The critical legacy of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness lay partly in the author’s imperialist and anti-colonialist sentiments. Despite the narrator’s interest in Kurtz, the man himself is portrayed as a deeply flawed and possibly insane. The narrator is left embittered after his encounter with Kurtz, so it is clear that Kurtz and his actions are not supposed to be seen in a heroic light. However, critics such as Chinua Achebe have portrayed the novel in a racist light and argued that it creates a false impression of African subject as inferior: an empty being, without voice, best suited to be followers of a superior culture. Furthermore, morality in the novel, particularly as it relates to genocide, left many early critics concerned as to its ultimate purpose, especially as it seems to contradict the message of anti-colonialism. Since then, scholars have long decreed that indeed, Conrad’s novella is about imperialism, and anti-colonization.

Despite this, Conrad’s work appears to justify elements of Imperialism: the practice as a whole is not wholly discouraged, only in certain forms; as such, many would argue that the piece is racist and only narrowly criticizes Imperialism. The present paper will present the latest literary criticisms levied against Conrad’s novella, women’s role in supporting imperialism from afar, the utility of post-colonial interpretations in understanding the racist assumptions underlying imperialist thought, whether the anti-colonialist sentiments expressed by Conrad appropriately target those underlying assumptions, and their relevance to racism today.

Any post-colonial reading of Conrad’s work should illustrate the manner in which colonizers contributed to Africa’s problems, as well as how its legacy continues to have an impact on Africa even today. Because Heart of Darkness focused to great extent on the relationship between Africans and the colonizing power, and because Kurtz himself represents the ultimate colonizer and the quintessence of the triumphant white imperialist, applying a post-colonial framework to the novel seems appropriate. For this reason, authors have often used post-colonialism as a theoretical basis for their analysis of this work. However, others have argued that this anti-colonialism message has become obscured by racist themes in the novel, and its seeming support of genocide.

When it comes to criticizing the novel, many critics point to the idea of genocide openly expressed by Kurtz in the report he sent to the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs, in which he concludes with the harsh statement: “Exterminate all the brutes!” (Conrad). Many authors have perceived this and other examples as proof that Conrad implicitly supports a form of genocide and racism. However, author Michael Lackey (2) approaches this topic from a fresh perspective, showing that Conrad in fact rejects morality outright and thus abandons the concept entirely. The author describes Conrad’s belief that there is no such thing as morality—it is an empty signifier with no value whatsoever. He justifies his claims by explaining that, in order to be able to offer a moral interpretation of the work, critics should have a clear, well-established, and universally accepted set of moral considerations to apply to the work (Lackey 21). Under this perspective, Conrad may consider moral principles to be the impetus for genocide in the first place rather than the bulwark against evil most people would immediately consider it to be.

Similarly, from a post-colonial perspective, the author argues that Conrad’s view of morality was influenced by the way he read the Bible. In the Old Testament, there is a great contradiction between the commandment not to kill, and the multiple references to killing and genocide. Often, God ordered his chosen people to kill infidels as a moral necessity. The infidels were considered less than ‘people’; as such, there existed no prohibition against their slaughter. This kind of morality explains why the chosen people—here Lackey argues that the entire civilized world is included—feel that it is morally permissible to kill ‘the colonized other’ en masse. Under that consideration, some critics argue that the novel is decidedly racist. Additionally, criticism of Heart of Darkness for the implicit has been enriched with completely new interpretations.

Similarly, Sven Lindqvist in his article Exterminate those Brutes successfully interweaves historical concepts surrounding early genocides in Africa with an analysis of detrimental consequences suffered by the African people due to Europe imperialism. This included genocides—the European attempt to clear the world by killing races they deemed inferior, both racially and culturally. The author traces the activities of early Europeans including missionaries, historians, politicians, and explorers in Africa. Throughout his description of the sub-Saharan desert, the author depicts the selfish interests of Europeans: they believed themselves to be superior to other races but that belief alone did little to satisfy them, the Europeans sought to demonstrate their superiority through dominating and exterminating those deemed inferior to themselves (Lindqvist, 21).

In his article, Lindqvist employs the statement, ‘exterminate All the Brutes” in his chronological study of the origin of genocides in the Africa’s blood-soaked history. He asserts that, despite the relatively short timeframe involved—a few decades of European rule in Africa—there were disastrous and lasting consequences for the lives of the African people. Lindqvist concurs with Conrad that the single case of Charles Marlow’s can be used to generalize what was once commonplace in Africa during the pre-colonial period. The existence of white travelers in the area created a need for more travelers due to social, economic and political reasons. Travelling in large groups satisfied a basic need for security, which Conrad depicts as a reaction to previous dangers and catastrophes faced by white travellers met with harsh and unforgiving conditions of the African territories.

