Remarkable Trace Reflections on Colonialism and Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the issue of colonialism and racism in Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness. The researcher surveyed scholarly articles, books and other sources relevant to the area of the research, providing a critical evaluation of this work. Basically, the title carries a rich connotation which indicates darkness in the colonial European psyche, making it disproportionate to equate physical darkness with spiritual darkness. The common characteristics of savagery between the Europeans and the Africans are traced back to a mutual dark and weak civilization, which in turn makes room for the more powerful to impose imperialistic rules on the less powerful. Further, this paper shows that the European banner of 'civilization' is hypocritical and raised to legitimize the false authority of taking over the jungles of Africa. The scenes revealing their corruption, including their acts of violence and murder, are concluded to be the dominant features of the civilization which they exalt. There is too a metaphoric but ironic correlation between the Africans and the Europeans regarding worshipping idols, as the white man is praying to ivory, and the black man is practicing questionable beliefs of spirituality. Moreover, the European ignorance of the dark continent shapes the fictional perception of black people and the African landscape as "prehistoric". Besides, there is a point of distinction between the white man of culture and the black man of nature, yet this gap neither justifies conquering Africa nor disgraces the African cultural inheritance. At last, there is a parallel image presented with regard to the European empire representative, Kurtz and his alleged possessions. Kurtz's white fiancé and Kurtz's black mistress portray the gap between European ideals and African disconnection with the least implications of civilization, which both are ultimately denounced by European imperialism.