In The Heart of Darkness Essay

In The center field of apparition, Marlow learns firsthand the consequences, harshness, commerce, and corruption of emblazon ken in atomic number 63an compoundism. The mer lavtilism and capitalism which were gaining currency in europium officially spread throughout the world by the colonialism. This focus on wealth scholarship drives the Europeans to loot Afri target territories of the precious drop, ignites the savage cycle of violence and abrasiveness, dehu humankindsizes the Natives of Africa, and takes modern racial discrimination to a whole new take aim under the pretext of civilizing and pacifying the African masss.Marlow, who is the booster dose in this confine along with Kurtz, bears proof of his voyage to Africa that I gestate codn the pose of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot proneness (Conrad 34). These explanation sums up what Marlow encounters in Africa and gives a hint as to crimes of colonialism which existed in the make up of trade and conquest.The gist of Darkness explores the darkest motivations of colonialism and highlights its prize agenda by commercialization of a culture, the denuding and growth of expectant wealth. In the pound for Africa, European countries unanimously agreed on sacking and claiming portions of it. The agree workforcet legitimized the groups of pirates posed as traders to exchange with and enslave the native peoples in a second round of Neo-Sla very(prenominal). The deduction of the title, sum of money of Darkness, flows in tandem with the bang of money which is the root of all evil. This imperialistic greed is what exposes the criminality of inefficiency and pure selfishness when tackling the civilizing proceeding of Africa (Hawkins 286). The heart is wholly given everyplace to the selfish pursuit of wealth and encumbers the plenty by enslave workforcet and deception.Kurtz is the embodiment of European colonialism for mostly his expeditions had been for os (Conrad 92). The price of bone is invaluable. As testament to the presence of the descent of Ivory in colonial times, we engender the Ivory Coast. The natives would delineate the elephant for the ivory and because would trade it for shells, strings, rum etc with the European explorers. save as Kurtz life revolves around the hunt and gain for ivory (wealth), the central break up of the Scramble for Africa which instigated the European colonialism is commerce, which was scarce exploitation of an ignorant people. Kurtz is introduced to Marlow as a man chuckbing for ivory (Conrad 72).Marlow/Conrad uses a skilful literary technique in dehumanizing the Europeans for only animals grub for feed. Ivory becomes not only the food which feeds their insatiable desires for self-aggrandizement, but to a fault holds an enshrined berth as a god, to whom their veneration ascends. As a newcomer on the expedition, Marlow hear the word ivory rang in the air, was utter and sighed. You would think the y were praying to it. A taint of cretin rapacity blew through it all (Conrad 44). These men sell their souls for a inhering imaging in the name of commercialization and prosperity. chthonic the aegis of a company, plans were made to step down the rights of the people and to acquire more territory. Marlow oftentimes alludes to the smart set for whom he works. It is the East Indian Company which established trading posts and for whom Marlow, Kurtz, and several(prenominal)(prenominal) separate British men demo service. Conrad states that the Company had the right to every snatch of information about its territories (Conrad175). Here is a bold statement which demonstrates the company authorizing decrees, conniption up surveillance, annexing territory, and claiming rights to ownership and governance. The embryonic signs be already being made householdly that Neo-colonialism is going to rear its head to prominence.As if to emphasize the financial genius of their pop the qu estion and inter human body with the people, Conrad underlines that the group of the Company were ilk those of El Dorado, hunters for gold or pursuers of fame (Conrad 17). Conrad makes a pertinent connection with the conquistadores and Spanish explorers of the recent World who searched and hunted for gold receivable to the mythological tale of hidden treasures in the jungles. The motives and the techniques generate not changed.The goal of the men to Africa is specifically to conduct trade although in that location is full-blown cartography going on along the book similar to the archaean Spanish explorers. Describing the manager of one of the Companys stations, Marlow describes him as one whose eyeball glittered wish mica discs (Conrad 45). This comparison of his look to mica tells of his mercenary vision and objective. isinglass is a silvery precious nether region which gleams like diamond-like crystals which a hexagonal shape. It was considered a jewel since it was rarg onfied in Europe hence highly costly.The cruelty of European colonialism is plain to the sight in warmth of Darkness, and is a by-product of a darken heart. The presence of rifles, guns, and bayonets of the Europeans versus the spears, bows, arrows, and clubs of the Native makes this novel very bloody, dehumanizing, violent, and brutal. The paragon of cruelty is of course, Kurtz who embodies the Machiavellian ethic of colonizers who do whatever is necessary to master their own ends.As Marlow enters Kurtz dwelling, Marlow is greeted by the heads which jut on stakes and adorn his home like medals (Conrad 94). What barbarous man would have dead cadavers of beheaded victims constantly ring him The reeking of death in Heart of Darkness is the scent of the lies taint as it emanates from the symbolic corpses and metaphoric decay that litters the course of the story (Steward 319). Moral decay and degeneration argon what corrupts Kurtz and which becomes materialized in the cadavers ar ound which he surrounds himself. Whatever the colonizers could not obtain by deception, they take by force. Cruelty comes naturally to Kurtz to the point that it overtakes him. Even Kurtz threatens to kill Marlow on one occasion in indigence for some of the latters ivory. oftentimes intertribal war would erupt because of chase conflict and robberies-it was a bloody, cruel affair. Marlow depicts the hunting as just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a huge scale (Conrad 69). In one vitrine Marlow rule to the merciless beating of an African by one of the European traders as punishment (Conrad 23). Cruelty is a tactical maneuver employed to subject and to intimidate people. A startling case of this is the beating of the African which Marlow records earlier in the book. The castigation occurs in front of several of his own people who stand around doing nothing to supporter the beaten victim.Marlow sees the strong Africans around him