Colonialism in Heart of Darkness

ail under such poor conditions they eventually became fatally sick. Receiving no aid from the colonial forces, they were left to crawl away and wait for death (Brown).
             Early in Marlow's adventure in Africa we are introduced to the Company's chief accountant. The accountant is dressed in white, ironed, and starched shirts. Who keeps his ledgers in "apple-pie order," and who's greatest accomplishment was the teaching of one of the native women, who "had a distaste for the work," to starch and iron his shirts. The accountant is able to maintain an appearance of civility even while the station is littered with allusions of despair. "Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees... in all attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair." Even when a dying man is placed
             beneath his window, the accountant pays no attention and continues his work. In keeping with the customs and appearances of his culture, the accountant had lost his humanity, and thus he has given himself to the darkness within his heart (Wilcox 216-217).
             Upon Marlow's trek to the Company's central station he is further accosted by the savagery of the colonial forces. The villages along the way lay empty and barren. Some of the porters in his procession are found dead "with an empty water-gourd." Marlow meets with a uniformed white man with "an armed escort," who is friendly to Marlow, and claims to be "looking after the upkeep of the road." The irony of the scene is the lack of any road or upkeep evident. Later down the trail Marlow finds the body of a "middle-aged negro, with a bullet-hole in the forehead," which he surmises was the doing of the uniformed man he met previously.
             At the heart of Conrad's fictional portrayal of colonialism in Heart of Darkness is the theme of a central European character that "goes nat
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