Heart Of Darkness :: essays research papers

The Transformation of Marlow - Conrad&8217s Explication of Europe&8217s Colonial Practice in Africa In &8220Heart of Darkness Conrad introduces his protagonist Marlow, his pilgrimage through the African Congo and the &8220enlightenment of his soul. With the skilled use of symbols and Marlow&8217s experience he depicts the European colonialism in Africa, practice Conrad witnessed himself. Through Marlow&8217s observations he explicates the naivete of the Europeans and the hypocritical purpose of their travelling into the &8220dark continent. Marlow&8217s experience in Africa starts with the desire for travel and great journeys to conquer the &8220blank spaces on the map and the naive weigh that the mission of the Europeans is to civilize the natives. Marlow&8217s aunt believes that this voyage is a mission to &8220wean those ignorant millions from their horrid ways. (Conrad, 16). In reality everywhere they went they colonized the land, utilise the natural resources, and left ruin s behind them. Marlow says,&8220They 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 difference 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 different intimation or slightly flatter noses than ourselves... (Conrad, 10). With the unfolding of his journey Marlow starts his &8220enlightenment. We can observe his evolution from &8220everyday European to someone who realizes his own naiveness and begins to see the surrounding reality. This is the arcsecond when he witnesses the shelling of the continent,&8220In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was,incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech - and nothing happ ened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight (Conrad, 17).Marlow is watching this occurrence, what to his fellow Europeans appear to be a fierce battle, in his eyes is a senseless destruction. He sees them firing &8220tiny projectiles producing a &8220pop, which symbolically represents the falsity of the European mentality. With that passage Conrad starts Marlow&8217s realization, and from this point on he begins his separation from the typical Europeans that surround him.