Musings on the Heart of Darkness

In Peter Edgerly Firchow's critical essay Race, Ethnicity, Nationality, Empire, he argued that how modern audiences think of racism differ greatly from how people of the late Victorian period perceived race as it was presented in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Firchow presented the idea that people living in the later Victorian era saw race as including both the concepts of nationality and ethnicity.

One of the issues brought up by Firchow was that Conrad was prejudiced to both native Africans and to Europeans. He tended to portray the British people as more superior compared to say the Belgians that were employed by the ivory company and to the Russian Marlow ran into while in the Congo. This perceived superiority of the British to Belgians can be seen in Conrad's depiction tof the members of the company where Marlow was employed. This superior attitude is present in Marlow's depiction of the brick maker of the Central Station. He was seen as a suspicious character with questionable motives for being there. Marlow's disregard for the brick maker was evident when he commented that "I let him run on, the paper-mache Mephistopheles and it seemed to me that if I could poke my forefinger through him and find notherin inside but loose dirt, maybe"(26). Here Conrad portrayed the brick maker as thinly veiled devil who was consumed with nothing more than greed. He was not seen as an adventurer with "noble" intentions in Africa but instead a greedy person who desired to become the assistant manger of the ivory company. This perceived superiority was also present in how Marlow discribed Brussels after his return from Africa. He commented that " I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignifcant and silly dreams "(70). Here Conrad painted a very unappealing portait of a non British city. He basically dismissed Brussels as nothing more than a lifeless city compared to the energy of London, the grand capital of the British Empire. Conrad portrayed the Belgians living in the city as nothing more than theives that were only concerned about eating and drinking. Overall, Conrad dismissed Brussels and Belgians as insignifcant compared to the British people and the British Empire.