Question: Does Conrad provide any moral vision in Heart of Darkness? Discuss.
Ans. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a masterpiece that, in its main objective, seeks to expose the evil of imperialistic exploitation of a backward country by a so-called civilized nation. Conrad’s moral vision becomes clear through the novel, primarily conveyed via Marlow, who narrates, interprets, and passes judgment on situations and characters. Through Marlow, Conrad’s moral perspective emerges.
The keynote of Conrad’s moral vision may be traced at the very outset of Marlow’s narration. Sitting cross-legged “in the pose of a Buddha” on board the Nellie, Marlow, like a preacher, observes that the conquest of another country mostly means the taking away of all things from those who have a different complexion. Marlow is highly critical of white imperialism in the Congo. The whitemen certainly have a duty toward the natives they govern, but their failure cannot be justified.
Marlow (or Conrad) observes that instead of civilizing the natives, the whitemen become exploiters. At that time, the Congo was governed by King Leopold II of Belgium, and the Belgian Trading Company was sending its agents there for trading purposes. Ivory was the chief commodity sought, yet it had no benefit for the natives themselves. Later, ivory becomes a symbol of the whitemen’s greed and commercial mentality. Their chief concern is to collect ivory, while there is no evidence that they render any service to the Congolese.
The manners and functions of the whitemen, as observed by Marlow at the Central Station and the Inner Station, demonstrate their callousness and hypocritical attitude toward the natives. The sights Marlow encounters in the Congo are gloomy and depressing: black people, mostly naked, moving about like ants, and later, six men chained together, each wearing an iron collar around his neck.
The most striking example of evil is Mr. Kurtz, the most prominent white man. He begins to identify himself with the savages, and instead of improving their condition, he becomes a savage himself. Heart of Darkness thus portrays, in a nutshell, the deceit, robbery, murder, slave trading, and general policy of cruelty under Belgian rule in the Congo.
Through Heart of Darkness, Conrad exposes the hollowness and cruelty of imperialistic rulers in different parts of the world. He conveys his strong disapproval of these colonizers and seeks to raise in the reader the greatest possible contempt for the white exploiters. This, ultimately, is Conrad’s moral vision.
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