A MARXIST READING OF HEART OF DARKNESS: EXPLOITATION, THE MAIN TOOL FOR COLONIAL PROFIT.

Abstract

Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness has been read and explored many times from psychoanalytical perspective. Individual psyche was the prime concern for the critics that hides the real focus of the novella that creates human experience-the economic systems that structure human societies. The objective of this article is to throw some light on this aspect of the novella where human beings have no other identities except that of a colonizer and colonized.  The study aims at examining Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness from a Marxist point of view where colonialism being the prime concern pivots the action. Joseph Conrad explores the nature of colonialism and sarcastically shows the terror of it: for him colonialism is a savage and brutal process which denies human empathy. Throughout the novella, the effects of colonialism are visible with tooth and nail. This is a critical study on how colonialism tends to exploit people and deprive them from basic human needs. Due to capitalistic profit interests, the imperialistic powers of Europe exploit the Africans, as a result a stark class division between the rich Europeans exploiting the poor non-Europeans is created. Exploitation becomes a tool for the colonizers to expand their territory. So, this article concentrates on how the novella Heart of Darkness raises questions about the colonization itself by ironically drawing attention to it’s flaws.