Lindqvist describes Conrad’s account of Marlow’s experiences in Africa as vivid and descriptive prose, with minimal literary devices to distract the reader. Conceptually, his novel serves to depict Marlow’s life put in essay form for the sake of coherency. Other scholars often oppose Lindqvist’s view and posit that Conrad exaggerated experiences in Africa with the aim of winning a specific goal more inclined to politics. In addition, Lindquist explores the several styles used in the novel to conclude that the novel employed a very low fictional index and the author wrote of what he believed went on in Africa during the exploration of Marlow.

At this conjunction Lindqvist places a twist on the popular novel: he builds new ideas about the widely spread genocide, which the author discusses freely throughout his novel. According to Lindqvist, the reality of the occurrence of the mass massacre in Africa, particularly in the Congo, is not the real measure of to what extent it was practiced or whether Conrad just used fiction to develop the story line. However, he relies on the acceptability of the concept to show that it was morally accepted among the early Europeans. In Heart of Darkness, the character Marlow put his survival before the lives of the native Africans who initially occupied the land he was eager to explore. As a counter action, Marlow kills potential threats and disrupts the locals’ security systems, which were made of well-organized age sets. Lindqvist, in the Exterminate those Brutes explains the role of the audience in knowing to what extent the writer employed fiction and similarly to what extent he accepts the discussed concept. It the heart of darkness, Conrad shoes a full support of the actions of the European by using harsh terms on African such as brute, brat, or bastards. This clearly demonstrates that the early genocide in Africa was not only accepted by the European officials but also by the citizens of Europe whom the Conrad’s novel was addressed to.

Conrad also describes his befuddlement resulting from inhumane actions by European companies in the area when he was there. He believed such actions to be unjustified. Nevertheless, he lacked the ability to change the steady march of imperialism, which caused a lot of suffering and misery to the locals. Furthermore, many believe the titular character is based of personal encounters by the author. As such, it is likely that the character Marlow melds the traits and perspectives of the author with his observations of others.

Similarly, in 1998 Adam Hochschild wrote a history book entitled, King Leopold’s Ghost, which was an award-winning book for mastery of literature and creation of the most possible neutral stand. The author of the book uses the several other articles that had been published throughout the pre-colonial and postcolonial periods that explained the reality of the conditions that surrounded the early colonization. In his literature review, the author carries out an analysis of the Conrad’s book in an attempt to show the crimes that were committed by the European nations as they started their colonization in Congo. The book gives a fictionalized account of the Ghost of King Leopold II who was the king of Belgium during the era.

In the book, the author aims to show that military generals knew not only of the atrocities committed and of travelers like Marlow—the main character in Heart of Darkness—but were masterminded and planned by the officials. Adam shows this by incriminating the soul of the king instead the souls of the soldier who pulled the trigger during the mass slaughters that happened in Congo. The author shows that the soul of the king is in hell and in agony as he repays the wrongs committed by him including genocides. The direct link between Adam and Conrad’s work is that they both attribute the genocides as a ruling methodology, which was employed by the European governments and widely expected by the European citizens who felt that they were a superior race to the African people.

The genocide, as explained in the novel Heart of darkness and later reviewed in several other novels shows that the European countries treated the Africans as animals and treated them as such leading to the slave trade. The governments and explorers like Marlow were ready to massacre any number of Africans for their convenience. Similarly, kings like Leopold II gave orders legalizing massacre of African in an attempt to expand and increase their slave market capture.

In 1975, Chinua Achebe, a legendary African author gave a lecture on the novel Heart of Darkness, erupting in a debate that has continued for several decades. Since then, the author has written a discourse to expound on concepts highlighted in the novel. His lecture laid the ground work for criticisms of the novel itself. Ultimately, his mantle was taken up by activists who sought to analyze and connect themes of the novel to broader conceptions of racism and social injustice.