and knows that they can over magnat e the white men, withal, the mind is already enslaved and terrorized therefore the Europeans have free command over Africa. Whipping is a punitive method which recalls the times of slavery where slaves had to be lashed as incentive to toil harder or as an example of warning to others. sometimes cruelty is the means and sometimes it is the end. force play breeds violence. As the Europeans continue to assume rights and set upon territory, the people of Africa rise up in rebellion.A few men of their team argon killed by the African artillery. Marlow attests to the ammunition where he observes a heavy rifle, and a light revolver carbine the thunderbolts of that pitiable Jupiter (Conrad 98). Moreover, Africans negotiated the ivory trade provided that they could acquire the high tidal bore weapons of the Europeans so that in their local wars, they could have a greater advantage. The proliferation of arms serves the Europeans plan to divide and rule so that cruelty against the Afri cans advances the demolish of the Africans when they kill one another.The consequences of colonialism are too many to be enumerated heretofore the primary ones are dehumanization, exploitation, poverty, and the death of a culture. The European colonizers place a interdict construction on Africans which Marlow himself has done. Although he only narrates the story based on his Europocentric perspective, it is still deformed with bias, prejudice, dehumanization, and condescension toward the Africans. covering a people as humble justifies their slaughtering and the plundering of their goods.Marlow says that he sees twenty cannibals splattering around and pushing (Conrad 61) in a river. This epithet cannibal represents the less than blandish aspect of the African upon which the European fixates thus debasing them and their culture as subhuman. Cannibalism existed in some areas of Africa however, for all the time that Marlow clay in Africa he is not eaten. trading Africans canni bals was a normal act however which was in vogue among the Europeans. The Africans are neer considered human in the novel.They are named mordant figures (Conrad 48), savages (Conrad 98), barbarian naked human beings (Conrad 97), spade (Conrad 23), shadows (Conrad 100). Matched up against animals, Marlow compares their sounds to a violent dabble of uncouth sounds (Conrad 38). No African speaks understandably in the novel seeing that their opposed tongue has a cacophonous, guttural, and animalistic note. As a result the power of cover solely belongs the white man. Edward Said suggests that colonial power and discourse is possessed solo by the colonizer (JanMohamed 59).The dehumanization of the African serves to yoke them with The White Mans Burden masterfully expounded by Rudyard Kipling. Marlow feels that colonialism can be redeemed by comprehend an idea unselfishly. That idea can be compared to Rudyard Kiplings The White Mans Burden (Farn 16). Broaching more in understandi ng the theme of European colonialism, Marlow comments that all Europe contributed to the making of Kurtzthe International Society for the downsizing of the Savage (Conrad 83).Here he admits Kurtz secret approval with Britain and other members of Europe in oppressing African peoples. The beating of the Africans like little children or animals also contributes to the debasement of this people from whose lands they were benefitting. A savage is semi-human if he is at all, and since to the colonizers he has nothing to say, nor are they interested in deciphering his tongue, they take greater self-direction at enchaining him in a web of secret deceit.Dehumanization is crucial in the surgical procedure of colonialism for enslavement of the mind comes first and wherefore the enslavement of the body and person. The colonized respective(prenominal)s will must be broken, set at nought apprize and then the colonial is at liberty to dominate, exploit and commodify the human being. The co lonial bequest in Africanist ethnography can neer be negated, but must be acknowledged under the sign of its expunging (Apter 577). Commodification converts the sacred into the profane (Marx 1848).The English explorers were the colonists of their twenty-four hour period and once they constructed the Africans as inferior, or below their culture, dehumanization becomes easy and an almost natural step. The bitterest servitude was imposed and cruel aggressions executed and perpetrated against the Africans. Brutality, demonisation and savagery are justified for the autochthonous peoples are not fully human consequently the Indians are wholly in their power through gratuitous cruelty and carnage. European colonizers profited from servility and subjugation. Through force, irresistible impulse and duress the European colonizers manipulate for ivory or exact ivory, while treating the natives like excrement.The role of twine in European colonialism is easy to fathom in The Heart of Dar kness. The depth of the color of darkness has several connotations which Marlow picks up along the way. First of all, the stand of black has both positive and prejudicious meanings. Blackness exemplifies richness, depth, and unity on the other hand, black also is equated with evil, corruption, colonialism, and the devil. By the books name, one can see that there is a colored arrangement which Marlow has to see for himself to believe.Views about the human nature and the human heart are also studied as one sees its big capacity to perform beastly, monstrous acts and these are the traits which color and taint his heart. Heart of Darkness conveys the timeless myth about the exploration of the human soul and the metaphysical power of evil (Raskin 113).Colonialism is all about color and thrives on, the color line, the division of the races. The European whites are distinguished about the African blacks the color on the maps is a legendary strike indicating the colonized areas of Afri ca. Marlow realizes that Kurtz heart is black as hell toward the end of the novel.The ignorance and primitiveness of the Africans are contrasted with men who lived in the light of civilization. Hence, the referee gains a broad and deep shrewdness in understanding the color codes as Marlow himself comes to grasp, as he represents the vicarious witness through whose eyes, the reader observes the process of colonization in Africa.In sum, Conrad effectively critiques colonialism and places in the beginning the reader the darkened heart the commerce, cruelty, corruption, and color consciousness in European colonialism in Heart of Darkness. These elements plunge both the colonist and the colonizer in an abyss of ruin where both become dehumanized, financially or morally bankrupt, and violent. The period of Neo-colonialism in Africa accomplishes great havoc in the name of progress, commercialization, and prosperity.