1. Megan Elmendorf
Dr. Dismukes
LIT 555
1 Feb 2015
Confessing to a Heart of Darkness: A Postcolonial Critique of Joseph Conrad
Though published in the late 19th century, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness continues
to garner much discussion and controversy in the 21st century. One of the most notable
accusations against Conrad has been given by the critic Chinua Achebe, who considered “Conrad
as ‘not only a racist but a conscious and devious one, concealing his sinister motives and
achieving his sinister ends through calculated sentimentality and extravagant language’” (Achebe
as qtd in Clendinnen).
When peered at from the lens of a post-Civil Rights, post-equal rights, and a post-9-11
world, Achebe’s accusation could very well ring true. However, when digested within the
context of European imperialism and colonialism of the late 19th century, as well as
understanding Joseph Conrad's own background with both being the recipient of and enforcer of
such tools of the European Continent, Heart of Darkness can be viewed as both a criticism as
well as a justification of imperialism. In many ways, the novella serves as a confessional of the
actions taken in the Dark Continent, recounting both the rewards and ravages of imperialism
in 19th century Africa.
Before confessing to the horrors committed in Africa, Joseph Conrad had to first become
a part of it. He personally knew what it was to be evicted and exiled from one’s homeland, what
it felt to become a social pariah, and yet at the very same time, what it meant to try to
compromise one’s former beliefs and attitudes in order to adapt and overcome current situations.

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In lieu of this, Conrad uses his characters, both main and supporting, as representations of
his own many beliefs and feelings towards colonialism and imperialism. Kurtz represents
Europe, his lack of control and descending into madness is reminiscent of what would and could
occur to European countries should they be unable to as a whole control their imperial greed.
Whereas Marlow represents Europe’s desire to justify and/or hide from the consequences of
one’s actions, informing others of how they must not conduct themselves by way of describing
how they have conducted themselves.
There does not appear to be any set, absolute standard by which to judge the characters or
the plot of the story itself. The unnamed narrator presents Marlow with all his self-righteous
warts, who himself presents Kurtz with a jaded sense of bitterness. The readers are left to judge
Marlow, who is leaving his listeners up to judge Kurtz, who cared not if anyone judged. “If there
is any judgment, it is Conrad's implied condemnation of an unyielding belief in the absoluteness
of the set of value systems within one's realm of reality. Because the narrator does not judge, he
denies the absoluteness of his own values. He is our trustworthy guide because he refuses to
shape our judgment” (Loureiro 38). Further, as scholar Martin Saffo explains, “Instead, he
[Conrad] criticizes it because of what it does to the white man who has to spend time in an
uncivilized country. In his view, the white man is taken from the “civilized” Europe into
uncivilized countries where he grows violent because of the lawless environment” (Saffo).
This is where the novella can be seen as both a justification as well as a confessional.
Where Marlow describes his arrival at the outpost one can see a Biblical reference to
whitewashed tombs, “In a very few hours I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a
whited sepulchre. Prejudice no doubt. I had no difficulty in finding the Company's offices. It was
the biggest thing in the town, and everybody I met was full of it. They were going to run an over-

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sea empire, and make no end of coin by trade” (Conrad 11). One can see the glittering benefits
of colonialism and imperialism at the same time that one can see the destruction that comes with
these pushes into the Dark Continent. Europe may try to paint the outside of their tombs, but they
are tombs nonetheless. As Kurtz, the representation of Europe’s greed and Conrad’s own
struggle with it, discovers, death and darkness surround a man who is willing to compromise his
sense of humanity for the benefits of colonization.
It is interesting to note that in his youth, Joseph Conrad and his family had suffered
directly from the imperialistic thrusts of Russia into Poland. Even after their exile, the family
suffered to such a degree that Conrad felt it essential to reject to Christian faith—as what sort of
God could allow such atrocities to happen to his family?—and additionally felt the call to
dangerous and mysterious vocations. He joined the British merchant navy and it was during this
time that Conrad had the opportunity to visit Africa, namely the Belgian colony in the Congo.
Controlled personally by King Leopold II of Belgium at the time of Conrad’s visit, this
colony still garners shudders of disgust when the results of Belgian imperialism is discussed. A
primary resource for rubber as well as gold, diamonds, and ivory, this colony was pillaged and
plundered to such an extent that many argue the results are still ravaging in the area today. “[At
the Central Station]: ‘The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would
think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from
some corpse. By Jove!’”(Conrad 27).
Men have replaced God with worldly gains and it is through the destruction of the Kurtz
that readers can see Conrad’s belief that though gainful, such actions only result in the
destruction of the men who impose them. It is without a doubt that Conrad once more witnessed
firsthand the horrors of imperialism, in addition to the darkness that inevitably follows the light