Memory Chirere wrote an article attempting to analyze racism implicit within the novel. In doing so, he primarily looks for racial misconceptions underlying the text. He analyzed the scenes in the novel, which has lately produced in script films to create a feeling of intense loathing between white ivory hunters and the African natives. Marlow, the character of the novel, as described by Chirere is an outside observer who reports the events that surround the interaction between the two races. In the novel, the Africans are described as savages and beasts with no morals, a concept Chirere considers ironic when placed alongside the immorality of the European travelers. Despite the neutral stance of the novel character, in which the character seem not a part of the hatred, Chirere describes the novel as racist following the choice of word and the feeling created by the book. : (“allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Is Joseph Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ Racist?”)

From a different perspective, Heart of Darkness operates within a discourse of imperialism, and critics have assumed that what Conrad presents in his work it is the worldview of an outsider, of one of the colonizers, therefore being constructed from the point of view of the imperialist himself. After all, the native peoples in the novel are depicted as outright worshipping Kurtz, which paints an uncomfortable picture of how the book views them as people. (Conrad). In fact, one could argue that this indicates support for the idea of imperialism – as if the native peoples were happy to be ruled over by Kurtz. For this reason, a post-colonial interpretation of the imperialist issues presented in the work is appropriate. In this regard for example, Achebe accused Conrad of reducing Africans to silence, and presenting Africa as the antithesis of Europe and therefore, of civilization (3). Despite this evidence, contemporary critics have found different reasons for Conrad’s limited or inexistent criticism of the imperialist ideology.

First, as Atkinson shows in his article, Conrad knew that his novella would be published in the “Blackwood Edinburgh Magazine” and for this reason; it functioned in a certain way, so as to please readers of this magazine. Atkinson analyzed the text in connection with Conrad’s ambitions to write for the magazine, and the strict political perspective of the publication, and concluded that, despite the fact that for years, Heart of Darkness was considered an anti-imperialist text, in fact it was imperialist. However, it presented a biased image of English imperialism, as compared to French imperialism. Thus, the author found evidence that throughout the work, French colonialism practices are criticized, whereas the British ones are praised. (Atkinson, William). This indicates that both racism and pro-imperialism messages are prevalent in the novel.

In regards to the racism of the author, translated in the way he treated African characters as puppets with no mind and no voice of their own, Hampson offers an explanation. He posits that in fact it is not that the author did not give a voice to the natives, but rather it was Marlow who silenced them. Thus, Hampson explains, not only does his protagonist Marlow have no common language to communicate with the natives, but also the readers have limited understanding of Africa, and an even more limited tolerance for the African people (Hampson 15). Thus the racism seems to be rooted more in ignorance than outright hate, but that doesn’t mean that the racism isn’t still there and the pro-imperialism message as well.

Although the role of women is drastically reduced in the novel, feminists have found grounds to comment upon the relationship between women and imperialism at the turn of the century. Even though women at the turn of the century were as dependent on the profits from economic imperialism as men were, it is clear from the novel that men tried to protect women from the ugly face of colonialism. This is shown according to Ledger, when Marlow goes to Kurtz’s fiancé, and lies about the last words Kurtz uttered in order to protect her. Imperialism indeed, Ledger further shows, has always been perceived as a masculine enterprise, from which women were consistently rejected. However, the author also shows that Victorian women were supportive of imperialism (Ledger). It is possible that this indicates colonialism was viewed as a sort of necessary but ugly act – one to protect women from, but one that men had to do anyway.

In another work, the presence of women is not only identified in Heart of Darkness, but their role is deemed essential for the development of the narrative. Women’s exclusion from the work is intentional, McItire explains, and Conrad took great care to leave them “out of it” (McItire 258). However, despite this determination, women are essential because they represent, in the critic’s view, the extreme separation from the metropolis, and the completely different world that they inhabit, as compared to the male colonizers. In addition, the aunts – both Kurtz’, and Marlow’s – stand for white supremacy, influence, and triumph, due to their power to “uphold the decency, order, calm and triumph of the metropole without moving beyond the domestic space of her own parlor” (McIntire 259). Therefore, even while they are excluded from it, women, as mothers of the empire and as upholders of imperial values, and of white supremacy, were essential to constructing and maintaining differences between Europeans and Africans, even as they remained separated from the colonies by immense physical distance (Ledger 64). Therefore, it again seems likely that there is a pro-imperialism message within the written work.

