PostColonial Approach Heart of Darkness Prepared By Sameeha

Post-Colonial Approach Heart of Darkness Prepared By Sameeha Elwan

Outline: 1. Colonialism. 2. Post-Colonialism 3. The Image of the Other 4. Application to Heart of Darkness

What is Colonialism? And Colonialist Literature? Colonialism is about the dominance of a strong nation over another weaker one. Colonialist Literature: Colonialist literature - according to Elleke Boehmer, is literature primarily concerned with colonial expansion. "It was literature written by the coloniser and for colonising Europeans about non-European lands dominated by them" (3). It represented the coloniser's point of view. In other words it was part of the support structure or ideology making the colonising work honourable and just. Thus Conrad helped unwittingly build Empire.

His basic assumptions in defense of his actions are: 1. The colonized are savages 2. The Inferior culture of the colonized. 3. The colonized nation is unable to manage and run itself properly. 4. The profanity of the (Non-Christian colonized nation 5. The colonized people pose dangerous threat to themselves and to the civilized world if left alone

Imperialism and Colonialism: “The empire that was controlled by a government from the centre, and which was developed for ideological as well as financial reasons, a structure that can be called imperial. And an empire that was developed for settlement by individual communities or for commercial purposes by a trading company, a structure that can be called colonial. ”

Empire is the relationship, formal or informal, in which one state controls the effective political sovereignty of another political society. Imperialism distinguishes itself from empire, because while the establishment of empires by the active colonisation of territories has ended, imperialism ‘lingers where it has always been, in a kind of general cultural sphere as well as in specific political, ideological, economic, and social practices’ (1993: 8). Its very investment in culture makes imperialism a force that exists far beyond a geographical empire” Edward Said “Culture and Imperialism” (1965).

Post-Colonialism: In essence, what post-colonialism, as a movement, does is to expose to both the colonizer and ex-colonized the falsity or validity of their assumptions. Therefore, Post-colonialism is not merely a fashionable term given to what follows colonialism Post-colonialism is as much the study of colonialism and imperialism, as it is about the conditions and experiences that were followed by the end of colonialism and imperialism. Post-colonialism often involves the examination of the experiences of slavery, migration, suppression, resistance, race, gender, difference, place, and the responses to the discourses of imperial Europe

The Assumptions of Post-colonialism: 1. Cultural relativism. This means that the colonialists’ distortion of the culture of the colonized is socially, morally and politically incorrect. 2. The absurdity of colonial language and discourses: Paradoxical, conflicting, and ambivalent. 3. Ambivalence towards authority. This ambivalence is born out of the struggle and conflict between native and settler with the outcome of the settler’s disposal. 4. Colonial alienation. The colonized are marginalized. Colonialism leads to the alienation of the native in his own land.

So, to examine any literary work from a post-colonial perspective while reading any literary discourse, we should keep in mind some questions: • How do these narratives treat their subjects? • What are the main themes or messages? • What cultural elements are being examined, and from whose perspective? • Are there stereotypes presented in the narratives? What are they? How are they presented? For example are the local inhabitants seen as savages, cannibals, polygamous, dirty, violent, irrational, etc. ? • How are the colonialists presented in the narratives? Are they tolerant, oppressive, violent, charitable, cute, white, brave, religious, hypocrites, etc? • Do the narratives depict natives versus settlers, vice versa? How? • Are there intellectual, levelheaded characters in the narratives? Who are they and whom do they serve? What is their class and orientation? • What binary oppositions can you find in the narratives and what do they serve?

Two Visions in Heart of Darkness Edward Said Applying Post-Colonial Theory

In his “ Culture and Imperialism” Edward Said argues, ” “What distinguishes the modern European empires from the Roman or the Spanish or the Arab is that they are systematic centerprises, constantly reinvested. They do not move into a country, loot it and leave. What keeps them there is not simple greed, but massively reinforced notions of the civilising mission. This is the notion that imperial nations have not only the right but the obligation to rule those nations ‘lost in barbarism’

In “ Heart of Darkness” “ The moral Ground” “They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force— nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind—as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea— something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. …” Page 10

Rethinking Decolonization: “This feeling in turn led to Westerners rethinking the whole process f decolonization. Was it not true, ran their new evaluation, that “we” had given “them” progress and modernization? Hadn’t we provided them with order and a kind of stability that they haven’t been able since to provide for themselves? Wasn’t it an atrocious misplaced trust to believe in their capacity for independence, for it had led to Bokassas and Amins, whose intellectual correlates were people like Rushdie? Shouldn’t we have held on to the colonies, kept the subject or inferior races in check, remained true to our civilizational responsibilities? ” . “Why don’t they appreciate us, after what we did for them? ”

The Image of the Tranquil Thames: “Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth” Page 8

The Image of the Other The Other: Not( White- European. Christian) “One significant contemporary debate about the residue of imperialism— the matter of how “natives” are represented in the Western media—illustrates the persistence of such interdependence and overlapping, not only in the debate’s content but in its form, not only in what is said but also in how it is said, by whom, where, and for whom”

The Image of The Other: ( Natives of the Congo) -Absent presence ( marginalized) ‘True, by this time it was not a blank space any more. It had got filled since my boyhood with rivers and lakes and names. It had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery— a white patch for a boy to dream gloriously over. ( page 11) -Mirroring a contrast to Europe - Babbling ( Their own language not acknowledged by Marlow) “a violent babble of uncouth sounds” page 20 -Cannibalism ( page 37) ( page 45) “Conrad's stress on cannibalism, his identification of African customs with violence, lust, and madness, his metaphors of bestiality death, and darkness, his suggestion that travelling in Africa is like travelling backward in time to primeval, infantile but also hellish stages of existence - these features of the story are drawn from the repertoire of Victorian imperialism and racism that painted an entire continent dark” Bratlinger

-Inhumane descriptions: "niggers", "savages" "pre-historic man", "rudimentary souls“ ‘The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there— there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it— this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity— like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; ” Page 33

-Praised for their Vitality to the colonizers, the masters. “More than once she had to wade for a bit, with twenty cannibals splashing around and pushing. We had enlisted some of these chaps on the way for a crew. Fine fellows—cannibals—in their place. They were men one could work with, and I am grateful to them. And, after all, they did not each other before my face” Page 32 The helms man: “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. Well, don’t you see, he had done something, he had steered; for months I had him at my back— a help— an instrument. It was a kind of partnership” Page 44 Was that a partnership?

Kurtz’s colonial and Imperial Desires: “You should have heard him say, ‘My ivory. ’ Oh, yes, I heard him. ‘My Intended, my ivory, my station, my river, my—’ everything belonged to him. ” Page 43 “He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land— I mean literally” The Binary Oppositions: White Vs. Black Enlightenment Vs Darkness Savagery VS Civilization

In Conclusion, Post-colonial criticism recognises the text as "a vehicle of imperial authority ". Heart of Darkness would therefore be seen as one of the many texts, relying on 'myth and metaphor', which unwittingly supports the suppression of any one people on the coloniser's presumption that these people were inferior