Thus He Whacked The Old Nigger Mercilessly

An Analysis of a Passage from Heart of Darkness The chosen passage in this analysis is “Therefore he whacked the old nigger mercilessly, while a big crowd of his people watched him, thunderstruck...(8)”. This passage is relevant to the motif of savagery when the exploitation of colonies in Africa was widespread. During this period, there was an abuse of the native inhabitants and natural resources, and Joseph Conrad invites the reader to see how this so-called process of expansion and progress became rape. The book sheds light on the savagery that colonialists practiced in the middle of the African jungle where their savage tendencies were provided with a very fertile ground away from the view rest of the world. Land and ivory were stolen from the native inhabitants of Africa with impunity. The Africans were savagely treated worse than the slaves in America, according to Conrad, where the poor natives were allowed to die of starvation whenever they fell ill. The old and young were treated with disrespect and most of the time they were beaten whenever the colonist felt like he wanted to punish alleged mistakes. This is why the old man was
being beaten mercilessly. Even though the natives were savages in that they were cannibals, the raiders/colonists were worse savages in the way they treated the natives and land resources. Through technology, the colonists had a lot of power, which they used to terrorize the native population. From Conrad’s perspective, he was trying to tell the reader that the white colonialists had a reputation of accusing the powerless natives of any accident that took place. Whenever such accidents took place, the white man would take this opportunity to mercilessly punish the natives so that they can set an example of what would happen whenever they went against the harsh authority of the Europeans. This passage is a clear example that the Europeans thought they were superior to the natives and thus, had the license to treat them in a cruel manner because they were more powerful. The Europeans felt little or no attachment to the natives and they, therefore, did not intervene whenever one of them committed acts of cruelty towards the natives. Marlow never bothered to intervene when the old man was being beaten in front of a crowd of people. European governments had cruel policies towards the natives living in Congo. During that period of colonization, natives were enslaved and at the same time forced to harvest ivory from elephants. If the natives did not meet the yearly quotas set by the Europeans, they would be beaten mercilessly. This was savage behavior, and Conrad uses Kurtz and Marlow as characters in his book to show the cruel policies towards the natives by the Belgian government that colonized Congo. As one of the central themes of the story, the selected passage can be connected to other passages in the book to further elaborate savagery.
He narrates a situation where a native was being beaten somewhere because of a mistake that was done. This merciless beating, according to the author, was the only way to make sure that no other mistake happened again (29). Due to the nature of punishment, the person was groaning in pain but the punishers were pitiless, and they said that the punishment served him right. When compared to the main chosen passage, the two passages connect to show how, throughout the story, the natives of Congo were savagely treated by their Belgian colonial masters. Conrad uses the word nigger in both passages to show the kind of disrespect the white person had for the natives during the colonial
period. In another passage, Conrad narrates how a native was punished after being suspected of causing a fire. A few days later, he found the native sitting under a shade trying to recover while looking very sick (26). This passage connects with the main one, where the old man was mercilessly beaten in front of fellow natives. The white colonialists did not bother to investigate mistakes; they assumed that all the mistakes were committed by the natives. They thought of themselves more superior than the natives, and that is why they gave them savage treatment. Even after being severely punished, no one bothered to find out how they were soon after. Natives were left to languish in pain and misery after brutal treatment. Through the above analysis of Heart of Darkness passage, the evaluation is significant in the provision of interpretation to works by Chinua Achebe. The approach of issues in Achebe’s Things Fall Apart has been based on metaphors to exhibit the sufferings that the people of Nigeria had to go through in the colonization period. The arrival of the white man destroyed the traditional customs of the Igbo people, and this caused them to have problems with Christian missionaries. Through the eyes of Okonkwo, colonists destroyed his village and changed his family concerning his relationship with his son. Achebe shows how outsiders came to Africa and disrupted the way of life because they thought what they brought was superior and that they were more powerful.