Representation of Race and Gender in Heart of Darkness
Two essays discuss the Eurocentric attitude towards the native people of Africa and towards women in Conrad's Heart of Darkness.
Representation of Race
Joseph Conrad?s Heart of Darkness colludes with the ethnocentric attitude of Europeans towards the native people of Africa. At the turn of the century, European imperialism was viewed as ?a crusade worthy of this century of progress? by King Leopold of Belgium. Although Conrad was critical of imperialism, his novella reveals to the reader an undeniable Victorian provenance. It endorses cultural myths of the period and reinforces the dominant ideology of the British gentleman. Its Victorian provenance is revealed in the representation of race, which is constructed through the character Marlow. His powerful narrative viewpoint reinforces what Chinua Achebe called Europe?s ?comforting myths? about Africa and Africans.
The text consistently constructs black people as ?other?. This is achieved primarily by Marlow, who acts to construct the natives from the vantage point of the British gentleman. When he ?looked at them?, he searched not only for their ?impulses, motives, capacities? but also for restraint, a value that he champions throughout the retelling of his story. When he can?t find it, he remarks ?Restraint? What possible restraint?? Marlow?s first encounter with the natives is at the Outer Station, where his ambivalence towards them is foregrounded by his obsession with the miraculously efficient first-class agent. The natives are effectively dehumanised because they are presented as nothing more than ?black shadows? and ?acute angles?; and Marlow is far more interested in the fact that the accountant kept his books in ?apple-pie order? than with the dying black men outside. Similarly, when Marlow stumbles across ?a middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the forehead? his horror is not at the dead man in front of him but rather at the fact that the agent in charge of the upkeep of a road in the area is not doing his job.
It is further suggested that this ambivalence towards other races is part of the ?deliberate belief? which is necessary in order for British gentlemen to resist the appeal of descending into the natives? primordial ?fiendish row? which takes place on shore during to the trip to the Inner Station. In this encounter, the Africans are seen as a howling mob. Marlow does admit a ?remote kinship? with them, but he explains that he was prevented from going ?ashore for a howl and a dance? because of his dedication to efficiency and his redeeming work ethic. Marlow describes the native who works as a fireman on board the steamer as an ?improved specimen? who had been given the gift of ?improving knowledge? by the Europeans. Yet the narrator is condescending towards his ?intrepidity? in working the boiler and calls him a ?fool-nigger? for having ?deserted his post? during the attack. The ideologies of the British gentleman are consistently privileged over any attempt to understand the natives.
In almost all of these encounters, black Africans are denied speech. Marlow is content to describe their attempts at communication as a ?violent babble of uncouth sounds? or ?short, grunting phrases?. The two occasions on which the natives are granted speech only further serve to marginalise them. The helmsman?s cry to ?catch ?im? Eat im!? when asked by Marlow what he would do with the natives on shore suggests to the reader that the natives are cannibals, interested only in satisfying of man?s transcendent urges. This reading is privileged by Marlow?s description of the helmsman talking ?with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth?.
Evolutionary theory grew rapidly during Conrad?s lifetime. His society?s eventual acceptance of Social Darwinism in the late nineteenth century was the start of a new phase in its ethnocentrism. Herbert Spencer wrote that the dominance of the white races was the result of inherited superiority, and Darwin spoke of ?high? and ?low? races; ?stronger? and ?weaker? nations. This provided a rationale for colonialist enterprise, and helped in enlisting public support for it. Its influence is evident in Heart of Darkness, where Marlow?s voyage up the river is ?like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world?, and he describes the natives as people who ?still belonged to the beginnings of time?. It is then fitting that Marlow should consider black men to be of another genus, although ?not inhuman?. His view thus normalises prevailing Eurocentric attitudes that supported evolutionary theory and its supposed proof of the ?inferiority? of native Africans.
Kurtz?s Mistress is constructed as a diametric opposite to the European women. The sensuous language used to describe the Mistress emphasises that she is a social ?other?, a product of the wilderness, a ?fecund and mysterious life?. It is the Mistress? ?otherness? which makes her fertile grounds for sexual speculation. In contrast to his Mistress, Kurtz?s Intended is a product of the whited sepulcher; she lives a life of darkness rather than lightness, delusion rather than reality. In this way, Heart of Darkness reveals what Johanna Smith called a ?collusion of imperialism and patriarchy? ? European attitudes towards female Africans are sanctioned both by patriarchal gender prescriptions and the belief in racial supremacy.
