The Inhumane In Joseph Conrad's Heart Of Darkness

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is set in the African Congo, where white Europeans have gone to reap the treasures of Africa and ‘civilize’ the natives there. However, instead of the “delightful mystery” (59) Charlie Marlow, the novel’s protagonist, expected, he finds himself in a land where the lack of a strong, united government has caused the men to revert back to a life that is “nasty, brutish, and short” (Hobbes)--one of the core ideas explored in the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. In Heart of Darkness, although Conrad depicts human nature as self-preserving as well as the need of a sovereign to maintain peace, just as Hobbes believed, he also highlights how devastating it can be to the human soul. Hobbes’ belief that humans, without any kind of organization to guide them, are self-centered can be found throughout Heart of Darkness. The pilgrims’ “only real feeling” (82) was the desire to be promoted to a post where they could obtain ivory, despite their “philanthropic pretence” (82) of civilizing the natives, humanizing them to be akin to the Europeans. Though the pilgrims could be dispensing knowledge to the natives, they have no desire to do so, instead chaining the natives up and exploiting them for their own purposes. And although this act is clearly inhumane, what with the black men “connected together with a chain”(70) …show more content…
Without an authority to lead them, people are given to self-preservation and use any means necessary to that end. The pilgrims, removed from the restrictions that the government back in Europe placed on them, retrogressed back towards a self-centered mindset, and Kurtz, who became a leader in this environment, ended up even more corrupted by his ranking. Humans are greedy, self-interested, and will revert back to savagery when removed from civilized society-- but power, though needed, can taint the soul as