Heart Of Darkness Imperialism

In Heart of Darkness, the main character, Marlow, comes across many trials and tribulations when traveling through Africa. During the time between 1876 and 1892, Africa was known as the “dark continent” (dark meaning evil.) Marlow’s trials and tribulations don’t only show the evil of Africa, but the embodiment of evil in the colonial bureaucracy and Kurtz by the actions they take towards the people/criminals in the community due to imperialism. Africa was like a cigarette, a start to destruction of a body (community), and the colonial bureaucracy and Kurtz were a lighter building on to the evil that was already present, ultimately leading to the destruction of the body (community.) Joseph Conrad uses London, in the opening of the book, as
Marlow has to choose if he should go to the “dark continent,” because it’s the “blank space” on his map, or stay where he is safe and unharmed. This novella is full of dishonesty, confusion, and imperialism which makes Marlow have to choose between the lesser of two evils when it comes to who to follow. Marlow is faced with choosing to position himself with either the malevolent and hypocritical colonial bureaucracy, or the rule breaking, dishonest Kurtz. The maliciousness of Africa helps develop the theme, embodiment of evil in imperialism, because Marlow witnesses’ ridiculous punishments, almost slave like, given to the criminals/community due to the selfishness and hostility of the colonial bureaucracy and Kurtz. In the book, Africans are seen as objects or machines that can be told what do and have punishments if they don’t do it. Kurtz doesn’t hide his opinion of the natives and tells everyone he wants torture them when he says, “terminating all the brutes.” At one station Marlow passes in Africa, a grass shed catches on fire and men are seen carrying buckets in order to get water. As the men are scooping up quarts of water to put out the fire, Marlow notices there is a large hole in the bottom of every bucket, but the men didn’t