpower aybehindclaimsto progressandcivilization.

The novellarecreatesConrad'sbewildered eelings,his sense that

he is kept 'awayfromthe truthof things', andthat everything nthe Congo is 'unreal'- 'the philanthropicpretenceof the whole

concern', its 'talk' and 'government'.Belgian colonialism was

particularly oted for its outwardshow of philanthropy;Leopoldclaimed n I897thatthe taskof Stateagents in the Congo s noble

and elevated.It is incumbentupon them to carryon the workof

... civilization'.Many people, as Dr O'Brienremindsus, were

taken n until E.D. Morel,SirArthurConanDoyle, andCasement

revealedthe true state of affairs.ConanDoyle

believedthat 'the

most deadlyof all the manyevilswhichhasarisen romLeopold'smissionto Africa',was that 'the wordsof piety and philanthropy... cloaked ... dreadfuldeeds'. Conrad agreed, and in The

6 Ibid., vol. I, p. 325.

18



IMPERIALISM: CONRAD'SHEART OF DARKNESS

InheritorsI90o), written n collaborationwith Ford MadoxFord,he presenteda slightlyveiledpictureof colonialismn the Congo:

'revolting o seewithouta maskwasthatfalsehoodwhichhadbeenhiding under the words that for ages had spurredmen to noble

deeds, to self-sacrifice, o heroism. What was appallingwas thesuddenperception hat all the traditional deals of honour,glory,conscience,had been committed to the upholding of a giganticand atrociousfraud'.While most Europeansstill believed those

words,Conradrevealed heirhypocrisy n Heartof Darknessandremoved he 'prettyfictions'surrounding he DomainePrivd,well

beforeCasementand Morel.7

Moreenlightening han the Diaryare Conrad'setters,formost ofthem were writtenlater than the Diary and by that time he hadseen throughthe rhetoric and was disenchantedand depressed.This experience, hisdiscoveryofexploitation, ommercialism, nd

inhumanitywhich lay behind the progressiveclaims of empirebuilders,had a profound mpacton his understanding f society.He cameto believethat the true nature of Europeansociety wasrevealed n the colonies(andalso in revolutions)andin his fictionhe focuseson men in the tropicsand on revolutionaries. t is notaccidentalbut rather he outcomeof his total outlookthat his best

novel, Nostromo I904), in which he presents an image of themodemworld,bringsthese two concerns nto focusin its portrayalof revolution n Latin America.The earlyMarxnoted that 'The

profoundhypocrisyandinherentbarbarismof bourgeoisciviliza-tion lies unveiledbefore our eyes' in the 'colonies,where it goes

naked'; more recently Sartrenoted that 'the strip-teaseof ourhumanism' ookplacein the tropics,and that 'In the coloniesthetruthstoodnaked'.Conrads alongwayfromMarx,Marxism,and

Sartre,but he sharesthe notion that in the colonies one saw thetruth about Western society. Many twentieth century writers

agreed with Conrad, and the notion that western society was

strippednaked n the colonieswasexpressedby Englishas well ascontinentalwriters. E.M. Forster,GrahamGreene, Joyce Cary,

and Doris Lessing focused on India and Africa for personalreasons,certainly,but also because heyfelt that in the colonies he

7 Leopoldis quotedin Roger Casement,The BlackDiaries,ed., P. Singleton-GatesandM. Girodias London,I959),p. 83; ConanDoyle's statement s in hisIntroduction o E.D. Morel'sGreatBritain and theCongo London, I909).

II9



CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

importantdramasof their culturewere being enacted.Conrad-and Kipling too - were the literarypathfinders.In a prefatory

essayto TheAfricanWitchJoyceCarywrotethat in Africa power-ful, often subconscious motives', come to the surface. 'Basicobsessions which in Europe hide themselves under all sorts ofdecorousscientificor theologicalor politicaluniforms,are thereseennaked n bold anddramatic ction'.V.S. PrichettbelievesthatConrad'sexampleis still valid and notes that 'The greatEnglishsubject ... which includes a picture of society, lies outside

