Heart of Darkness as Social Protest Essays -- Heart Darkness essays

Heart of Darkness as Social Protest Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, is an intriguing and extremely disturbing portrayal of man's surrender to his carnal nature when all external trappings of "civilization" are removed. This novel excellently portrays the shameful ways in which the Europeans exploited the Africans: physically, socially, economically, and spiritually. Throughout the nineteenth century, Europeans treated their African counterparts savagely. They were beaten, driven from their homes, and enslaved. Heart of Darkness is no exception. In the first section of the novel, Marlow is disgusted by the condition of the Africans at the First Station. His encounter with the chain gang sickens him to the point where he is forced to wait for them to pass. He even takes a separate path to avoid encountering them again. While avoiding the chain gang, Marlow stumbles upon the object of their work-"a vast artificial hole...the purpose of which I found it impossible to divine." Apparently, to keep them occupied and thus "out of trouble," the natives are forced to do meaningless, pointless exercises. Marlow is shocked by this total subjugation of the Africans and the completely pointless work which they are forced to perform. Prior to 1807, the Europeans directly enslaved the Africans. After 1807, Britain, and eventually most European countries, banned the slave trade. However, this did not stop the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, whose members Marlow described as "reckless without hardihood, gree... ...heads of the natives he killed, those "heads on the stakes" with their faces turned toward the house, to show his complete and total dominance over their lives. After this, the natives could not but help view him with a supernatural aura. He also forced anyone approaching him to crawl on all fours and grovel at his feet. This, coupled with the fact that he did not allow very many people to see him, reinforced his god-like authority. In the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, the Europeans shamelessly exploited the Africans. Conrad, who had been to Africa, makes no effort to gloss over the gross abuses of power of the Europeans and their inhumane treatment of the natives. Taken in this light, Heart of Darkness serves as an excellent novel of social protest.