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Heart of Darkness

by Joseph Conrad

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Futility of European Expansion in Heart of Darkness

Summary:

In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad highlights the futility of European expansion in Africa through the degradation of Kurtz and the chaotic, failed colonial efforts. Kurtz's descent into madness and his brutal actions symbolize the destructive nature of European imperialism. The colonists' greed and lack of respect for native cultures lead to lasting scars and ineffective domination. The novel illustrates this futility with scenes of abandoned machinery and neglected infrastructure, emphasizing that the European presence in Africa lacks purpose and sustainability.

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How does Heart of Darkness highlight the futility of the European presence in Africa?

This is a great question because one of the primary themes of Conrad's Heart of Darkness is that, for all their supposed strength, the European powers in Africa, especially the Belgian Congo, are actually pursuing a futile enterprise doomed to fail. This fact is most completely exemplified by the utter degradation of Kurtz, the former ivory trader driven mad by isolation in the wilderness.

Isolated at his remote trading station for a considerable length of time, Kurtz descends into madness and chaos, shirking his civilized past and promoting himself to godlike status. Kurtz' downfall is most classically illustrated by the severed heads he keeps on stakes around his dwelling place in the heart of the Congo. It is clear that, instead of gaining wealth and "civilizing" the natives (which, it must be noted, is a fairly pompous, racist, and patronizing goal in and of itself), Kurtz is ruined, his hold on reality disintegrates, and he ultimately dies a miserable death, but not before he recognizes "the horror" of existence.

Kurtz grisly end can be interpreted as a lot of different things, but, for our purposes, it's best to focus on the implications it has for the European occupation of the Congo as a whole. Kurtz' demise suggests that European powers do not, in fact, have the power to completely dominate Africa, as white men are clearly unprepared for the trials of living in the wilderness far from the cities of Europe. Moreover, it's clear that Conrad is suggesting the attempt to control African regions will only lead to a brutal and disturbing defeat. As such, we can view Kurtz' downfall as an example of the fate that awaits European powers attempting to conquer the Congo and other African regions.

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What's an example of futile European expansion into Africa in Heart of Darkness?

The futility of the European expansion is best characterized by the men who went to Africa—those who worked for the Company (Kurtz and many others). These types of expansions, which are mostly driven by greed and dark will, attract a very certain type of person.

The novel puts a lot of focus on how Kurtz seems to have lost his mind during his stay in Africa, but on a closer reading, most of the other colonists don't seem that different from him. Marlow witnesses severe cruelty long before he encounters Kurtz. The expansion was doomed from the very beginning, destined to create tensions that still linger to this day, because when people show up somewhere with an intention of colonizing, with no remorse and no respect for human life that's by some standard different from their own, they create lasting historical scars. A good parallel comes from slavery and its abolition in the US—more than a century has passed, and living memory is long lost, but something dark lives in collective societal memory and refuses to let go.

The same applies to the ivory trade era the novella covers. Marlow is horrified by the things he sees in Africa, the way local people are treated—like cattle, with barely any worth. Being someone who comes from a "civilized" country, he is initially disgusted by the fact that there is a part of the world where human heads are still put on spikes on display. As the story progresses, he becomes more disillusioned about the human heart and starts to realize that the men who are responsible for everything he sees are also from the same "civilized" world.

At one point, Marlow is told a little tale about an old hippo, and that passage neatly illustrates the state of affairs in Africa:

There was an old hippo that had the bad habit of getting out on the bank and roaming at night over the station grounds. The pilgrims used to turn out in a body and empty every rifle they could lay hands on at him. Some even had sat up o' nights for him. All this energy was wasted, though. "That animal has a charmed life," he said; "but you can say this only of brutes in this country. No man—you apprehend me?—no man here bears a charmed life."

The truth is that colonizing can't be done by kind people. When an empire wants to take a land that doesn't belong to them, it's natural that the natives don't want to give it away. History is littered with examples of what happens—the land is bled dry of valuables, the locals are enslaved or killed, or both. The great powers have learned a long time ago that asking nicely for land doesn't work. It's the brutes, the hippos, who thrive in the sort of dark madness that is, for example, the ivory trade. They are the ones who don't have nightmares about cutting off people's hands or using horrendously overpowered weaponry against natives who have no real way of resisting.

The futility of the expansion can also be seen in the fact that even if people can't resist it, brutality is not forgotten. The traders can never establish any trust, can never sleep with their eyes closed if they're not heavily guarded, can never hope to establish anything that won't be destroyed the second an opportunity rises. After you've made such a violent entrance—you may get some ivory out of it, as long as you have guns and manpower—there is no moving on, no chance to build anything that lasts.

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What's an example of futile European expansion into Africa in Heart of Darkness?

The European expansion into Africa in Heart of Darkness is focused on the gathering and selling of ivory, the bone and tusks of elephants and other large mammals. Because of the difficult nature of hunting those large mammals, the Company hires men who can lead expeditions into the African interior and return with success. However, they do not expect that the jungle will change their men so severely, and so they do not plan for the loss of their men and the resulting drain on their manpower. The futility of their plans can be seen in the ruined machinery that Marlow sees when he enters the Outer Station:

I came upon a boiler wallowing in the grass, then found a path leading up the hill. It turned aside for the boulders, and also for an undersized railway-truck lying there on its back with its wheels in the air. One was off. The thing looked as dead as the carcass of some animal. I came upon more pieces of decaying machinery, a stack of rusty rails.
(Conrad, Heart of Darkness, eNotes eText)

The Company seems to have determined that the mission in Africa is a lost cause, and so they are not focusing on repairing or replacing important items. Instead, they are draining Africa and their own men for as much ivory as possible, without a clear end-goal in sight. Marlow comments on this failure later; as he is stuck without rivets to repair his steamboat, he remembers that the Outer Station was littered with rivets which could be gathered and sent downriver. However, since the Company only cares about profit coming out, they take no preemptive measures to help their people, instead leaving them to survive as best as they can.

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