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of colonialism. "It was as unreal as everything else - as the philanthropic pretense of the whole
concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work. The only real feeling was a
desire to get appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn
percentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that account - but as to
effectually lifting a little finger - oh, no” (Conrad 29).
As commented on by scholar Regina Loureiro, the notion of colonialism carries with it
“…the idea of enforcing the ideal value system upon another culture, colonialism is another form
of resistance to coexistence. It assumes that our way of life is better than that of another culture
and that the forced adoption of our cultural creed would be beneficial to those who are different
from us” (Loureiro 54). However disgusted Conrad may have felt towards what he’d seen during
his visit, Conrad later became a British subject and adapted to the British culture—a victim of
colonization himself. He was then like the rest of the Empire, a direct benefactor of the
imperialistic colonization of Africa. In many ways, his confession to his listeners to lying to
Kurtz’ fiancé, appears to be as much a confessional to Conrad’s benefitting of imperialism as it
was Marlow confessing to lying: “’It seemed to me that the house would collapse before I could
escape, that the heavens would fall upon my head. But nothing happened. The heavens do not
fall for such a trifle’” (Conrad 96).
Marlow’s disgust and Conrad’s ambiguous intentions towards imperialism and
colonialism are clearly seen with Marlow’s recounting of his conversations with Kurtz:
You should have heard him say, 'My ivory.' Oh, yes, I heard him. 'My Intended,
my ivory, my station, my river, my - ' everything belonged to him. It made me
hold my breath in expectation of hearing the wilderness burst into a prodigious
peal of laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their places. Everything

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belonged to him - but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he belonged
to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the
reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossible — it was not good for
one either - trying to imagine. He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the
land - I mean literally (Conrad 60).
This is what happens to a man who sets out to gain from other’s destruction, or so the
novella confesses. While one may want personal benefits, they must face the darkness that
accompanies the gilded facts. This dichotomy, of horror at such horrendous acts and relief that
one’s livelihood can continue on, can be seen when the unnamed narrator of the story remarks
upon London with his comment, “A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing
flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a
mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth” (Conrad
2). With such gloomy descriptions, it is difficult to imagine that Conrad’s commentary of
London’s greatness is indeed sincere.
The novella often presents distinctions between light and darkness, savagery and
civilization and as critic Carola Kaplan explains:
Throughout the text, Marlow insists upon the distinction between truth and lies;
between men and women; between civilization and savagery; and, most of all,
between Self and Other. Of these, the most important distinction is between Self
and Other, for it is this opposition that sustains the colonial enterprise. The lure
and the fear of the Other initiate the pursuit and “discovery” of colonialism; the
conviction of the inferiority of the Other justifies the undertaking (Kaplan 323).

