Colonialism and Imperialism in Heart of Darkness Things Fall Apart and Apocalypse Now

Colonialism and Imperialism in Heart of Darkness, Things Fall Apart, And Apocalypse Now

The shadow of colonization: Projecting European anxieties onto nonwhite peoples

The Jungian concept of 'the shadow' is not that 'the shadow' is inherently dark or evil: rather, it is a hidden part of an individual or collective subconscious that is a repository of all of the aspects of society wishes to hide. The shadow' may contain elements of forbidden sexuality, violence, or other desires that people wish to forget. As seen in Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart, colonial expansion allowed the dominant European powers to make 'shadows' of nonwhite peoples. Rather than viewing the people they conquered on their own terms, the Europeans projected their own fears and anxieties upon the colonized [THESIS].

For example, at the time of 19th century imperialism, sexuality was of great concern to the Europeans, namely its containment and regulation. Thus they viewed nonwhite people as hyper-sexualized, focusing on elements of African culture (like not wearing European-style clothes) as base and evil. Although they engaged in brutality themselves, Europeans focused upon the non-Christian customs of nonwhites and demonized those customs as inherently evil and bloody. They refused to see the parallels between their own expansionist culture and those of warlike tribal customs.

In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the projected notion of the 'shadow' upon nonwhite peoples is clearly seen in the manner in which the narrator Marlow views the sexuality of tribal women vs. white women. Marlow, a European, presents the point-of-view that the formerly impeccable representation of civilization Mr. Kurtz has been 'corrupted' by the evils of the so-called Dark Continent of Africa. He views African women as representing open, naked sexuality, versus the contained and pure image of Kurtz's beloved. Africa becomes the 'shadow' repository for fears about unchecked female sexuality and male carnality. Jung referred to the shadow as the "often dangerous…primitive, uncivilized, pre-evolutionary past of the species. The shadow is represented as jealousy and repressed desires like avarice, aspects which most people would prefer not to recognize as part of their being" (Schmuhl & Guches 2003). Marlow's view of the colonized is not revelatory about African's own sexual attitudes or base, primitive nature but rather reflects the hidden, shadow desires of repressed Europeans to escape the confining strictures of their own society.

While in Africa, Kurtz deliberately chooses a 'savage' woman to be his mistress, a native African. Marlow describes the woman like she is an image from a tribal portrait painted on a cave or as an anthropological curiosity. He stresses the sexuality of her person, above all else, and while his portrait contains admiration, it is clear he fundamentally regards the woman as an object, not a human being equal to himself or white women:

She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress (Conrad, III).

Rather than focusing on her human emotions, Marlow focuses upon the African woman's strangeness and her 'barbarous' dress. Of course, to the woman herself her dress is not barbarous, and perhaps Marlow's unsuitable clothing is far stranger to her eyes. From Marlow's 'shadow' projection onto this woman, she represents everything sexual about femininity that is unacceptable for him to express which he desires. She is powerful -- as seen in his reference to charms and gifts from witchdoctors. His reference to the occult implies that there is something uncanny about her power over white men and her ability to bring forth their dark desires.

This view of the African woman stands in stark contrast to the novel's portrait of Kurtz's beloved, a woman who is the very opposite of the shadow, a woman so pure Marlow cannot even tell her the truth about Kurtz's death, that Kurtz's last words were "the horror," rather than her name:

She came forward, all in black, with a pale head, floating towards me in the dusk. & #8230;She had a mature capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering. The room seemed to have grown darker, as if all the sad light of the cloudy evening had taken refuge on her forehead. This fair hair, this pale visage, this pure brow, seemed surrounded by an ashy halo from which the dark eyes looked out at me. Their glance was guileless, profound, confident, and trustful (Conrad, III).

Unlike the African woman, this lady is angelic. She cannot even admit there is a shadow: she is completely trusting of Marlow. This purity cannot even admit that a baser, sexual side exists to femininity. She is a woman who can elevate the character of men, versus the sexual woman in Africa whom Kurtz allowed himself to desire.

The argument presented in Heart of Darkness is that colonialism is evil and damaging because of the moral turpitude it encourages in white men, bringing out the primitive elements of their character that are hidden by positive, civilizing European influences. However, although this argument is anti-colonialist, it is still a fundamentally racist and a damaging and disheartening view of African culture. African culture is rendered into the shadow of white consciousness, rather than something healthy and vibrant and distinct. It is reduced a psychological curiosity. Even in the modern rendition of Heart of Darkness, Apocalypse Now, the Vietnamese jungle is portrayed as permanently destroying the mind and moral character of Kurtz and the other members of the U.S. military who become involved within the jungle's warfare. The more the Vietnamese fight back, the more they are blamed. While the U.S. ostensibly came to free Vietnam from tyranny (just like Europeans claimed to come to 'carry the white man's burden' and free Africans) when the Vietnamese began to resist and the real, corrupt self-interest of the Americans was revealed, Americans projected their own shadow desires of violence and ruthless domination onto the bodies of the Vietnamese, rather than admitted that such emotions actually existed within their own hearts and drove them to come to Vietnam in the first place.