摘 要

英国著名作家约瑟夫·康拉德（Joseph Conrad, 1857-1924）的重要小说《黑暗之心》自从1902年问世以来，一直受到读者和批评家的关注，被誉为英国文学史上最优秀的短篇小说之一。有关它的评论也是各有异同。有人用精神分析法分析，认为马洛的非洲之旅是一次探索自己内心世界的精神之旅；有人用女权主义理论剖析，认为它是一部歧视女性的小说；有人从种族主义的角度出发，把它看作是一部种族主义小说；而最为广泛流行的看法则是，认为《黑暗之心》是一部反殖民主义的进步小说。本文不否认它的进步性，书中对殖民者烧杀掳掠、无恶不作暴行的抨击，对挣扎在死亡边缘的非洲黑人的同情是显而易见的，这是它的进步性的表现。本文试图剖析康拉德在《黑暗之心》这部小说中对殖民主义及殖民主义行为的双重态度。

关键词：《黑暗之心》；康拉德；殖民主义；双重性

Contents

1 Introduction 6

2 Conrad and the Colonial Venture 8

2.1 Criticism of Colonialism and Colonists’ Crimes 8

2.2 Commendations of Colonialism’s contribution 9

3 Paradoxical Attitude toward Africans and Africa 11

3.1 Appreciation of the Qualities of Africans and Africa 11

3.2 Contempt for the Africans’ and Africa’s Uncivilization 12

4 Conrad’s Dual Attitude toward Imperialism 15

4.1 Exposure of Imperialism’s Hypocrisy 15

4.2 Affirmation of Imperialism’s Superiority 16

5 Reasons for Conrad’s Paradoxical Attitude toward Colonialism 17

6 Conclusion 19

References 20

Acknowledgments 21

On the Duality of Colonialism in Heart of Darkness

1 Introduction

Conrad plays a prominent role in the history of British literature, being regarded as one of the eight modern British writers. He is best at writing marine adventure novels and is known as the master of marine novels. The Chinese writer Lao She called him “the greatest realm and personality creator in modern times.” He occupies an extremely important position in the world literature of the 20th century with his extraordinary creative achievements and artistic ideas. In the 100 classic English novels of the 20th century selected by Random House in 1998, Conrad’s novels occupied four; in the top ten influential novels of the 20th century, his Heart of Darkness is also on the list. For many years, critics have conducted extensive research and exploration of Conrad and his works, especially his representative Heart of Darkness. The paper aims to reveal Conrad’s duality of attitude toward colonialism by analyzing the contradictions of colonial discourse in Heart of Darkness.

Conrad has more than 20 years offshore. During the period, he has traveled all over the world and possessed rich experience in sea life. He’s work is a fusion of tradition and modernity in a melting pot, with writing techniques of both realism and romanticism. He is good at exquisite meticulous psychological description with pessimistic mystery. He is the representative of the transition from traditional realism to modernism and influenced many famous twentieth-century writers such as Faulkner and Hemingway.

Heart of Darkness tells the story of Captain Marlow getting to know and saving a white colonist named Kurtz in the hinterland of Africa — an idealist who is determined to bring “civilization and progress” to Africa and later degenerates into greedy and cruel colonialist.

Heart of Darkness is the first work in the history of modern English novels related to overseas colonization. Since its publication in 1902, it has been highly praised by the western literary world. The American critic Albert J. Glad called it "one of the greatest novels written in English." Another commenter also thought that Heart of Darkness was “a record full of anger and satire about the brutal exploitation of European colonial powers.” But this work has received sharp criticism since the 1970s. The African writer Achebe (1980) accused Heart of Darkness as a novel that advocated African “dehumanization” and Conrad was a “bloody racist”. The founder of post-colonialism, although acknowledging that the subject of the novel is to expose the imperialist will of Europeans in Africa, believes that “Marlow is the representative of the discourse of the imperialist countries.” In recent years, the literary world in China has also reviewed the novel from different perspectives. The author believes that the main basis for interpreting a literary work is the work itself. At the same time, it is necessary to explore the background of the creation of the work and to analyze it with the author's life experience. From this standpoint, the paper considers Heart of Darkness to be a novel that is both anti-colonial and colonial. Anti-colonialism is its main theme, but the colonial consciousness it reveals also cannot be ignored.

2 Conrad and the Colonial Venture

Colonialism first refers to the imperialist countries' economic and political aggression on colonial countries. Later it manifests itself as an ideological and cultural aggression. That is, the colonialists infiltrated their world outlook and values into colonial rule and forced the colonial people accept them. Marx and Engels once said, “One of the most striking features of European colonialism is to compel all colonies to adopt capitalist modes of production and then to accept capitalist civilizations” (Hamner, 1990: 218). In fact, the colonialists are holding high the banner of advancing civilization, but in fact, they are doing plunder. Conrad elaborately described all aspects of the colonialist's actions in Heart of Darkness, revealing that the tentacles of European colonial rule had spread to every corner of the colonial country and daily life and reflecting Conrad’s keen anti-colonialism.

Colonialism has never been merely economic exploitation and plunder, but a pattern of aggressive exploitation under the cover of superiority of ethnicity and culture and cultural hegemony. Colonialism was legalized in Europe as “education of wild men”. In the novel Heart of Darkness, Conrad tried to criticize the crimes of the colonialists. Meanwhile, he always displayed the ethnic and cultural superiority of the colonialists, exposing the colonists’ mentality.