Summary of Lecture 05 -Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

00:00:00 - 00:25:00

In this lecture, Professor Kincaid discusses the concept of colonial discourse and how it was used to justify the process of European colonialism in the 19th century. He introduces the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which he believes illustrates the colonial discourse in a particularly interesting way.

• 00:00:00 In this lecture, Professor Kincaid discusses the concept of colonial discourse, which he argues was used to justify the process of European colonialism in the 19th century. He introduces the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which he believes illustrates the colonial discourse in a particularly interesting way.
• 00:05:00 Joseph Conrad's novel, "Heart of Darkness," is a meditation on the gap between the discourse which presents colonialism as a civilizing mission and the brutal reality of the colonial process. The novel's title refers to the character Marlowe, who is commissioned to find a mysterious person called Coach K.
• 00:10:00 The lecture discusses the themes of darkness and light in Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness. The contrast between the darkness of Africa and the light of European civilization is contrasted, and the binary is put to test.
• 00:15:00 The narrator, Marlow, observes the Africans working on the railway project in the outer station, and he finds them in a state of despair. The promise of colonial progress in Africa has failed, and the Africans have been torn from their own social and cultural fabric.
• 00:20:00 In "Heart of Darkness," Marlowe encounters a disturbing reality that is very different from the discourse about colonialism. Marlowe first encounters this reality when he visits a house by the river, where he sees a number of poles with knobs on top. He becomes horrified when he realizes that the knobs are dried and shrunken heads of Africans. This practice of drumming the bodies of Native villages to spread terror among the local population was apparently how Marlowe compelled the locals to hunt for ivory on his behalf.
• 00:25:00 The lecture discusses the significance of darkness in Joseph Conrad's novel, Heart of Darkness. It points out that darkness ceases to be a qualifier of Africa and Africans, and becomes associated with the iconic European figure of Kurtz and the process of colonial extraction of resources. It argues that the novel really turns what it actually does here, by placing it against the brutal realities of colonialism and seen from this perspective, heart of darkness appears to be Conrad's contrapuntal reading of the colonial discourse.