Locating the Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

Abstract

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a story of an expedition by European voyagers into the hub of the African continent at a time when such explorations into unknown lands were commonplace. As a colonial narrative, Conrad's text has provoked intense criticism and heated debate, much of which points to the novella's racist overtones. This is largely owing to Joseph Conrad's foregrounding and representations of nativism, primitivism and degeneracy, which are writ large in the novella. Using Homi Bhabha's idea of ambivalence and Mieke Ba's concept of focalisation, in tandem, this paper exonerates Conrad's text from the charges of racism, arguing that the novella draws attention to the underlying ambivalence which is located at the very heart of colonial narrative and discourse.