As we are all inevitably compromised by
bias and our personal interactions with ethnocentrism, our narrator, Marlow,
and his perception are equally skewed by experience’s influence. Conrad continually degrades the natives
through Marlow’s recalling of the events in the forest in order to present
Marlow’s humanly character, one that we reader’s must take as a grain of salt
and remind ourselves that our narrator is a character in his story and must be
analyzed as such, and, thus, his storytelling’s truth cannot be taken nimbly. This degradation of the natives is also a tool
for Conrad to establish a realm of social hierarchy in the forest’s infant
civilization. By reducing the natives to
pawns, Kurtz, a demi-god to the inhabitants, does maintain a stature of supremacy
but his power is diminished when compared to that of any other foreigner who
has managed to develop a sense of encroachment upon the land or positioned
themselves upon a pedestal for the natives.
This developing inferiority/superiority complex is further degrading on Marlow
himself. Although the company’s invading
whites are often relentless to the enslaved inhabitants, Marlow finds himself
in a conundrum as he and his shipmates (pilgrims and cannibals) approach the
new land. The natives, the simple yet sly
pawns, attack Marlow’s approaching boat under the command of Kurtz. This situation itself degrades all of the
characters to their rudimentary human tendencies: the natives are imprisoned
and dictated by their obedience to the unworthily appraised foreigner, Kurtz;
Marlow’s and his comrades’ little distinction is lessened by their
susceptibility to havoc caused by pawned, simple men; Kurtz’s desire for
control and his possessiveness are surfaced, proving him equally vulnerable to
fall to human tendencies. The whole
novella itself sheds light on human’s perpetual power struggle, the extreme
variations of self-discipline (expedited by the cannibals) and irresistibility
to selfish, sin-like desires, and human’s instinctual urges toward conformity
and, paradoxically, its converse.
I comepletely agree with your point that since Marlow is a character in the novella, it is not Conrad, sepcifically, who is degrading the natives. We see the natives through how Marlow describes them, and even though Marlow could be considered sympathetic towards them, he still has a very obvious and clear sense of superiority over them. Even he calls them "creatures" and "devils," but this isn't Conrad's description of the natives, it is his description of the natives based on how Marlow would describe them. This does raise the question about what if the novella was told in third person with no clear bias in the narrator. Would Conrad, himself, describe the natives as "savages" or would he lean more towards calling them "rebels" like Marlow begins to?
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