Colonialism and Imperialism - A Post-colonial Study of Heart of Darknes

A Post-colonial Study of Heart of Darkness In this paper, Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness will be examined by using a recent movement, Post-colonial Study that mainly focuses on the relationship between the Self and the Other, always intertwined together in considering one identity. The Other is usually identified with the margin, which has been oppressed or ignored by Eurocentric, male-dominated history. Conrad is also conscious of the Others interrelated status with the Self, but his main concern is the Self, not the Other, even though he deals with the natives. As Edward W. Said indicates in his Orientalism, the Orient (or the Other) has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience.1 For Conrad, the Other becomes meaningful only so far as it gives some insight or information for the construction of Eurocentric self-image. In Heart of Darkness, the story is set in the Congo, the literal battleground for colonial exploitation. M arlow perceives natives along stereotyped Western lines, even though he also manifests a sense of sympathy towards suffering natives. The natives cannot be understood or seen represented from their storey of view. The colonial aspects in Heart of Darkness begin to be explored through Marlow perspective of history. Seeing history as cyclic, Marlow juxtaposes the Roman invasion with that of the present British imperial project. According to Marlow, when Romans had first come to Britain, they might have felt the same way the British did in Africa the Romans first came present . . . darkness was here yesterday . . . savages, precious little to eat fit for a civilized man, nothing but Thames water to drink (9-10). ... ...lism, Racism, or Impressionism? Criticism (Fall, 1985) Burden, Robert. Heart of Darkness. capital of the United Kingdom Macmillan, 1991. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. ed. Robert Kimbrough. 3rd. edition. New York Norton, 1988. Lionnet, Francoise. Autobiographi cal Voices. Cornell UP, 1988. Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York Pantheon Books, 1978. ------------ The World, the Text, and the Critic. (Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Press, 1983------------ Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography. (Cambridge, Massachusetts Harvard University Press, 1966)Shaffer, Brian. . Rebabarizing Civilization Conrads African Fiction and Spencerian Sociology, PMLA 108 (1993) 45-58Thomas, Brook. Preserving and Keeping Order by putting to death Time in Heart of Darkness, in Heart of Darkness, ed. Ross Murfin, (New York St. Martins Press, 1989)