Post-RR1 Heart of Darkness

As this section evolves, we see Marlow start to take notice of the splitting inequalities and the ineffectiveness of the colonizers through his descriptions. The first thing that caught my attention as did Marlow’s was the fact that the black men who were tortured and imprisoned were not considered as enemies but more as criminals. The term criminal refers to someone who has wronged and not someone who is actively opposed or hostile as an enemy. Therefore, it is almost as if they have wronged by being of a different and seemingly inferior land. Because they are not as worthy as the white colonizer, they have to be punished for “crime” which in reality is only valid for the white supremacy ideology. Marlow also describes this law that has come to them as an “insoluble mystery from over the sea” which is a direct reference to the foreign colonizers from Europe. This once again demonstrates an injustice because these black men and women are being judged under a judicial system that is foreign to them and does not agree with their values and ways of life. Furthermore, the African population is characterized by “pain, abandonment and despair” because they are recognizing this injustice but have no way of fighting against it because the white man has forced a false justice upon them.

This discrimination is put into comparison with the physical and mental state of the colonizers in the African continent. Marlow describes the company’s chief accountant as having “collars, vast cuffs, brushed head”. He was able to conserve his appearance with all the atrocities that surround him, which shows to what extent he disregards the injustice. This demonstrates the tone of non-chalance in this part of the book because all the white men who work in Africa are attempting to live their elite and supreme lives at the expense of the poor black people that they are torturing and enslaving. They are cold-hearted and this is shocking to Marlow because he sees the irony in the situation. The white men believe that what they are doing is improving the standards of the African population as well as advancing their private trade corporations but Marlow sees that they are ineffective. He makes this sarcastic comment: “can’t say I saw any road or any upkeep, unless the body of a middle aged negro, with a bullet-hole in his forehead, upon which I absolutely stumbled three miles further on, may be considered a permanent improvement” (page 24) to demonstrate that the white men are only being effective in unnecessary violence and personal greed.

Another thing that Marlow notices in this part are the false pretexts under which the white men are going into Africa. He makes comments such as “there is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies” which proves that the Europeans are lying about going into Africa for humanitarian purposes which foreshadows a downfall or “taint of death” that is yet to come. Furthermore, towards the end of the part we see that Marlow is starting to slowly develop an opinion about imperialism and I consider him to question its necessity as well as its effectiveness. Marlow calls the “grove” or area in which he sees the dying African men the "dark heart" of his station. These men have been severely tortured and all he can seem to offer them is a biscuit. This biscuit in my opinion represents the minimal things that the white men are doing for the people they exploit because the remedy for excessive torture, starvation and exploitation is a biscuit that is good for nothing. Finally, the dark heart is an allusion to the title because it is there that Marlow sees the disappearance of humaneness with the induced suffering of one man by another. The dark heart is the place where these men have come to disregard their value for human life and get away with such crimes.