Conrad and imperialism

Abstract

'It must not be supposed that Mr. Conrad makes attack upon colonisation, expansion, even upon Imperialism', The Manchester Guardian's reviewer assured contemporary readers of 'Heart of Darkness' (Sherry, ed., Conrad: The Critical Heritage, p. 135). In December 1902, in Academy and Literature, Edward Garnett noted the novella's subversiveness, as 'a page torn from the life of the Dark Continent - a page which has been hitherto carefully blurred and kept away from European eyes' (Ibid., p. 133). Conrad's fiction continues to excite such antithetical responses. Within the past thirty years in particular, the political aspects of his work have been a central focus of Conrad studies, and while Garnett's views have generally prevailed, these two early opinions frame an on-going discussion that continues to be shaped by multiple points of view. The arguments range widely, in fact, from those who view Conrad as committed to a conservative, ‘English view’ of imperialism to those who see him as sceptical of the whole enterprise and a champion of anti-colonial revolts (Eagleton, Criticism and Ideology , p. 135, and Hawkins, ‘The sychology of colonialism’, p. 86). The Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe‘s accusation that Conrad was ‘a bloody racist’ is countered by the contention of Ezekiel Mphahlele, a South African writer, that Conrad was one of the few ‘outstanding white novelists who portray competently characters belonging to cultural groups outside their own’ (The African Image , p. 125).