England,simply becauseEnglish life itself has for so long been

parasiticonlife abroadand

does not wish to recognize he fact'.8Fromhis CongoexperienceConradalso cameto believethatit washis taskasa novelistto unmask ociety,to look below its surface odiscernits essentialcharacter,and when we turn from the Diaryto the letters we see a Conrad who had discerneda rapaciouscolonialism.By September1890 he was sorryhe had come to the

Congo. 'Everything s repellentto me here', he wrote, 'Men and

things, but especially men'. He described the manager as a'common vory-dealerwith sordidinstincts',andthoughtof him-

self as oneof the Congo's whiteslaves'.At firsthe grumbledaboutthe stupidityof packing voryin crates,but graduallyhe cametoattackthe colonialset-up as a whole, and sneeredat that 'big (orfat?)bankerwho rules the roost at home'.9Someof his letters are

lost, but those from his uncle Bobrowskireveal Conrad'sowndilemma. We can deduce what he wrote to his uncle from Bob-rowski's sense that his nephew was 'on the frontier betweencivilizationand savagery',and fromhis remark, I see from your

last letter thatyou feel a deepresentment owards he Belgians orexploitingyou so mercilessly'.10

AlthoughHeart of Darknesss rootedin autobiographyt goesbeyond it. Conrad's indignation at being a white slave and

exploited was channelled into an art which indicted Belgianexploitation n the Congo, andhis sense of being on the 'frontier

8 Karl Marx, 'The Future Results of the British Rule in India', in On

Colonialism (Moscow), p. 88; J.P. Sartre, Preface to Frantz Fanon, The Wretched

of the Earth (New York, I963), pp. 7, 2I; V.S. Prichett, 'Conrad', in TheWorking Novelist (London, 1965), p. I95.

9 J.A. Gee, Paul J. Sturm, eds., Letters of Joseph Conrad to AMargueritePoradowska I890o-920 (New Haven, I940), pp. I5-I7.

10 H. Jean-Aubry,Joseph Conrad in the Congo (Boston, I926), p. 45; Z. Najder,ed., Conrad's Polish Background (London, I964), p. I33.

120




between civilizationand savagery'was transformed nto a mythabout the barbarism f colonialism.In turningexperience nto art

he ignoredsome of his experiencesbut focusedon othersto givesignificance;a good exampleof this is the descriptionof the drumin Heart of Darkness. On 4 July I890 Conrad noted in his Diary:'At night when the moon rose I heardshouts and drumming ndistantvillages.Passeda badnight'.The descriptionof the drum-

mingtakesongreat mport, orMarlow'sreaction othedrummingindicates European man's links with primitive man. 'Whatthrilledyou was just the thoughtof theirhumanity like yours-

the thoughtof your remotekinshipwith this wild andpassionateuproar'.For Conrad'saudiencethe notionwas still fairlyrevolu-

tionary,for CharlesKingsleyhad supported he colonialexploitsof Rajah Brooke - the extermination of the Dyaks - on the groundthat theirswas not human life but 'beast-life'. These Dyaks,' he

wrote,'haveput on the imageof the beast,andtheymust takethe

consequences'.Through similarglassesThackeray ooked at the

Negro andwrote,'They arenotmy men &brethren, hesestrangepeople ... Sambo is not my man &

mybrother'.11 Conrad's

assertion - quite startling for most Victorians - that European manwas linked with Africanmanhad morethanpsychological mpli-cations.WhenMarlowresponds o the Africandrumsandacclaimshis kinshiphe asksus to remember hat the Africansarehuman

beings and not criminals,enemies, or beasts. With this under-

standingBelgianexploitationwouldbe seen forwhat it was,man's

inhumanity o man, not, asmanybelieved,to a sub-human pecies.One of Conrad'scharacterswhoactsashis spokesman ells us that

whenyou realize hatdark-skinned eoplesare'humanbeings ...you see the injusticeand cruelfolly of whatbefore,appeared ustand wise'. It is a markof the maturityof Conrad'sart that heawakenedhis readers o the horrorsof Belgiancolonialismon thebasis of broademotional eelings- portraying hat colonialismas

inhumanity o manandas a questforwealthwhichdestroyed ife.The epigraph o the HeartofDarkness olume,'... but the Dwarfanswered:"No, somethinghuman sdearero methan hewealthof

theworld",' ndicatesthe sentimentpervadingHeartof Darkness.The drum image demonstrateshow parts of the Diary were

11 R.B. Martin, unpublished Oxford thesis, An Edition of the Correspondenceand Private Papers of Charles Kingsley 1819-1856, p. I89; Gordon N. Ray,Thackeray: The Age of Wisdom (London, I958), p. 216.

