Marlowe as Colonialist: A Postcolonial Study of ‘Heart of Darkness’

Abstract

Post-colonialism focuses on understanding invasion and systematic occupation by the colonizers. This theory analyzes depiction of the native peoples’ culture and descriptions of their living experiences, and explores the notion of resistance against the culture and system that have been invaded. The Heart of Darkness (1902), which is author Joseph Conrad’s masterpiece, presents the living experiences of Africans in a post-colonial context. The present study has as its major objective an in-depth study of the novel through the experiences faced by the protagonist of the novel, Charles Marlow, in terms of the perspectives of The Post-Colonial Theory by Edward Said (1978) and Subaltern Theory by Spivak (1993). The study is qualitative in nature because the novel is examined in terms of the elements provided by the theories specified. The result of the study indicates that the novel represents a specimen of post-colonialism in which the observed experiences of African people are fully described. This description depicts the ways in which the natives of Africa had to face systematic marginalization, violation of their culture, passivity, and participation in cultural practices only through snatched freedom. The inhabitants were forced to live in a hybrid culture where their own identity was largely abandoned.