UNIT 2

“THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN”: DIFFERENT

APPROACHES TO IMPERIALISM IN LITERATURE.
HEART OF DARKNESS AND PASSAGE TO INDIA
(NMN: Unit 2, “The White Man’s Burden”: Different Approaches to Imperialism in Literature. Heart
of Darkness and Passage to India)

2. I Joseph Conrad and the Congo experience: Heart of Darkness

2. II E.M. Foster's Journey to India: Passage to India
Compulsory Reading: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and E. M. Forster’s Passage to India
Due date: November 17th

2.1. ¿Qué vas a aprender?

Learning outcomes
Aims and Objectives:
• This Unit sets out to explore the relationship between empire and literature, elaborating
on the question of Empire put forward in Unit 1.
• The aim of this Unit is to discern the way in which narratives written in England have
shaped, supported or undermined the concept of British imperialism. To do so two
different accounts of British imperial experience will be explored.
• Written in different moments in time and focusing on different locations, Africa and
India, both narratives show concerns surrounding notions of home, nation, race,
identity, and belonging. In doing so, other objectives brought up by topics related to
fiction, such as language and form, will come to the fore, as will nationality, subjectivity,
history, sexuality, gender, and social class.
• In dealing with Empire and colonial issues it is always important to acknowledge the
engrossing contribution made by the so-called Colonial and Post-Colonial Studies,
particularly, but not necessarily exclusively, by thinkers such as Edward Said, Gayatri
Spivak and Stuart Hall, who have intensively criticised European and American
imperialism.
• There are many others, such as Frantz Fanon or Kuan-Hsing Chen, who, instead of
looking at outside powers of colonialism, have focused on individuals and on language to
detect the particular and complex questions raised by colonialism and post-colonialism
as well as culture.
• Whereas the contribution of these authors and many others is acknowledged and
generally supports the main line of the argument presented here, it is impossible in a
course such as this to deal in depth with the difficult and complex sets of ideas each
presents. Therefore those interested in specific subjects should use the bibliography to
find further information.
Study Guidelines:
Read carefully the texts proposed for study before approaching the critical sections
dealing with them. These texts are:
Joseph Conrad, 2000 [1902], Heart of Darkness, in The Norton Anthology of English
Literature. Volume II (includes an introduction to the text).
E.M. Forster, 1989 [1924], A Passage to India, London and New York: Penguin Books
(this is the edition that has been used for this Unit. It contains a good introduction by
the editor, Oliver Stallybrass. It also contains Appendix I ‘Forster’s Prefatory Note (1957)
to the Everyman Edition’, Appendix II ‘Peter Burra’s Introduction to the Everyman
Edition’ and Appendix III ‘Forster Programme Note to Santha Rama Rau’s Dramatized
Version’. Here students will also find some author’s ‘Notes’ that appear in the Everyman
edition as well as a ‘Glossary’.
Bear in mind that language is not straightforward and that there is always a meaning
other than the immediate one suggested. It is important to read with a critical and open
mind, allowing for the experience of ‘the other’ to take place in oneself.
Be prepared to make an effort as neither of the texts proposed for study in this Unit is
easy. They are as dense and as complex as poetry. For this reason the student should
not just study the plot (which is not the essential issue at work in these novels) but
should also be aware of elements such as silences, gaps and the unsaid that contribute
as much to the text as what is actually said.
These texts participate in the different discourses that have been studied in relation to
the period, particularly seen in Unit 1 but also examined in Units 2 and 3. They are also
active participants in an intertextual space produced by the many literary texts dealing,
directly or indirectly, with the British Empire. It is, therefore, useful always to have in
mind the student’s literary background and knowledge. So, while new literary devices
and ways of expression will be introduced, it is important that the student should be
prepared to participate in the debate by adding his/her own knowledge and wisdom
when relating this knowledge to the issues in question.
As has been pointed out above, one of the main difficulties encountered in fully
understanding this Unit is the specific use of both language and words in the texts to be
studied. It is important for this reason always to have a good dictionary to hand by to be
prepared to look up words whenever it is felt necessary. When doing this the student
should always remember that the most immediate meaning provided will not always be
the most accurate within a particular context. Therefore, it is important to have an open
mind that allows for other possible meanings and to understand the ambivalence a word
or phrase might give to a text.
Perhaps one of the main challenges in this Unit is the need to overcome ourselves so we
can fully understand the issues related to empire and colonialism in relation to
literature. Accepting that each of us, whether as individuals or in groups, is always an
‘other’ to ‘others’ might be the first step in the right direction. In doing so, from the
experience gained when reading these texts, we shall, it is hoped, engage in the difficult
and discomfiting act of living differently by living difference.