121



CONTEMPORARYHISTORY

incorporated n the tale, and also how Conradfound concrete

imagesto expressthe importantaspectsof andprovidea critique

of Belgiancolonialism.Henry Jamesaffirmed n an essay whichConradadmiredand referred o, that 'the air of reality(solidityof

specification) eems to me to be thesupremevirtueof anovel',andthat 'Art is essentiallyselection,but it is a selectionwhose maincare is to be typical,to be inclusive'. The finestpartsof HeartofDarkness xemplify his, for Conradcreates the airof reality'with

images which are at once concrete and typical. 'This art of vividessential record', which offers a 'whole wide context of parti-

cularities', givesus a

comprehensivepictureof colonialism.12

We see the tradingcompany'sEuropeanofficesdominatingthe

city andimbuingthe populationwithpridein 'anover-seaempire'whichwill 'makeno end of coinby trade'.Marlow'saunt,infected

with the rhetoricof colonialism, ells him that he will be 'weaningthose ignorantmillions from their horridways'. In Europe,too,there is the scientificand culturalapparatuswhich accompaniedcolonialism, anthropologists riding the coat-tails of trading

companies,andthe societies concernedwith savagecustoms.

On his way to the Congo, Marlow sees a man-of-warshellingthe Africancoast. In earliernovels Conradhad used the imageof

the gunboat firing into the jungle, but without the significancethatit achieveshere.One PolishreaderaskedConradwhythe shipwas French and he replied: 'If I say that the ship which bom-

barded he coastwasFrench,it is simplybecauseshe was French.

I rememberhername:le Seignelay.It happenedduring hewar(!)in Dahomey.What follows could referjust as well to a ship of a

differentcountry'.The imageis compellingbecause it is a parti-cularship andbecause,as Conradunderstood, it couldreferjustas well to a ship of a differentcountry'. Rimbaud,who spenteleven years as an Africantraderand shared Conrad'sfeelingsabout the colonial world, spoke of the Europeangovernmentswhich 'squanderedmillionson theseinfernaland desolateshores',of the 'millions lungaway'which 'broughtnothingbut warsand

disastersof all kinds';it is the sameattitudewhich informsCon-

rad'simage

of the man-of-war.13The conflictbetweenman and

12 Henry James, 'The Art of Fiction', in The House of Fiction, Leon Edel,

ed. (London, I957), pp. 33, 38; F.R. Leavis, The Great Tradition (New York,

I963), pp. I74, I76.13 Najder, op. cit., p. 242; Enid Starkie,ArthurRimbaudnAbyssiniaOxford,

1937), P. I05.

122



IMPERIALISM: CONRAD'SHEART OF DARKNESS

natureto 'tear treasureout of the bowelsof the land'is central othe novella and the man-of-war incident gives it a specific

reference.On the shores of Africathe 'Frenchhad one of theirwarsgoing on', and 'In the empty immensityof earth, sky, and

water', the ship is 'incomprehensible, iring into a continent'.Marlowtells us that 'There was a touch of insanityin the pro-ceeding',and he feels the sameas he watchesthe buildingof the

