Heart of Darkness: Pro- or Anti- Imperialist

The question of whether Heart of Darkness needs a high five or a smackdown has permeated discussion of the book since shortly after its publication. Critics such as Cedric Watts cite Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as an anti-imperialist read. Other critics such as Chinua Achebe demonize the text as not only in support of imperialism but a text which reinforces racist stereotypes. From a Marxist perspective, the textual ambiguity may, in part, be the result of the ideological constraints under which Conrad was writing.

Conrad was limited by the ideology of Western civilization. Heart of Darkness “relies on a set of commonly-held European assumptions about the continent as a whole” (Gorra 568) such as racial superiority. Darwin himself promoted a distinction between “high” and “low” races, suggesting an unequal distribution of intellect. This belief “fostered in all citizens a sense that they were members of an imperial race and encouraged them to identify with the ideal of their nation’s world role…such arguments depicted expansion and control as not only moral but somehow natural” (Icoz 248). Conrad had to work from within this construct.

Conrad’s particular history, however, situates him in an ideologically fluid position. As the son of Polish gentry who were exiled from their homeland by Russian imperialists, Conrad has seen, first-hand, the horrors of imperialism (Icoz 246). But we cannot forget the “gentry” in the previous sentence, meaning Conrad’s social class wars with this anti-imperialist attitude as he cannot fully identify with the other victims of imperialism. His social, economic, and geographic displacement does not fully compare to the atrocities being visited upon the foreign, non-white natives in other colonized lands. So Conrad doesn’t fully relate to the white imperialists or the African natives. As such, he finds himself writing from the ideological position of neither.

This leads to an ideologically conflicted perspective. A specific example of this is when Conrad has Marlow refer to the natives as "not inhuman" (Conrad 36). Marlow, like Conrad, seems to be continually trying to break free from his ideological constraints. A part of him sees the horror of imperialism and racism and wants to fully condemn it; he wants to say the natives 'are human'. But to do so would require a massive break with his dominant ideology, so the most he, and Conrad, can muster is that they are "not inhuman".

Conrad again questions the dominant ideology when he has Marlow reflect that finding Kurtz was “not worth the life…lost in getting to him”, referring to the death of the African helmsman (50). To soften the blow, Marlow talks directly to his audience – and Conrad talks directly to his – saying: “Perhaps you will think it passing strange this regret for a savage who was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara” (Conrad 50). Conrad makes a bold statement suggesting that the life of a white man is not worth the life of a black man; but he has to rather aggressively backtrack to pacify his readers. Here, once again, Conrad’s position is ideologically mixed.

If he had taken a firm stance on the side of anti-imperialism, would we even have the text to analyze today since “the material context of literary production places limits on what can and cannot be said or expressed at a particular historical moment” (Rivkin and Ryan 645)? Even if Conrad wanted to directly expose cultural wrongs, he may have relied on subtlety to reach rather than alienate his audience. Even the "enlightened" who would, at the time, question the common practices of imperialism, cannot completely remove themselves from their ideological perspective. After all, "one of the effects of ideology is the practical denial of the ideological character of ideology by ideology" (Althusser 700). We can't escape it. It is entirely plausible that because Conrad had “to depend on the interest and sympathy of his readers…he did not fully acknowledge his dark insight into colonialism. He had to be content with satirizing the evils of imperialism while hinting at admiration for its ideals” (Icoz 246).

In essence, Conrad questions Western power through the very act of writing about Western power. Whether this is enough to situate this work as a true condemnation of imperialism is another question. Perhaps it is enough – for the time – that Conrad even questioned something so many saw as natural, an inherent right and responsibility, of Western society.

For those who've read the story, what do you think?

Althusser, Louis. “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 693-702. Print.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness (Norton Critical Edition). Ed. Paul B. Armstrong. 4th ed. New York: Norton, 2006. Print.

Gorra, Michael. “Joseph Conrad.” Hudson Review 59.4 (2007): 541-571. Academic Search Complete. Web 13 January 2015.

Icoz, Nursel. “Conrad and Ambiguity: Social Commitment and Ideology in Heart of Darkness and Nostromo.” Conradiana 37.3 (2005): 245-274. Academic Search Complete. Web 13 January 2015. 

Rivkin, Julie and Michael Ryan. “Introduction: Starting with Zero.” Literary Theory: An Anthology. Eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 643-646. Print.