Symbolism In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness '

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a novel which is written during the time of Africa being colonized by European countries. In the year 1881 about 10% of the Africa were controlled by European countries and by the year 1914, almost 90% of Africa was under the control of European countries. In the year 1884 till 1914 there was the scramble for Africa; European countries were trying to colonize African countries because of their rich environmental resources. Thus, the Belgians colonized Congo the heart of Africa for rubber and ivory. The novel is basically about the African colonization and shows how African was threaded during those days. The Siege of Krishnapur on the other hand is a novel by J. G. Farrell, first published in the

Through his journey, Marlow develops an intense interest in investigating Kurtz, an ivory-procurement agent, and Marlow is shocked upon seeing what the European traders have done to the natives. After Congo was captured, the whites treated them very brutally. Not only this, the natives were addressed as “rebels, enemies, criminals and workers” (chapter 3, pg.70). There was exploitation of the labors and the environment in order to satisfy their greed. There is a woman in The Heart of Darkness who is described as “wild and gorgeous” that walks proudly with her “head high” and is heavily ornamented. All this description of her shows their trading business of the ivory in Congo was greatly benefiting the whites, while blacks were suffering endlessly. Though Marlow’s main reason for visiting Congo was to meet Mr. Kurtz for the ivory and do trade but when he saw how the blacks were treated by the whites he feels kind of shocked and feels sorry for them. In The Siege of Krishnapur Mr. Hopkins, the tax collectors is seen as a man who loves to collect things and “his residence is filled with all the trinkets, literature books, art, science and technology” (book review). This shows that since he is the collectors he has collected all those stuffs from the natives through his collector power. Progress is one of the themes in The Siege of Krishnapur. During mid 1800s

So in Conrad’s novel, Congo the heart of Africa is poor and uncivilized place but they had rich environment resource. Therefore, the European country went over there saying that they will help them in civilization but as the time passed by European country colonized Congo. Conrad show the heart of Africa in a very bad situation and the whites ruthlessly enslaving the Africans and depleting the area of ivory. And in Farrell’s novel Krishnapur is colonized by British during Indian rebellion in the year 1857. The natives were treated like dog they were brought dowm to eat dog’s meat, horse and the beetles. Krishnapur after it was colonized they were completely cut off from the outside world. They were surrounded by farmed force in order to defend their selves from Indian rebellions. Mr. Hopkins keeps a journal and records the entire event happening in the town and several nights he spends reading those records and thinks that it will be great knowledge to keep the event recorded. The line “proving the superiority of the European way of doing things” is basically talking about their superiority over Krishnapur. It also shows their hierarchy system in the society where whites are at the top and natives were at the bottom as their