Congorailroad.Workon this railroadwasin progresswhen Con-radwas in the Congobut was not completeduntil I898, when he

beganto writeHeartof Darkness. t is likelythat news of its com-

pletion awakenedmemoriesof its earlystages.The CongoDiarycontains no mention of the railroad,which follows the routeConrad ook, and its prominentplace in the novella indicateshisincreased social and politicalunderstanding.Gide saw the rail-road n the I920s andclaimed hatalthough t hadcostmuch humanlife it wasa worthwhileandnobleaccomplishment.The mid- andlate Victoriansdid not seem to realize that human beings wereinvolvedin buildingrailroads;a writer for TheQuarterlyReviewclaimed n I898 that 'In Africa,as in allhalf-savage ountries, he

railroad s the best instrument or the introductionof civilization'.Earlier,Froude had claimed that 'Civilization preadswith rail-road speed', and that notion was widely expressedand believed.In I889, the yearthe Compagnie u Cheminde Fer du Congowas

founded, Thys asserted: 'friends of humanitywill find that the

Congorailway s the meanspar excellence f allowingcivilizationto penetrate rapidly and surely into the unknown depths ofAfrica'. In focusing on the building of the railroad, the revolu-

tionary machine of the age', Conraddepicted one of the mostimportantaspectsof colonialism, or the railroad,as RogerCase-ment noted, was centralto exploitationof the Belgian Congo.14To Froude, Thys, and the magazinewriterswho celebrated herailroadas aninstrumentof progressandcivilization,Conradgavea fiercereply.For Conrad he railroadwas a destroyerof nature,an instrument for exploitationand oppression, for the violentdestructionof primitivecommunities.Like the gunboat shellingthe African

continent,the

buildingof the railroads depictedas a14Unsigned article, 'Englandand the Soudan', The QuarterlyReview,I898,p. 572; JamesA. Froude,'Englandand Her Colonies', n ShortStudieson GreatSubjects,vol. II (London, I87I). p. I60; Ruth Slade, King Leopold'sCongo(London, I962), p. 75; Leo Marx, TheMachine n theGardenNew York,I964),p. i80.

123




struggle between the white man and nature which slowly destroysthe African. Conrad tells us of the black labourers: 'brought from

all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lostin uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they

sickened, became inefficient, and were allowed to crawl away and

rest'. We see the railroad chain-gang at close range: 'Six black men

advanced in a file, toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow,

balancing small baskets of full earth on their heads ... I could see

every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope; each

had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with

a chain'.

It isn't only gunboats and railroads that we see but the peopleinvolved in Belgian colonialism, from the chain-gang to the

company manager. The Africans portrayed in this early section

are real individuals and not merely noble savages or devils. Marlow

meets an armed African in uniform watching over labourers, a

primitive rebel stubbornly resisting the white colonialists by

sabotaging their efforts, and a surly young African whose master

allows him to insult other whites. It is a world in which Belgians

and Africans are both victims and victimizers, corrupting and

corrupted. There is the company accountant in starched collar and

clean linen who tells Marlow: 'When one has got to make correct

entries, one comes to hate those savages - hate them to the death'.

We follow the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, its grimy explorers,

Negro carriers and mangy donkeys going into the wilderness to

look for ivory on the pretext of exploration. The relationship

between scientific exploration and the quest for wealth fascinated

Conrad; he noted that 'The voyages of the early explorers wereprompted by an acquisitive spirit, the idea of lucre in some form,

the desire of trade or the desire of loot, disguised in more or less

fine words'. And in fact he envisaged history as an interweaving of

the noble and ignoble, exploration linked with exploitation,

progress and civilization tied to reaction and savagery.

Having provided this wealth of detail, these concrete images which

generalizeabout

Belgiancolonialism, Conrad created Kurtz to

symbolize the fundamental conflicts and the decadence of colonial-

ism. 'All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz', who is, in

Professor Lionel Trilling's words, 'a progressive and a liberal ...

at once the most idealistic and the most practically successful of all

124




the agentsof the Belgian exploitationof the Congo'.15Kurtzhadcome to Africaas 'anemissaryof pity, andscience,andprogress',

but in his quest for ivory he is corrupted,his humane valuesabandoned.Furthermore, is depravitys described n termsof his

savage atrocities,his participation n primitive rituals, and hisdeificationn African ociety.WithKurtzwe leave n largeparttheactualworld and enterthe mythicworld Conradcreatedaboutthe

