Introduction

Interpreting the novel „Heart of Darkness“, confronts the reader in a direct way with the barbarity of the former colonial system in Congo. Joseph Conrad illustrates in his highly valued novel numerous aspects of the European view of the African continent in the late 19th century. These times were characterized by an omnipresent pursue of establishing economically promising colonies in different parts of the world. Due to their vast repertoire of natural resources, African countries played an important role in the struggle about European hegemonic interests. However, aside from merely commercial matters, there was a certain need for moral justification based on ideological concepts. The novel's central character Marlow “reflects the authors perception”(Cf. Achebe 2000: 21 et seq.) of the Congo's inhabitants and nature, as well as his attitude towards the sense or nonsense of colonial enforcement of power. Analyzing Marlow's thoughts and comments, implies therefore drawing a picture of Conrad's mind and behavior patterns, developed during his engagement as a a captain on a steamship, in the course of Belgiums intention to exploit the Congo's natural and human resources. It is the act's impressive narrative style, as well as the subtle attempt to uncover Conrad's intentions, that prompt many critics to the position - represented among others by the famous Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe - that he has to be rated as being not only a good story-teller but also as being racist (Cf. Ibid.: 10, 25). Actually the novel contains several passages that confirm Achebe's opinion, for instance when Marlow, when speaking about the Congo's inhabitants, states disgustedly “they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was the worst of it - this suspicion of their not being inhuman […]the thought of their humanity - like yours - the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly” (Conrad 1995: 62 et seq.). With a view to the racial aspect, this leads us to a more general question: to what extent does Marlows way of thinking correspond with the predominant European perception of Africa at this time? In this context, the approach of relating the views of the young

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idealistic Marlow and the trader of Ivory Mr. Kurtz, will help us to understand the basic assumption which says, that colonial perspectives were generally characterized by a racist ideology. But what else should we consider before analyzing the protagonist's positions?

The ideological justification of colonization

As aforementioned, the exploitation of other country's material and immaterial goods required a certain justification. It was not only the prospect of bringing more wealth and prosperity to Europe, that motivated colonists to leave their homes for a risky adventure in overseas, but also the feeling of fulfilling a noble mission,like Marlow remarks: “After all, I also was a part of the great cause of these high and just proceedings” (Conrad 1995: 33). The ideological backgroundembodied by Mr Kurtz - implied the attitude that “each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a centre for trade of course, but also for humanising, improving, instructing” (Ibid.: 58). The mentioned willingness of “humanising etc.”, that means nothing else than “civilizing”, bases on the belief, that African peoples are inferior to European ones. Concerning this matter, Mr Kurtz goes more into detail in his report under the authority of the “International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs” by claiming, that “we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, 'must necessarily appear to them in the nature of supernatural beings - we approach them with the might as of a deity” (Ibid.: 83). In the eyes of Belgian colonists, the submission of the Congolese for economic reasons also brought a considerable advantage to this central African country, by means of getting in prolific contact with members of a civilized nation, how they considered themselves. This pseudo-human approach determined the intercultural contact situation between colonists and colonized. The most accurate description of such relationship provides the notion of “paternalism”.

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Paternalism and racism

This means that - based on the falsehood of European superioritycolonists treated African people like a father treats his children. According to this concept, the Belgian settlement in Congo incapacitated local initiatives, judged as not being able to act on their own. This perspective on the Congolese nature even emerged in the administration of later pre-war Congo: “The Congolese had been given no political responsibilities, no élite capable of leadership had been formed, very few had been sent to study abroad, any potential politicoreligious agitators had been transported far from home […] no Africans had been admitted to the higher government positions” (Slade 1961: 6). Now, how did this paternalism appear in the 1890s, at the time when Conrad himself experienced the colonial settlement in Congo? The idea of superiority certainly affected the Congolese way of living as a whole. This proves to be obvious at the point when Marlow's aunt expresses herself bluntly regarding his engagement, by talking about “weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways” (Conrad 1995: 28). What must seem “horrid” to the aunt is the contrast of the “African” and the “European”, which is based on a general lack of understanding on behalf of the proponents of the “civilizing mission”. A whole string of misinterpretations result in the reception of an African “savagery” as antagonism to the pretended European “civilization”, demonstrated in the novel through utterances like this from the chief accountant who admits: “When one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages - hate them to the death” (Ibid.: 38). Marlow as well is not free from such a racist image of Africans, as shown in his care about that “you will think it passing strange this regret for a savage who was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara” (Ibid.: 84). The association of African people with certain negative character attributes was a very common phenomenon in European societies at this time, and was not necessarily perceived - like in post-colonial perspectives - as an act of racism. In Conrad's novel, it is first and foremost the motive of furiousnis what is hinted at in relationship to all Congolese. The fact

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