Conrad employs techniques which naturalise European myths of Africans as strange, evil and superstitious creatures. The way in which the African landscape is constructed lends confirmation to these myths. These myths are so entrenched in the European consciousness that Marlow is apprehensive about Africa even before he has set foot in the continent, describing it as ?an immense snake uncoiled?. The medical examination draws our attention to the fact that science is used to defend these assumptions; the doctor tells Marlow that ?changes take place inside?, inferring that Africa has the capacity to compromise a gentleman. The African wilderness is further denigrated by the text?s claim that the African landscape is responsible for Kurtz?s abhorrent actions. We are told that ?the wilderness had found him out early, and taken on him a terrible vengeance?. Repeatedly the setting is described as a malevolent force, ?ready to topple? to sweep every little man of us out of his little existence?. Heart of Darkness is complicit claiming that it is the African landscape ? rather than perverted European values ? that ?contributed to the making? of Kurtz.
Africa as a place of darkness is a trope that developed out of nineteenth century English literature, and Conrad lends confirmation to it by using imagery that inexorably associates the continent and its people with darkness. We have the natives described as ?black shapes?, ?strings of dusty niggers? and ?a whirl of black limbs?. This imagery also often associates Africans with supernatural evil. Near the Inner Station:
?A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms, across the glow. It had horns? some sorcerer, some witch-man, no doubt; it looked fiend-like enough?
The African landscape is not only culpable for Kurtz?s wrongs, but it is also a place of darkness and of evil, a place of paganism, with ?the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations?; a place of ?lurking death?, cannibalism, disease and insanity ? all of Marlow?s reality is filtered through the European consciousness, and all of his narrative serves to endorse European supremacist ideologies.
Representation of Gender
Joseph Conrad?s Heart of Darkness colludes with Western patriarchal gender prescriptions. Women are ominously absent from the bulk of the narrative, and when they do make an appearance they are identified through the powerful narrative viewpoint of the character Marlow, who constructs them in terms of the values of the dominant ideologies of the British gentleman. The contrast between Kurtz?s Intended and his Mistress reveals to the contemporary reader this undeniable Victorian provenance - women are effectively marginalised from power and silenced by the text?s endorsement of British values.
?The women?, Marlow declares, ?are out of it?. Indeed, the five women of Heart of Darkness make only brief appearances and are given only a passing mention in Marlow?s narrative. His aunt, given a cameo role in the text, is supremely na?ve and ?out of touch with truth?; she reminds him to ?wear flannel? when he is about to ?set off for the centre of the earth?. The knitters of black wool in the Company headquarters are defined by classical mythology, taking on a symbolic significance by ?guarding the door of Darkness?; they are not characters in their own right. Kurtz?s mistress is identified as a product of the wilderness, ?like the wilderness itself?, and is described in terms of natural processes, a ?fecund and mysterious life?. Kurtz?s Intended, by contrast, lives in a place of death rather than of life, darkness rather than lightness, delusion rather than reality. A feminist reading identifies that females are silenced and cast as cultural archetypes in Heart of Darkness.
The juxtaposition of the Intended with Kurtz?s mistress highlights the traits of the culturally constructed Victorian woman. She has assembled for herself a tomb of darkness, where everything personifies the sterile and lifeless existence of her kind. The Victorian woman was expected to adhere to high standards of behavioral decency and to subscribe to the Puritan ideals of sexual and emotional restraint. Kurtz?s mistress throws these characteristics into focus because she is vibrant, vital, and lives out her sexual urges. The sexual language used to describe the mistress emphasises that she is a social ?other? and foregrounds the dichotomy between women of Europe and Africa. While the Intended embodies the characteristics of a Victorian woman, her behaviour is also enormously hypocritical. She remains alive only by deceiving herself; her condition, as C.B. Cox suggests, ?symbolizes that of Western Europe?. Marlow identifies the idealistic world that women, he alleges, create for themselves:
?It?s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it, and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether, and if they were to set it up it would go to pieces before the first sunset.?
Marlow?s famous lie to the Intended is justified because he wants to maintain women?s ?great and saving illusion?. We remember his support for an ?idea? behind colonialism ? clearly, this idea includes wanting to ?help [women] to stay in that beautiful world of their own?. He believes that following this idea is of such importance that he will do something he hates above all else ? lie ? to preserve it.