a. Bear in mind that language is not straightforward and that there is always a meaning
other than the immediate one suggested.
b. Be prepared to make an effort as neither of the texts proposed for study in this Unit is
easy. Be aware of elements such as silences, gaps and the unsaid that contribute as much as
what is actually said.
c. These texts participate in the different discourses that have been studied in relation to
the period, particularly seen in Unit 1 but also examined in Units 2 and 3.
d. It is important to always have a good dictionary to hand by and to be prepared to look up
words whenever it is felt necessary.
2.2. Desarrollo de contenidos

Joseph Conrad was born Jozef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski in 1857 in a part of Poland
which is now in the Ukraine. He was orphaned at the age of 12 and was then brought up by
his maternal uncle. At the age of 16 he went to Marseille in France to learn seamanship and
spent many years travelling and working on ships. Although Conrad wrote in English, it was
actually his fourth language (after Polish, Russian and French). There are many websites
about Joseph Conrad which you can visit.
Conrad took his literary career seriously and, even though it was not profitable, he
continued to write intensely and carefully. Heart of Darkness was first serialised between 1898
and 1899 inBlackwood's Magazine. He met many literary icons who became friends. They
included H. G. Wells, Henry James and the American journalist Stephen Crane. Among his
friends was the writer, Ford Madox Ford, with whom he collaborated from 1898 until 1905.
Heart of Darkness is perhaps Conrad's finest exploration of evil and otherness. Several
themes in the novel are linked to the main theme of imperialism and imperial attitudes. It is
well known now that many of Conrad writings were to an extent autobiographical. Heart of
Darkness is no exception. Conrad used his journal and the notes he took when he was working
in the Congo as the basis of his novel. A small number of Europeans owned most of the land.
Leopold II, King of the Belgians, was one of the biggest landowners. Leopold's only interest in
the Congo was in exploiting its riches and making, as he did, a fortune out of it. The situation
Conrad saw when he arrived in Africa shocked him greatly and made him question the right of
Europeans to exploit their colonies. The colonisation of the Congo was, as Conrad later pointed
out, “the vilest scramble of loot that ever disfigured the history of human conscience” and this
view is transmitted throughout Heart of Darkness.

The trading company he and Kurtz work for symbolises progress. Yet, already in the
opening pages of the story he advances a little of what he actually encountered during his close
contact with real colonisation:
 The paradox of being really savages when thinking that we are civilised is carried further in
one of the most overtly autobiographical instances of the novel:

Conrad always expressed his conviction that there should be a commitment to fidelity in
human relationships, that the artist should speak:

His different view on the task of the writer implies that Conrad will be in a constant search
for a fictional form that allows him to achieve what he believes should be the aim of the artist:
 The Victorian illusion that the mind can understand and control matter, that the human
being can create a permanent civilised order, should be questioned and challenged, leaving to
the scientists and the thinkers the task of understanding the tangible reality:

The last words of the novel indicate that the awaited ebb has gone. It was waiting for the
ebb that prompted Marlow to talk because by the end of his story it is gone. There is then
again time for waiting and therefore time for the story:

Conrad is determined to draw attention to the total imprecision of language precisely

because he needs language to compprehend the world. His search is the search of his
characters and his readers for a language whose meaning encompasses reality as a whole.
Being an impossible task, for death can never be accounted for by the subject and therefore
there is always a part of reality necessarily unknown, his awareness, as our awareness should
be, is Marlow’s understanding that reality is beyond the immediate appreciation of an event,
and that no images taken directly from the senses will help to grasp it. As the anonymous
narrator tells us of Marlow:
 The untrustworthy nature of appearances is emphasised:

2.3. Autoevluación

I. Answer two of the following questions to Heart of Darkness

• What was the popular opinion about colonialism in Europe during the late 19th
and early 20th centuries?
• As we saw in Unit 1, Darwin’s theory of evolution led some Europeans to worry
about “degeneration”—humans reverting into their animal ancestors. How does
Conrad play on these fears inHeart of Darkness?
• Where does Heart of Darkness take place?
• What were Joseph Conrad’s own negative experiences with one country’s control
over another?