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Conrad lived through this “discovery” of colonialism within his own life and
experienced/witnessed it firsthand during his own voyages through the Congo. It is only fitting
that he would present this same dichotomy and discovery to his readers in such an ambiguous
fashion as he does. He allows the readers to discover for themselves their own definition of the
“other” as well as the differences between this “other” and the “self.”
As he himself could perhaps not pinpoint his own relationship with imperialism and
colonialism, it is entirely possible that Heart of Darkness remains ambivalent in an effort for
Conrad to not only present the horrors of the practices used but also to present them in such a
way as to neither condemn nor advocate them, leaving this up to the readers. Conrad, through the
unnamed narrator as well as through Marlow, makes comments that be taken literally as
advocating for imperialism, or could be pulled apart to be seen as the confessions of a man
talking out his cure, as Freud encouraged Conrad’s peers at the very time of the writing of Heart
of Darkness. In order to do this Conrad must use numerous layers of narration, symbolism, and
at times irony, in order to convey the dual realities of the benefits from the horrors of
imperialism and colonialism.
Indeed, throughout the text of the story, Conrad’s narrative voice dips into the ironic. As
stated by scholars Noorbakhsh Hooti and Masoud Ahmadi Mousaabad:
…because of this delicate use of ironic techniques by Conrad, something unveiled
is left for the reader, which does not necessarily go with the positive side of
imperialism, but tries to help the reader to unveil the reality of imperialistic
practices. In this sense Heart of Darkness is in fact one of the most influential
novels that touches the deepest thoughts and feelings of its reader and makes him

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or her think and ask many questions about the identity of imperialism (Hooti and
Moussabad 6).
An example of such a combination of literal or figurative can be seen with, “Hunters for
gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the
torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What
greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth…The
dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires” (Conrad 5). While the beliefs
of Social Darwinism drip from these words, at the same time the references are so obvious that it
is near a smack in the intellectual face to take Conrad’s word a page value.
Written as a story within a story, the narrative structure conveys an overall dream-
like mood, as if the reality of Marlow's story is a dream. The dark, light, minute,
colossal, and animal images not only serve to contrast the European with the
African realm of reality, but their gradual shift in symbolic meaning also
represents the ultimate relativity of reality (Loureiro VI).
It is with this sense of literal or symbolic that one must glance at the character Marlow.
He is first presented to the readers on the same ship upon the Thames as the unnamed narrator.
Once he begins speaking he is likened to a Buddha, given his stance and the ways in which he
expresses himself. “…he began again, lifting one arm from the elbow, the palm of the hand
outwards, so that, with his legs folded before him, he had the post of a Buddha preaching in
European clothes and without a lotus-flower…” (Conrad 7). Marlow very much represents the
conscience of Europe, ready to preach to those around him, but without the convictions or
innocence of a truly enlightened individual. “I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of

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greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils,
that swayed and drove men - men, I tell you” (Conrad 19).
He recounts to his listeners how he was able to come by his supposedly enlightening
experience in the Congo, first remarking that “’It [Africa] had ceased to be a blank space of
delightful mystery—a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. It had become a place of
darkness’” (Conrad 9). What caused this change for Marlow, to go from boyish delight at the
prospect of exploration to the darkness and gloom of his adult life? Perhaps it was the effusion of
colonial theology that had rendered him apathetic. “Central to the theology of colonization is
establishing epistemological superiority, which thereby allows those in control of the intellectual
means of production to ontologize themselves as God's Chosen People and to ontologize the
non-chosen "other" as sub-human” (Lackey).
Just as this colonial theology was being preached in Africa so too had it occurred in
Britain, as Marlow points out when he first waxes eloquent upon the status of Britain “’And this
also,’ said Marlow suddenly, ‘has been one of the dark places of the earth’” (Conrad 5). He lures
his listeners into his story by making subtle comparisons to the darker days of Britain to the
current dark days of Africa. He implies, not so subtly, that at one time Britain had to suffer the
rod of discipline that is called colonization.
It is here that begins to introduce his own story, “I had then, as you remember, just
returned to London after a lot of Indian Ocean, Pacific, China Seas - a regular dose of the East -
six years or so, and I was loafing about, hindering you fellows in your work and invading your
homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilize you" (Conrad 8). One again can
detect the irony of his statement, his not so subtle hint of sarcasm that will continue to weave
through his words as he journeys through the story, taking readers and listeners alike with him.

