Okay, I can’t get away from the history major thing
this week. I was a little confused about exactly where Marlow’s ship went in
the story (when he was talking about the great river on the map, I immediately
defaulted to the Nile. Woops). Then I looked it up really quick, and figured
out that he was in the Congo! AGH!! Belgium took the Congo under the rule of
King Leopold. Leopold, in his desire for more rubber and ivory, lead one of the
most infamous genocides of western European expansion (read: it became easier
to count how many people weren’t dead).
Also, it is interesting that the group of people who
live up the river are called cannibals. When European anthropologists began to
explore African cultures, they found that a lot of these cultures would
identify a nearby group a cannibals. These groups were not, in fact, cannibals,
but rather simply people of a different culture. The use of cannibals as a way
to establish “otherness” and savagery is not unique to the Europeans (in fact,
they might have gotten the idea from some of the cultures they encountered). Again,
I’d like to point to Kipling’s “We and They.” Specifically, these lines:
We eat kitcheny food.
We have doors that latch.
They drink milk or blood,
Under an open thatch.
We have Doctors to fee.
They have Wizards to pay.
And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We
As a quite impossible They!
We have doors that latch.
They drink milk or blood,
Under an open thatch.
We have Doctors to fee.
They have Wizards to pay.
And (impudent heathen!) They look upon We
As a quite impossible They!
Although this is a commentary on
culture, I was reminded of these words at Marlow’s discover that these people
were actually reasonable.
Additionally, Kurtz is presented to
be a humanitarian, a good man, before Marlow ever meets him. When the reader
(through Marlow) finally meets Kurtz, he fails to live up to the expectation of
a humanitarian . Tis he is certainly not, and I am so glad that Marlow pointed
out the fact that so many lives had been lost in the search for Kurtz.
Geena,
ReplyDeleteI also was a little confused to where Marlow’s ship went because I do not think of the great river as the Congo. I also agree that the story is comment on culture because it is about British imperialism. Kurtz who is an agent for the ivory company is a white man living in the Congo. He is the man who Marlow is going to see, which is the whole premise of the story. Along the way there are a lot of comments on how the native people are savage and uncivilized, yet the white people have taken a fair amount of the native people to work for them because they are criminals, yet they basically were slaves. It’s an interesting juxtaposition because the white people think they are civilized when in reality they are not. When Marlow finally reaches Kurtz he discovers that he has become a savage himself, which is the biggest surprise of the story.
Daniel Pietaro
Personally, I love Heart of Darkness. It is a grim tale indeed, but that is my taste. Anyways, I would agree that the entire story is a commentary on British Imperialism, more importantly, the darker side of it. The African people are constantly referred to as "cannibals" but as you stated, they are not. It is used a derogatory term to talk about people of a different culture, or anything that is not as civilized as the British. They assume that all the people they meet in Africa are going to be wild "cannibals" as they refer to them, but they are surprised to see how some of the people are actually reasonable. Heart of Darkness further exposes how at the time how culturally inept the British were at the time, seeing everyone else as below them or simply as "savages" or "cannibals". They feel like it is their duty to civilize them, but in turn, their imperialism only creates further problems.
ReplyDeleteAgreed Ian...it's actually my favorite weirdly enough. Kurtz is so out of the range between good and evil, that he warps their view of a leader, becoming this crazy paternalist who thinks he is praiseworthy and is doing a good thing by becoming their leader, but by the end, Marlow, and we as readers learn to hate him. I don't think we're ever really meant to like Kurtz, I think he definitely is a representation of the negative aspects of British Imperialism, besides the fact that he forced his way into this part of the jungle, he just furthers the separation between the European whites and the Africans, making that sense of "otherness" bigger, and showing the inefficiency and corruptness of British Imperialism.
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