No matter the conclusions drawn, it is clear that much advance has been made to the interpretation of Conrad Heart of Darkness in the past 20 years. The interpretation of Conrad’s own view of the morality of racism, genocide, and colonialism, and on imperialism, and the way women related to this ideology is much more complex today. Researchers continue to try to dig ever deeper in order to highlight potential views, and beliefs held by Conrad. This essay synthesized the arguments of several authors whose recent works succeed in enriching the critical heritage of this work, as they take novel and daring approaches to old issues, and they present provocative conclusions that will stimulate the interest of other researchers.

Ironically, the basis for much social change in America is premised on the same Utilitarian philosophy—that morality’s focus is to provide the greatest happiness for the greatest number—once used to support Imperialism. John Stuart Mills, the founder of Utilitarianism as it exists in modern thought, held to a naïve interpretation of Imperialism as justified by the helplessness of “lesser” cultures. Under Mills line of thinking, Imperialism took care of and advanced a society in the same manner as a parent providing for a child. To achieve the advancement of the society, a foreign power was justified in holding power over them. Just as a child is dependent on their parents and must, for their own good, submit to parental authority Mills argued that colonies were dependent on their superiors to grow up (Mills 19). That same line of thought can be seen in more recent incarnations of racism through the argument that blacks ought to be content living in America regardless of inequity because, the argue continues, America is superior to African nations. Thus, a link between modern day racism and Imperialism can be found in beliefs regarding the inferiority of African nations to other countries and the use of that premise to justify inequality.

Heart of Darkness ought to be judged according not only to its explicit rejection of colonialism as a practice but also based on whether the work implicitly denies the surviving rationale that links Imperialism to modern day racial misconceptions and justifications. So too must a post-colonialist interpretation of Conrad assess the manner in which he may have grappled with the demands of his readers, how closely the characters of his novel are meant to represent or confront his personal ideals, and whether the work denies any incarnation of Imperialism or simply Imperialism as it was practiced by certain countries. Ultimately, the modern reader must ask four questions: does Marlow’s inner monologue and character reflect Conrad’s or is he little more than an illustration of the common man? Is the rejection of colonialism all encompassing or a specific criticism to French practices, in which case Conrad is implicitly offering an endorsement of the British Imperialism? In protecting women from the gritty details underlying Imperialist activity in Africa, is Conrad condemning the practice or merely enforcing women’s role in colonial expansion? Finally, is Conrad attempting to obfuscate or otherwise distort his own views in service of his readers?

On all fronts, one can find evidence for racist assertions buried beneath anti-colonialist sentiments. Conrad, in attacking a specific form of Imperialism, may implicitly endorse another form. The character created by Conrad may not necessarily reflect his perspective and, in actuality, could illustrate an archetype well in line with the average European’s mindset during that era. Women are protected from the harsh realities of Imperialism in Heart of Darkness; however, that seems to be less a moral indictment of Imperialism than it is a reinforcement of a woman’s place within the system—one meant to support Imperialism from abroad, sheltered from the carnage without denying the necessity of said carnage. Lastly, Conrad clearly pandered to his audience. In denouncing French Imperialism while refusing to judge British Imperialist activity he seems to have implicitly endorsed Imperialism as a whole. However, that does more to complicate the argument than to reach a satisfactory conclusion: in pandering to an audience, Conrad’s personal views are lost to us. However much speculation may go into assessing the books intent, the author himself remains an enigma of sorts; the line between him and Marlow is blurred, his views indecipherable amidst the struggle to appeal to his readership.

Debates of whether or not Heart of Darkness ought to be praised for its progressive censure of Colonialism, criticized for perpetuating Imperialist rationale, or praised and rejected for its successes and failures in turn directly relates to a modern day derivation of Imperialist thought. Just as Imperialism sought justification for abuses of power in the colonies by comparing African nations to children necessitating the guidance of their superiors, modern rejections of social reform sometimes rely on beliefs that the inferiority of African nations justifies inequity in America. So too, the discrepancy underlying one’s nationalistic interpretations of racial injustices, exemplified by disregarding modern racial strife in one’s own country through drawing comparisons to other nations and epochs which suffered more severe injustice, is paralleled in Heart of Darkness by rejecting one nation’s practices thereby implicitly endorsing another’s. The debate over whether Heart of Darkness is to be lauded or attacked is intrinsically valuable because it promotes engagement and analysis of racist assumptions that are as responsible for justifying modern inequality as they were for justifying Imperialism in Conrad’s time. A definitive verdict of the work’s status may never be reached; and yet, so long as the debate is prolonged by some modicum of ambiguity it will result in valuable revelations just as relevant to modern racism as to Imperialism.