Joseph Conrad’s Treatment of the ‘Other’ in “Heart of Darkness”
„Kitas“ Josepho Conrado romane „Tamsos širdis“

Summary/Abstract: The journey to Africa in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a journey to a dark continent and the journey to the Belgian Congo, the darkest part of Africa, is a journey to the heart of darkness. The novel begins with a standard image of Africa in the European mind as a dark continent – both literally and metaphorically. Marlow, as a sensitive young man of the contemplative type, begins to construct the image of Africa on the basis of his own experience; the image is gradually built up till it is completed with the completion of Marlow’s journey. Conrad follows the impressionistic mode in his narrative and every impression that Marlow gathers contributes to the construction of the final image that the ‘uncivilized’ Africans are actually more civilized than the civilized Europeans. To criticize colonial enterprise as an elaborate enterprise of exploitation of innocent people during the heyday of imperialism when Queen Victoria was still on the throne, needed a lot of courage and it is with great courage of conviction that Conrad presents an image of Africa and the Africans which was historically valid in 1899. That Conrad is ‘one of their friends’ is evident from the sympathy and understanding with which he depicts the African characters. This is amazing in view of Kurtz’s disdainful recommendation to: ‘Exterminate all the brutes’.

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