BelgianCongo.Conrad'smythaboutmoribundcolonialism estedon thenotion

that therewas, as in the caseof Rome,an inescapableandcritical

relationship between imperial decadence and savagery. Thecolonial power confrontedand infected by barbarismbecomesdecivilizedanddisintegrated; his myth developed romConrad'ssense that he was in I890 on the frontierbetween civilizationand

savagery,and from his scrutiny of the pervasive and endless

strugglebetween blacksandwhites, on chain-gangsand in jungleoutposts.It is a moralmyth,too, for it details he evilswhich befallthe civilizedmanwhen he transgresses gainstbarbarism,whenhe

exploitsprimitivemanandnature.Kurtzhasrobbed hewildernessof ivory, has 'kickedthe very earth to pieces', and in turn 'thewildernesshad found him out early, and had taken on him aterriblevengeance or the fantastic nvasion'.He hasexploitedandexterminatedprimitiveman(primitive n the senseof naturaland

pre-social as well as specifically Congolese), and they avengethemselves by working his corruption: the torturer becomesvictim.

Conrad's atherApolloKorzeniowskiwrote in his memoirs hat

'The history of mankind is a history of the struggle betweenbarbarismand civilization', and Conrad interpretedhistory insimilarfashion.His fatherhad used the concept with particularreference o Poland and Russia,designatingRussia,of course,asthe barbarian.Conradhimselffirst used it in reference o colonial-ism, but in the twentiethcenturyhe sawEuropeanpoliticstoo as aconflict between barbarism and civilization. He traced manysimilaritiesbetweenthe CongoandPoland,for both the struggle

of Polish nationalistsagainstRussiansand Germansand the warbetweenBelgiancolonialistsand Congo blackswere seen as partof the continual struggle between barbarism and civilization.Conrad'sPolish nationalism,his hatredof Russian'imperialists',

15Lionel Trilling, Beyond Culture (London, 1966), p. 20.

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CONTEMPORARYHISTORY

shaped his hostility to colonialism, and his experience in the Congostiffened his belief in the need for Poland's independence from the

Empires of Germany and Russia. He described Poland as adistant outpost of western civilization placed in the midst of hostile

camps, whose historical role was 'defender of civilization againstthe dangers of barbarism'. The Germans were a 'race planted in

the middle of Europe, assuming in grotesque vanity the attitude of

Europeans amongst effete Asiatics or barbarousniggers; and, with

a consciousness of superiority, freeing their hands from all moral

bonds'. Conrad's anti-colonialism derived in large measure from

hisnineteenth-century nationalism,

from hisfeeling

that Poland

was victimized by European empires; he sympathized with

'barbarousniggers' like the Congolese because of his experience as

a Pole. And he looked at continental political and economic issues

with the insight of a man who had seen colonialism in Africa.16

There were, as well, other elements in Conrad's myth about

civilization and barbarism. He believed that 'There are some

situations where the barbarian and the, so-called, civilized man

meet upon the same ground,' and whether one lived in the tropics

or in Western Europe one saw 'the same manifestations of love andhate and sordid greed chasing the uncertain dollar in all its multi-

farious and vanishing shapes'. In all cultures, social inequality was

maintained by physical force, and Conrad spoke of that 'toleration

of strength, that exists, infamous and irremediable, at the bottom

of all hearts, in all societies; whenever men congregate'Central to the analogies between barbarian,savage, and civilized

c:mmunities was the concept of fetishism. Anthropologists of the

time were concerned with 'savage survivals' and Conrad similarlylooked for the fetishes of moder society. Although be believed

that 'there is no real religion without a little fetishism', religion was

relatively unimportant for him as a fetish, for he believed that

Christianity was dying and that new secular religions were takingits place. As the old gods died man made new ones and this processwas common to primitive and civilized men. In Nostromo the

Indians who work the San Tome mine 'invested it with a protectingand invincible virtue as though it were a fetish made by their own

hands', and Conrad adds that the Indians in this respect 'did not

16 Najder, op. cit., p. 8; Aubry, op. cit., vol. II, p. 237; Joseph Conrad, 'The

Crimeof Partition', A Note on the Polish Problem',and 'PolandRevisited',in

Notes on Life and Letters (London, I949).

