A Descent Into Madness: an Exploration of Imperialism in Heart of Darkness

A Descent into Madness: An Exploration

of Imperialism in Heart of Darkness

A Descent into Madness: An Exploration of Imperialism in Heart of Darkness

Between 1870 and 1930, Belgium worked towards an increasingly strong global presence characterized by international trade, foreign investment, and the migration of goods, services and most importantly, people across the globe; however, it is arguably King Leopold II of Belgium’s establishment of the Congo Free State that defines the period of Belgian Imperialism. In Faoucault’s words, “discourse is not simply that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is the thing for which and by which there is struggle, discourse is the power which is to be seized” (qtd. in İçöz 243). Essentially, fiction is shaped by the motives of reality. Joseph Conrad spent eight years traveling along the Congo witnessing the imperial rape of the Congo and, from those experiences, created Heart of Darkness. Part of that reality, as Jan-Frederik Abbeloos, researcher at the Department of Modern and Contemporary History at Ghent University in Belgium, describes Leopold’s motives as, “A form of expansion which would not only create commercial opportunities but could also provide spoils of efficient exploitation as a direct way of organizing an economic transfer from the colony to the royal family and Belgium” (114). The means for this economic transfer is central to the conflicts of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as Conrad describes the nature of imperialism. Leopold’s desire for a stronger state by way of colonization lead to a madness of exploitation; however, despite Conrad’s seemingly anti-imperialist tone, he does not outright condemn the practice as seen through Marlow’s idolization of Kurtz.

In an attempt rationalize Belgium’s expansion into Africa, and to warrant such large scale imperialism, Adam Hochschild, in his book King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial...