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This is an interesting statement coming from a man employed by the Company, who are doing everything possible to exploit and even kill the Africans, to satisfy their insatiable greed for ivory. The slaughter and exploitation of these innocent people is all being done in the name of “colonisation”, under the guise of civilizing and helping the people of the
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Early on in the story, when Marlow first arrives at the Company’s Outer Station, he comes across a chain-gang, carrying stones up a hill. He is disgusted by this sight, not only because of the treatment of these people, but because he realizes that they are criminals in the eyes of the Europeans and because they have been punished according to a set of rules they could never hope to understand. He also comes across a group of Africans under a tree, too sick and too exhausted to work. “They were dying slowly – it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom.” (Chapter 1, page 14). They are left to die, no longer any use to their employers. He takes a biscuit out of his pocket and gives it to one of the …show more content…
Marlow is a man of values. He believes in work and he hates lies. He believes that when a lie is told “there is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies – which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world – what I want to forget” (Chapter 1, page 23). This may well be the reason he so dislikes the Manager and the brick maker. He feels, quite rightly, that they both lack values.
The word reconcile means “to make compatible; to make contentedly submissive to something disagreeable or unwelcome” – The Concise Oxford Dictionary,1990.
Yet Marlow, I think, does very little to reconcile the West with Africa. Although he often displays feelings of horror and disgust at the behaviour of the Europeans around him, towards the Africans, he does very little to change things. Instead he seems more concerned with keeping himself sane, as though he knows he will be home soon, and therefore he does not have to worry. Even so, he does sometimes, show benevolence to others, such as when he gives the dying man a biscuit, but again, no real effort is made to help
Early on in the story, when Marlow first arrives at the Company’s Outer Station, he comes across a chain-gang, carrying stones up a hill. He is disgusted by this sight, not only because of the treatment of these people, but because he realizes that they are criminals in the eyes of the Europeans and because they have been punished according to a set of rules they could never hope to understand. He also comes across a group of Africans under a tree, too sick and too exhausted to work. “They were dying slowly – it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom.” (Chapter 1, page 14). They are left to die, no longer any use to their employers. He takes a biscuit out of his pocket and gives it to one of the …show more content…
Marlow is a man of values. He believes in work and he hates lies. He believes that when a lie is told “there is a taint of death, a flavor of mortality in lies – which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world – what I want to forget” (Chapter 1, page 23). This may well be the reason he so dislikes the Manager and the brick maker. He feels, quite rightly, that they both lack values.
The word reconcile means “to make compatible; to make contentedly submissive to something disagreeable or unwelcome” – The Concise Oxford Dictionary,1990.
Yet Marlow, I think, does very little to reconcile the West with Africa. Although he often displays feelings of horror and disgust at the behaviour of the Europeans around him, towards the Africans, he does very little to change things. Instead he seems more concerned with keeping himself sane, as though he knows he will be home soon, and therefore he does not have to worry. Even so, he does sometimes, show benevolence to others, such as when he gives the dying man a biscuit, but again, no real effort is made to help