`Colonialism and moral conflict in Conrad`s Heart of Darkness.`

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Colonialism and Moral Conflict in Conrad 's Heart of Darkness

Conrad 's tale of nineteenth-century Africa asks deep questions about colonialism , the moral justifications of the occupting power and the consequences for the underdeveloped country on which western intervention is focused . In Heart of Darkness the setting is the Belgian Congo , but the issues raised apply endlessly to the various western colonial adventures of more recent years , certainly to the Vietnam war , as Coppola so skilfully showed in Apocalypse Now , and

br indeed to the present Iraqi conflict . When the French warship is seen dropping shells senselessly into the jungle , the explanation is that there are enemies , more precisely a camp of natives . hidden out of sight somewhere (20 , in the same way , perhaps , as all anti-coalition forces in Iraq are insurgents . We know very little about them , but they are enemies ' or criminals ' like the wretches in the chain gang Marlowe sees on whom the outraged law , like the bursting shells , had come , an insoluble mystery from the sea (22-3 , or perhaps like the gooks ' that Colonel Kilgore (who we know was based on a real Vietnam commander ) speaks of in Apocalypse Now Damn gook names , they all sound the same , he says when discussing Willard 's access to the mouth of the river

Marlowe sees the workers dying , largely because of the incompetence and unimaginativeness of colonial administration . Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts , lost in uncongenial surroundings , fed on unfamiliar food , they sickened , became inefficient (24 . The workers at Kurtz 's station are also contracted on western lines , though I don 't think a single one of them had any clear idea of time ' but as long as there was a piece of written over in accordance with some farcical law or other (58 ) the colonial authorities were satisfied and asked no questions . No one was concerned to understand these people or their traditions - to ask what they ate or how they lived . They are natives ' or savages . In Apocalypse Now , the general briefing Willard on his mission says that he can understand Kurtz , because with these natives ' there is a temptation to play God

Vietnam of course was fought partly for reasons of geopolitical influence , but it was also partly driven by the beliefs of liberals that there was a moral requirement to resist the domino effect in South East Asia . Despite much current cynicism , a leading factor in the Iraq invasion was , and still is , the belief that a democratic Middle-East would be a happier and safer place for all mankind . Heart of Darkness is full of the ideas of progress and hope . Kurtz is a great man , we hear early on in the book . Oh , he will go far , very far (28 . The uncorrupted Kurtz has noble ambitions : Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things . for humanizing , improving instructing (47 . The visionary quality is enough to enchant the young Russian Marlowe meets , who says that this man has enlarged my mind (78 ) and he made me see things (79 . But Kurtz 's journal shows the cracks . While he argues that colonialism is a noble thing , by which we can exert a power for good practically unbounded (72 Marlowe notices that there are no practical ideas of how this might be achieved . He suspects that it is all no more than the unbounded power of eloquence (72 , until he suddenly comes across the scrawled words at the end of a page like a flash of lightning in a serene sky `Exterminate all the brutes (72

For just as the natives are the victims of the colonial adventure , so is Kurtz , whose moral nature is destroyed by the contact with the darkness , which seems to make him aware of how close civilized man is to savagery . The story makes the point in many ways . Marlowe starts his story with the reminder that even the Thames estuary , the way to London has been one of the dark places of the earth (7 , and he tries to make his hearers understand what can be the result of solitude and dislocation from solid pavement under your feet (70 ) and the absence of neighbors and policemen . Kurtz has succumbed to the temptation . His people love him , the greed for ivory had got the better of the - what shall I say - less material aspirations (82 , and a line of skulls on poles surrounds his house . The wilderness had found him out early , and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the fantastic invasion (83 . He has glimpsed the horror ' both of the capabilities of human nature , and of his own

In Apocalypse Now , Kurtz tells Willard a story about his own experience When he was with the Special Forces he went into a Vietnamese village to inoculate the children . After they had left , the Vietcong came to the village and cut off the arms of the children who had been vaccinated , to terrify the villagers into refusing to cooperate with the Americans . Kurtz cried like a grandmother ' at this barbarity , but then suddenly realized the genius of that . The soldiers who had done it had families of their own , but they fought with their hearts . If he could have ten divisions of men like that our troubles here would soon be over . The lesson is that the best soldier is democracy and humane action is irrelevant in war . This is no doubt the truth , but in the interests of our common humanity we can never give up the struggle to prevent it governing our actions when we have power over others . We are too close to events to make historical judgments about the Iraq conflict , but what is always the case is that barbarism given a chance will always emerge in conflict , and the dangers of corruption like Kurtz 's are always present

Works Cited

Conrad , Joseph . Heart of Darkness . Harmondsworth : Penguin , 1973

Coppola , Francis Ford . Apocalypse Now . U .S .A : United Artists , 1979

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