Colonialism in the Congo and its Representation in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

• Olivera, Mabel ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidad Nacional de General San Martín

     Universidad Nacional de General San Martín

     Argentina

     
• Localización: Revista académica liLETRAd, ISSN 2444-7439, Nº. 8, 1, 2024 (Ejemplar dedicado a: VI Jornadas Internacionales y el II Congreso Internacional de Literatura y Medios Audiovisuales en Lenguas Extranjeras: En homenaje a Samuel Beckett), págs. 286-292
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
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• Resumen

  • The purpose of this paper is to highlight the horrors of colonial expansion in Africa in general and the Congo in particular, which among all European colonies was the one whose revenues were used to subsidize the mother country. The horrors of colonial exploitation are presented through Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (Conrad, 1995) whose narration clearly reveals that colonies were a disputed treasure that served not only as a source of power but to justify the so-called ‘white man’s burden’ or God’s mandate to redeem the ‘other races inherently inferior.’ As the narrator gets further into the jungle, the more feral state of beings he encounters, which is nothing but the product of violence, escalating brutality, and terrible injustice. Contemporary life shows the aftermath of colonial expansion that left a weak and divided continent torn by endless conflicts. The theoretical background of this paper is Peter Duignan y L. H. Gann – Colonialism in Africa 1870 - 1960 Volume I (Duignan, 1974) and PDF X – Bright summeries.com – Book Analysis Heart of Darkness – 2018. (Bright summeries.com – Book Analysis Heart of Darkness , 2018)