The Representation of Natives in Conrad\u27s Heart of Darkness

There is ample justification for seeing Heart of Darkness as a racist text. Conrad\u27s world-view is characterized by a stoical aloofness. Thus on a surface level, his vision is unappealing. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow can evoke a wanton consciousness, infected by the spirit of bestial rapine in the Belgian Congo. But once one gets past the stoical restraint of Marlow, and his myopic vision of the natural world, one finds a strangely appealing morality, an appalled vision. Because of Conrad\u27s janiformity, one has to avoid a reductive approach to the text. The text shifts so constantly, that the reader\u27s apprehension is literally dependent on the last words encountered. It is therefore best approached as a dialectal text. Since elements of Conrad\u27s art, and his peculiar hostility to the jungle complicate Marlow\u27s morality, already shrouded in irony, I have undertaken to explain them in Chapters 3 and 4. In Chapter 2, I have considered the views of several critics, whose conflicting apprehensions point to one of the central features of the text--its ambiguity. Contents: Introduction -- Reader-response : basic moves -- The critical handling of race -- Conrad\u27s art in Heart of Darkness. The effects of delayed decoding ; The effects of impressionism -- Conrad\u27s attitude towards nature -- Conclusion