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As he journeys along the Thames, and in retrospect along the Congo, Marlow presents
the horrors and hypocrisy that follows imperialism. “Marlow comes through to us not only as a
witness of truth, but one holding those advanced and humane views appropriate to the English
liberal tradition which required all Englishmen of decency to be deeply shocked by atrocities in
Bulgaria or the Congo of King Leopold of the Belgians or wherever” (Achebe). With the
understanding of colonial theology in mind it is easier for one to understand Marlow when he
remarks to his shipmates:
Mind, none of us would feel exactly like this. What saves us is efficiency—the
devotion to efficiency…They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute
force—nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an
accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get
for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated
murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind—as is very proper for those
who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking
it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than
ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it's
the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretense but an idea; and
an unselfish belief in the idea (Conrad 7-8).
For Marlow, and through him Conrad, presents the European conscience, there were
startling events that could not be understood with typical European Christian mindsets. As is
seen with the interaction between the accountant and Marlow. “[The accountant]: ‘What a
frightful row,’ he said. He crossed the room gently to look at the sick man, and returning, said to
me, ‘He does not hear.’ ‘What! Dead?’ I asked, startled. ‘No, not yet,’ he answered, with great

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composure. Then alluding with a toss of the head to the tumult in the station-yard, ‘When one
has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages—hate them to the death’”
(Conrad 22). The death of this slave—and as Conrad seems to argue within himself through the
voice of the ambiguousness of the novel, is he humor or not--is just “business as usual” for the
accountant, an instrument of European imperialism.
Any sense of horror at the conditions these slaves live through has been repelled by
apathy. Marlow explains away this fact, or justifies it, with his statement, “When you have to
attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality—the reality, I tell
you—fades. The inner truth is hidden—luckily, luckily” (Conrad 42). Indeed, Conrad seems to
lean heavily upon the practices and understandings of Freud when Marlow further remarks, “It
seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream—making a vain attempt, because no relation of a
dream can convey the dream-sensation…it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any
given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning…we live, as we
dream—alone…” (Conrad 32-33).
It is difficult to argue with ambiguity, just as it is difficult to argue with a dream. As
European powers ventured further and further away from their own civilized realities then began
to become detached from the world, and began to exist in a dream-like world, though the dreams
appeared to be more like nightmares, while the results were as grounded as dreams.
Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks,
clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the
attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. They [the slaves] were dying
slowly—it was very clear…These moribund shapes were free as air—and nearly
as thin. I began to distinguish the gleam of eyes under the trees. Then, glancing

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down, I saw a face near my hand. The black bones reclined at full length with one
shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked
up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind, white flicker in the depths of the
orbs, which died out slowly (Conrad 19-20).
It is here, within the nightmarish reality of the darkness surrounding colonialism, that
Conrad presents the heart of the matter. The theme of subjugation, of the thinness of any
justifications for such subjugation, and the guilty of all humanity in participating in such
atrocities finally shines through the murky depths of the novella. “That theme is reiterated a
dozen times in a dozen different registers: bones bleaching in long grass, skeletal figures in a
patch of shade, blood seeping into a man's shoes; the river stations populated by moral
grotesques; Kurtz crazed; a decent, useful man hollowed of feeling. Marlow does not speak for
Conrad” (Clendinnen).
What makes this theme all the more apparent is seen within the descriptions of Marlow’s
journey down the Congo:
We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness. It was quiet
there…We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an
accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of
excessive toil. But suddenly, as we struggled round a bend, there would be a
glimpse of rush walls, of peaked grass-roofs, a burst of yells, a whirl of black
limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of bodies swaying, of eyes
rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage (Conrad 43-44).
What is interesting here is that Marlow readily accepts and recounts to his listeners the
facts of the matter. Africa was no more uninhabited and free for the taking as the New World or

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Australia had been. Marlow admits to the stark reality of theft and rape that was occurring
against the natives of Africa.
This devoted band called itself the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe
they were sworn to secrecy. Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid
buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel
without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the
whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the
work of the world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire,
with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking
into a safe (Conrad 36).
What makes this admission all the more shocking is that not much later Marlow finds a
strange kinship between himself and the natives—all the more apparent as Conrad himself
must’ve felt a similar kinship during his own excursion. Marlow, and through him Conrad, again
argues both for and against the humanity of the natives when his recounting of their dances
around the night fires.
It was unearthly, and the men were - No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know,
that was the worst of it - this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come
slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but
what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity - like yours - the thought
of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was
ugly enough; but if you were man enough you would admit to yourself that there
was in you just the faintest trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that