II. Answer two of the following questions to A Passage to India

• Explain the significance of the title, A Passage to India?
• Assess the friendship between Aziz and Mrs. Moore. Do you feel that it is a
successful one - why or why not?
• What is the significance of the echo?
• Discuss the symbolism in A Passage to India.

III. Provide a brief definition of the following terms

• Apocalypse
• Colonialism
• Novella
• Primeval

Help with the answers:

• Most Europeans believed that it was their destiny to control other peoples. Some
considered it their obligation, furthermore, to convert Africans to Christianity. This
obligation was known as “the white man’s burden.”
• Conrad plays on these fears by creating the character of Kurtz, a refined European who
studied art, science, and journalism but eventually became a cruel, savage, animalistic
man after he spent time in the jungle. This character was frightening to many of Conrad’s
European readers.
• Heart of Darkness takes place in what are now the cities of Boma, Kinshasa, and Kisangani
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At the time the novel takes place, those cities
were all part of a colony personally owned by Belgium’s King Leopold II.
• As a young boy, Joseph Conrad and his family were exiled from Poland to northwest Russia
because his parents spoke out against Russian control of their country.
• Apocalypse: An imminent cosmic cataclysm.
• Colonialism: Control by one power over a dependent area or people.
• Novella: A work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and
a novel.
• Primeval: Of or relating to the earliest ages in the world’s history.
2.4. Actividades para reforzar el conocimiento

I. King Leopold II’s ownership of the Congo is certainly not the only incident of colonialism
in the world’s history—even the United States began as a series of 13 colonies. Use your local
library and the Internet to research basic details about another colony from somewhere in the
world—the native peoples, the conditions they lived in, and the rulers who controlled them.
Consider how the colonial conditions of people’s lives affect their actions, feelings, and
descriptions.

2.5. Propuesta de ampliación de conocimientos

I. Listen to Melinda Penkava and guest Shashi Tharoor discuss E.M. Forster's A Passage to
India; PBS, January 20, 2000. (RealPlayer 46:41)
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/totn/20000120.totn.01.ram

2.6. Suggested Reading:

• Out of Africa. Isak Dinesen. Modern Library, 1992. Out of Africa is Isak
Dinesen’s memoir of her years in Africa, from 1914 to 1931, on a 4,000-acre coffee
plantation in the hills near Nairobi. This classic book presents the portrait of a strong,
determined, sensitive woman on whom a rich, dramatic landscape and way of life made
deep impressions.
• A Joseph Conrad Companion. Joseph Orr and Ted Billy. Greenwood
Publishing Group, 1999. This in-depth discussion of Conrad’s life and travels includes
descriptions of his time in the Congo and explores the ways in which his experiences
affected Heart of Darkness.

2.7. Propuesta de trabajo individual o de grupo.

I. Group work: If you were to retell Heart of Darkness in another setting,, like Francis Ford
Coppola did when he shifted the setting to late 1960's Vietnam in his 1979 film Apocalypse
Now, (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0078788) where and when would you set it?
II. Discuss: What is the significance of the three section titles Mosque, Caves, and Temple
in A Passage to India?

2.8. Propuesta de discusión para foro y chat.

I. Heart of Darkness seems to blur the line between the so-called “advanced” society of
Europe and the “primitive” society of Africa. What makes one culture “civilized” and another
“savage” in the eyes of the world? Are these distinctions valid? Do you think that the culture
you live in is “advanced” or “civilized”? Why?
II. Kurtz’s dying words are a cryptic whisper: “The horror, the horror.” What “horror” could
Kurtz have been talking about? Is there more than one possibility? Why do you think Conrad
made this scene so ambiguous?
III. Does the system deal fairly with Aziz in A Passage to India?
IV. Some readers claim that Heart of Darkness is strictly a political novella. Others, however,
say it’s really a story about the human condition. Can a work of fiction be interpreted in
different ways? Should readers consider the author’s intent when analyzing a story?