How HOD mirrors the Age of Imperialism

Unfortunately, my computer was being particularly belligerent so I decided to compare Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness to, not Apocalypse Now the film, by to the Age of Imperialism. My focus being the 1900s movement of some nations to gain resources by colonizing other nations. The two share various parallels. Firstly, the novella and particular period of time have narrative elements in common. Conrad's piece follows the horrors of early 20th century imperialism in nations such as Africa and the protagonist of this story is a white man that works under the imperialists. Similarly in the Imperialistic Era it was Caucasian patriarchy that ruled over government, society and media so the overarching narrative of the time is the perspective of white men.

Conrad's piece may seem to admonish imperialism, in that Marlow is disapproving and traumatized by it but he still actively participates in it and looks up to it's perpetrators. Marlow has extreme respect, even reverence, for a man (Kurtz) that favors a slogan of "Exterminate all the brutes!" Marlow claims to not see wrong in the natives and finds the assumed cannibals on his ship to be reasonable and hard-working. Marlow is a mirror to the guilty-yet-complacent whites of the Age of Imperialism in that they are witness to or aware of the atrocities being done to the natives yet they are held back by promises of riches or racist attitudes. The public wants to see good in the heroes of their nation, like Marlow desires in Kurtz, and will apologize or ignore anything that is contrary to their forged truth. This brings us back to the white male narrative which takes its roots in author Conrad and the oppressive system that is white supremacy. Conrad writes as a white man having witnessed the tragedy of imperialism but despite his identifying the horror that was this situation he still refuses to see the victims of this (the natives) as human. This is best seen in Marlow's diction surrounding the laborers in that he sees them as subhuman and only human-shaped. The Age of Imperialism came during and served to fuel discriminatory attitudes in the white culture. The common terminology for natives were savages, also utilized in the novella, and imperialists saw them as uncivilized beings in a resource-rich environment which they could easily exploit. Clearly this is mirrored in Heart of Darkess in that the leaders of the Company treat the natives like workhorses and regularly commit violence unto them, with faux justifications in that they need to be taught and are not fully human.