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noise, a dim suspicion of there being a meaning in it which you - you so remote
from the night of first ages - could comprehend (Conrad 44).
Just as Marlow has to reformulate what falls within the boundaries of humanness, so too
does Conrad encourage his readers. It appears that, albeit grudgingly, what Marlow once thought
of as savage is actually just part of being human.
Perhaps Europe, seen through Kurtz, would soon come to the same disturbing conclusion.
Marlow describes Kurtz near death’s door: “He was lying on his back with closed eyes, and I
withdrew quietly, but I heard him mutter, ‘Live rightly, die, die…’ I listened. There was nothing
more” (Conrad 86). Did he finally awaken to the reality of the native’s humanity or did the
whitewashed tomb in which he’d been living collapse upon him and now the putrid fresh air of
the Africa was suffocating him? Marlow remarks that Kurtz “was an impenetrable darkness. I
looked at him as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun
never shines” (Conrad 86).
Conrad seems to be presenting Europe with a spoiler alert. What happens to Kurtz is what
happens to them, should they not reign in their greed and imperial desires. “’I was fascinated. It
was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of
ruthless power, of craven terror - of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in
every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete
knowledge’” (Conrad 86). Kurtz has gone mad dealing with cool, calm ivory but in the process
of extracting this ivory he has given into the deadly sins of colonialism; he represents the
confessions of an empire gone mad with its desire for something pure, compromising its own
supposed innocence in order to get its desires.

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It is here that “Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the post of a
meditating Buddha” (Conrad 96). Has Marlow been able to scare away his listeners from making
the same decisions as he, has Europe managed to police the world enough to prevent further
atrocities from being made in the name of the greater good—or at least the good for the mightier
power that is—or can one clearly see similar actions occurring even in the 21st century? Conrad
seems to argue through, the mouth of Marlow and the experience of Kurtz, that the Continent
and its powers may come to the end and cry as Kurtz did, “The horror! The horror!” (Conrad 86).
Their cry may be likened to Kurtz’s as they may wake up realizing how much of their
enlightened society they’ve compromised. And it will be then that they will look out to the
Thames and see “the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber
under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness” (Conrad 96).

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Works Cited
Bachedi, Sofiane. "JOSEPH CONRAD’S HEART OF DARKNESS: A PSYCHOANALYTIC
APPROACH TO THE CHARACTER OF KURTZ." Mouloud Mamiere
University (2011). Web.
Clendinnen, Inga. "PREEMPTING POSTCOLONIAL CRITIQUE: Europeans in the Heart of
Darkness." Common Knowledge 13.1 (2007): 1-17. WEB.
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness & Selections from the Congo Diary. Modern Library Pbk. ed.
New York: Modern Library, 1999. Print.
Hooti, Noorbakhsh, and Masoud Ahmadi Mousaabad. "Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: A
Postcolonial Study." Studies in Literature and Language 2.2 (2011): 60-9. WEB.
Kaplan, Carola M. "Colonizers, Cannibals, and the Horror of Good Intentions in Joseph Conrad's
Heart of Darkness." Studies in Short Fiction 34.3 (1997): 323. Web.
Lackey, Michael. "The Moral Conditions for Genocide in Joseph Conrad's ‘Heart of Darkness’."
College Literature 32.1 (2005): 20-41. Web.
Loureiro, Regina. "Subjective Reality in Joseph Conrad's ‘Heart of Darkness’." ProQuest, UMI
Dissertations Publishing, 1992. Web.
Saffo, Martin. “Chinua Achebe & Joseph Conrad– A comparison of two authors who present
Africa in different ways.” Södertörns högskola University. PDF.
< http://sh.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:240997/FULLTEXT01.pdf>
Vogel, Daniel. “JOSEPH CONRAD IN THE LIGHT OF POSTCOLONIALISM.” Yearbook of
Conrad Studies (Poland). Vol. VII 2012, pp. 97–112. PDF.
<http://www.wuj.pl/UserFiles/File/Yearbook%20VII/5.pdf>