I26




differ appreciably rom the rest of mankind which puts infinitetrust in its owncreations'.Thereis a widevarietyof fetishes n this

book: an Italian revolutionarydoes not believe in saints or in'priest'sreligion',but 'Libertyand Garibaldiwerehis divinities';an Americanfinancier looks upon his own God as a sort of in-fluentialpartner,whogetshis shareoftheprofits nthe endowmentof churches',andthattoo, Conradsays,is a 'sortof idolatry'.Andmost important s the 'religionof silverand iron', for in modem

societywealth was the ultimatefetish. The deificationof wealth,politicalpower, and secularvalues was an indication that man's

creationsassumedpoweroverhim, that man was estranged romtheworldaroundhim.The notion is importantn othernovelsandis decisive in Heartof Darkness.Conrad ocuseson the fetishes of

empireandon the deificationof 'efficiency'.In Heartof Darkness here is the religionof ivoryas well, the

ivory to which the white traderspray. In Kurtz the notion offetishism is transformed nto a symbol, for having worshippedivoryhe is turned into 'ananimated mageof deathcarvedout ofoldivory'.Kurtzstandsatthe 'heartof darkness' or he has become

a god worshippedby the Africansandthus totallydehumanized.This is a directcommenton the colonialistworld, for manyhad

written, as Kurtz did, that whites must appear in the nature of

supernaturalbeings ... with the might as of a deity', to 'exert a

powerforgood'.Kurtzis also a decadentcolonialistbecausehe takespartin the

rituals of savagesociety. Conradattemptsto distinguishKurtz's

savageryfrom that of the Africans,and feels that theirs 'was a

positiverelief' and 'had a rightto exist',while Kurtz's is abomin-able: savages have a right to be savage but not civilized men.

However,he fails to distinguishsuccessfullybetween the two, andthe implicationof the tale is thatthe colonialistbecomes decadentand corruptbecause of contactwith savages.Kurtz is decadent

literallybecause he becomes like the Africans, and figurativelybecause'powersof darkness'control him and his is the 'heart ofdarkness'.Conrad held this notion at the same time that he

sympathizedwith and identified

with the Africans,and this con-flictlinksupwitha centralambiguityof thenovella, or it describesevil both in terms of societyand in terms of racialand pre-socialforces. In fact, Conrad believed that blacks were a corruptingforce, and in his earliernovels he describedsavagewomen and

127




Negroes demoralizingwhite men. He knew little about Negroesand one unfortunate xperience n particular ramedhis notion of

evil blacks,for he alwaysremembered an enormousbuck niggerencountered n Haiti' who crystallizedhis 'conceptionof blind,furious,unreasoning age,manifested n the humananimal'.Suchnotionswere in partderived from booksandprobably rom con-

ceptions widespreadof the time. In 1898 he was readingMax

Nordau, who suggestedin DegenerationI895) that the degener-ate 'renews ntellectually he type of the primitivemanof the mostremote Stone Age'.17 Conrad did not agree with Nordau that

symbolistartistswere

decadent,buthe did

agreehat

savageryand

decadence in the modern world went together. Both writerscriticized evils by identifying them as barbaric.In The Secret

Agent(I907), where the concept of degeneratesplays an impor-tantpartand the characters iscussProfessorLombroso, he Italian

criminologist to whom Degenerationwas dedicated, Conrad

indicates the depravityof an anarchistby describing'the negro

type of his face'.And in Nostromo e usedthe suggestionof Negrofeaturesto indicatethe basenessof the revolutionaries,nforming

usthat theirappearance rgued thepresenceof somenegroblood'.In these novels the fault is slight - in Heart of Darkness t is

critical. Contemporaryreviewerssaw the novella as a realistic

andnot a mythicaccountof the fall of the colonialist,andpraisedConrad'sportraitof'demoralization',degeneracy', nd 'deciviliza-

tion'. Very few quarrelledwith his sociology of colonialism,his

notion that men's very lives were 'renderedpossiblethroughthe

high organization f civilizedcrowds',that societypermittedmen

'to live on conditionof being machines',but that when man wasfreed from society in the tropics and confronted primitiveman

and primitive nature', his life was disrupted and demoralized.

