Conrad’s Controversial Damnation of Colonization and Imperialism Is Dark, Dense, but Beautifully Written

I read “Heart of Darkness” in high school and remembered it being a punishing and brutal read, and would muuuuch prefer to just watch “Apocalypse Now,” Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War-based adaptation of the novella and the GOAT war movie ever.

Rereading it now, I’d definitely still prefer to watch “Apocalypse Now,” one of the best movies ever, and it’s still not a very easy breezy read. But it was much more rewarding and involving than when my dumbass 17-year-old self read it initially.

It’s a pretty unique story, and a mad controversial one too, as a seaman named Marlowe regales some bored shipmates with a story of a time he ventured into the heart of Africa to relieve a crazed ivory trader, Kurtz, who’s gone rogue and believes himself to be a god, from duty.

My use of the phrasing of “heart of Africa” is actually what draws a lot of the controversy surrounding the book, as some critics damn Conrad and the novel for perpetuating racial stereotypes and portraying native Africans as uncivilized, “inhuman,” and “savages.” And, frankly, the language is shocking to read at some points.

But while the language can be occasionally flagrant, the greater theme of the cursing and disparaging of British and otherwise colonialism and imperialism still resonates. There’s some racial verbiage for sure that doesn’t sit as well today, but it paints Marlowe in a complex light, an ignorant character whose own ignorance begins to dawn on him as he sees the horror of what England has done to Africa. With his rough language, Conrad is actually damning the racism and prejudice, not supporting it.

And it’s the company men, and the towering Kurtz himself, that prove this point. Conrad portrays them all as soulless, vile, conniving automatons who care for nothing but “progress,” while Kurtz, who is just a fascinating character, is driven mad by the whole industry, and essentially becomes a monster drunk with the power of colonization and faux racial superiority. Also, it seems, nature itself drives him to this madness.

This nature, the untamed and unchecked and unharmed jungle and rivers of an Africa that will soon be, but isn’t yet, ravaged by imperialism, is portrayed with some truly incredible language and imagery by Conrad, and, as a setting should be in any great book, is almost a character in and of itself. And it’s a character that Kurtz and these other colonizers, try as they might, fail to understand and comprehend the power of, and it’s in this way that Conrad champions a narrative that is passionately against the egotistical expansion of empires where they don’t need to, and shouldn’t, be.