Societywasnecessary o keepin checkman's barbarism without

it, as in the presenceof Africans n the tropics,his innatesavagerywouldbe rekindled.G.P. Goochin TheHeartof theEmpireI9oI)claimedthat 'Neo-Imperialism'demonstratedhat 'when men are

farfromcivilizedsocietyandcando whattheylike,theytendto do

theirworst rather hantheirbest',andhe urgedthosewhowanted

verification o read'Stevenson'svivid storiesof Samoan ife'. Not

only did colonialmando his worstbut he became a savage too;

BenjaminKidd in The Controlof the Tropics I898) arguedthat

17 Max Nordau, Degeneration (London, 1895), p. 556.

I28




when the white man wasseparated romsocietyandplacedin the

jungle 'he tends to sink slowly to the level around him'. The

argumentwas used in disputes about colonialpolicy, about thepossibility of colonizing Central Africa. Those who predictedman's decivilizationsaid 'no' to plans for settling the heart of

Africa,andthere were frequentmagazinearticleswith such titlesas 'Is Central Africa Worth Having?' Edward Dicey, arguingagainstcolonialism,wrote that sincethere was 'no betterevidencethan that to be found in Mr Rider Haggard'sromancesfor thebelief that CentralAfrica contains vestiges of any civilization',

Englandshouldstayout.18Politicalwritersandeconomistsreliedon novels and tales, like those of Haggardand Stevenson, for

political arguments.EdwardTylor noted that 'In our time, WestAfrica is still a world of fetishes ... So strong is the pervading

influence,that the European n Africa is apt to catchit fromthe

Negro, andhimself,as the sayingis "becomeblack".'The authorof the popularThinkingBlacksuggested hat'the fearful act mustbe faced that all things Europeandegenerate n CentralAfrica',andthat'Africa nvadesyou ... the Dark Continent loodingyourinsularEnglishbeingateverypore'.19HeartofDarkness ould have

providedas stronga caseas anyagainstcolonizingCentralAfrica.The argumentwas not confined to Central Africa. In I899

Herbert Spencer indicted empire-buildingas a whole when heclaimed that 'the white savagesof Europe are overrunning hedarksavageseverywhere .. the Europeannations arevying withone another n politicalburglaries';and that Europehad 'entered

upon an era of social cannibalism n which the strongernations

aredevouring heweaker'.Spencerexpandedhis ideas in anessay,'Re-Barbarization', ssertingthat in the war atmosphereof thelate I89os the 'partiallydormantinstincts of the savage' werearoused. He felt that 'savagetribes'and modern empires showthat the cardinal raitof fightingpeoples s thesubjectionof mantoman and groupto group'. Spencerwas particularlynterested nthe function of culture in the savage imperialsociety and notedthat 'Literature, ournalism,and art, have all been aidingin this

processof

re-barbarization'. opular fiction appealedto 'latentsavagery'and the poet laureate and Rudyard Kipling were

18 Edward Dicey in The Nineteenth Century, September 189o, p. 494.19Primitive Culture, vol. II (London, I87I), p. I45; Daniel Crawford,

Thinking Black (London, I912), pp. xv, 94.

129 9




especially guilty in his eyes for the 'recrudescenceof barbaric

ambitions, deas andsentiments'.He concluded hat 're-barbariza-

tion' went hand in hand with 'the movement towards Im-perialism'.20J.A. Hobson also singled out Kipling for attack,claimingthat his poetry 'expresseshonestlythe savagepassionofthe mob-spirit of this country'. In The Psychologyof Jingoism(19oI), Hobson examinedthe culturalclimate in Englandat thetime of the Boer War: 'Jingoism is a particularform of ...

primitive passion'. The 'Jingo spirit ... disables a nation from

getting outside itself', and this trait was the 'quintessence of

savagery'.He

distinguished ingoismfrom

primitive ust, writingthat 'Jingoisms essentiallya productof "civilized"communities',but claimed hat 'Forpurposesof the presentstudy... the hypo-thesisofreversion o asavage ypeofnature s distinctlyprofitable'.He noted a fetishism n English society,for therewas a 'reversionto beliefin England'sGod, abarbarianribaldeitywhofightswithand for ourbigbattalions'.H. G. Wellssaw a similar rait n figureslike 'Britannia'whom he called the English 'tribalgods' of the

nineteenthcentury.21The notion that colonialismand imperialismwere barbarisms

and jingoism a savage survival was not the property of social

theoristsandsociologistsalone.Like Spencer,the novelistGeorgeGissingbelievedthata timeof re-barbarization ascomingandhe

noted in I900 that 'A periodof strugglefor existencebetweenthe

nations seems to have begun', and that it might 'verywell result

in alongperiodof semi-barbarism'. arlier,n I885,hehad written

that the 'throat-cuttingn Africa'was 'hateful'and that the 'way

in which it is writtenabout,showsthe completestbarbarism tillexisting under the surface ... The masses of men are still livingin a state of partiallyvarnished avagery'. n TheWhirlpool1897)and In the Year of Jubilee (I894), he attackedthe savageryof

jingoismand colonialism.22Heart of Darknesswas written when these ideas were wide-20 H. Spencer, quoted in H. Ausubel, In Hard Times (London, I960), p. 255;

'Re-Barbarization', and 'Barbaric Art' in Spencer's Facts and Comments (Lon-

don, I902), pp. 122-33, 187.21

J.A. Hobson, The Psychology of Jingoism (London, I90I), pp. 40, 2, 12, 20,78, 79; H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, revised edition (London, 1961),

p. 978.22 Arthur C. Young, ed., The Letters of George Gissing to Eduard Bertz 1887-

1903 (London, I96I), p. 284; Algernon and Ellen Gissing, eds. Letters of George

Gissing to Members of his Family (London, I927), p. I52.

130




spread,and Conradused them to show the decadenceof Belgiancolonialism n the Congo.In portrayingKurtzworshippingvory,

being worshippedas a god, taking part in savage rituals, andcontrolledby Africans,he translateda body of commonlyshared

knowledge nto a myth.Like Hobson, who claimed that Jingoismwasa particularorm of primitivepassion,ConraddefinedBelgiancolonialismas a savage orce. At a time when Kipling,in the short

story 'At the Tomb of his Ancestors', or example,celebrated hewhite man as a god before nativepopulations,and believedthattribal values were important for the modem empire, Conrad

revealedthe bankruptcyof these notions. It is in this sense thathe takeshisplacebesideanti-colonialistsike Hobson andSpencer,for althoughhe did not sharetheirsociologyor economics,he toosaw jingoismand colonialismas re-barbarization.As a concreterecordof Belgian colonialism,Heart of Darkness akes its placealongside he worksof E.D. Morel andRogerCasement.As amythit ralliesmoral ndignationagainstcolonialism.

At times Conrad'smyth gets out of hand and he would havedone well to rememberHobson's

pointthat the colonialist was

not corruptedby the native,but by the colonialsituation, hroughcontactwith 'merchants,planters,engineers,and overseers'.And

this, of course, s the sortof corruptionwe see in the earlysectionof the novella.As fiction,Conrad'smythwasharmless,but in the

politicalworld,wheremanyarguments ested onthenotionthat inAfrica the white man became savage, it could be dangerous.Perhaps,too, Conrad was not carefulenough with his analogiesbetween civilizationand savageryandhis myth had its distorting

effect. EdwardTylor spoketo this point when he wrote of com-parisons between civilized and savage standards and criticizedthose who claimed that the evils of civilizationwere savage.'Butit is notsavagery', ewrote,butrather broken-downivilization'.23

If myth gets out of hand and if Conradwas at times unsureaboutthenatureof imperialdecadence,he provideda detailedand

comprehensivepictureof the Belgian Congo. Heart of Darkness

deserves,certainly, o be read for its poetry,but it demands o be

readfor its imagesof Africa, ts moralcondemnation f a colonial-ism which was, in Conrad'sown words, 'the vilest scrambleforloot that ever disfiguredthe history of human conscience and

geographical xploration'.23 EdwardTylor, Primitive Culture, vol. I (New York, I833), p. 42.

I3I

imperialism_ conrad_s heart of darkness_ 1967 (journal of contemporary history_ 18p)

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