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Mahogany Williams

English 4 ECE

Mr.Bridges

04/25/2019

(Un)Civilized

In an equal society, when all is going well, everyone is prospering. No matter their

social status, people are able to make a living and take care of their families. Sadly, this will

eventually end, because someone will figure out how to take advantage of others. For

example, the United States involvement with the Middle East is mainly for the conquest of oil,

when Christopher Columbus made his voyage across the Atlantic ocean, he colonized the

Natives in the land that is now the United States or when the English began to colonize

several countries in the middle east as well as Africa. The depiction of colonization in the

novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad shows how the Europeans made it their civic

duty to obtain and control as much land possible. Within that, they felt obligated to enslave

the natives of Africa for their benefit because this ensured they had complete control without

any complications that could possibly jeopardize their recent seize.

The African civilization is one that is sought out to be one of pure savagery and a system

that had an unkempt appearance to those outside of their society. In Africa, they had well

developed and established kingdoms and communities with armed forces and policies intact.
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They had ordered systems for their land such as a government and a flourishing economy.

The political system was upheld and ran by those of kin to those in ¨office¨ or a group of

elders making decisions on problems that needed to be solved. They had a sense of religion

in which they believed in Gods for many different aspects of life, such as Gods of seasons

and lands. They would worship their Gods by having rituals and sacrifices, and these

messages would be sent through a chief. Chief is one person from an earlier generation that

is connected to all the Gods and relays messages when asked upon by those who seek

answers. Chinua Achebe wrote in his novel Things Fall Apart about how this character

Okonkwo and the people of Umuofia would go to this Oracle and ask it answers when

guidance was needed. For instance “The Oracle of the Hills and the Caves. And there were

indeed occasions when the Oracle had forbidden Umuofia to wage a war. If the clan had

disobeyed the Oracle they would surely have been beaten..¨ (Achebe, page 9) In addition,

when they went against one of the Gods they were punished

¨it was a crime to go against the earth goddess to kill a clansman,

and a man who committed it must flee from the land. The crime was
of two kinds, male and female, Okonkwo had committed the female
because it had been inadvertent. He could return to the clan after
seven years….”(Achebe, page 94),

Most importantly, it also warned them of the dangers coming there a way that they needed

to prepare for such as ¨ I forgot to tell you another thing which the oracle said. It said that

other white men were on their way. They were locusts ,it said, ….¨ .( Achebe, page 103 )

Locust (which is also a biblical term for the plague brought upon the land of Egypt) were a

harmful pest to the way of life of the natives in the book, because it feeds and destroys any

plant during the main season where harvesting food is important. Comparing this to the
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Europeans means that they were coming and their intent was to destroy the natives' way of

life. And the whole intent of the colonization and cultivation of Africa was to “establish” an

economy convert them from polytheism into a single god religion such as Christianity, create

a sub-English based government who’s will cause the economy to flourish as though it was

considered to be the “standard” of civilized and they brought destruction to the people of

Umuofia as is did in the real world to civilizations all over Africa.

In the Heart of Darkness, the colonization of Africa was deemed to be their civic duty.

They created the “us versus them” complex based on the fact that the Africans had different

complexions and facial structures. Africa had a rich variety of complex and concrete

economic, political and ideological relations that bounded each tribe and culture no matter

the physical differences. This system was eventually devalued,defaced and made the

Natives into the property to the Europeans, thus demoting them to a non-human. Without

regard to the fact that civilizations are different. The English lifestyle is one which there is a

structural system where one person runs the country with smaller political positions that also

assist in the process, a set religion based off one God, and a thriving economy due to the

conquest of multiple locations all over the world and within their country. Exploring,

conquering and colonizing is what made Europe a dominating force, They wanted control of

others and viewed Africans as uncivilized, nonhuman which is why they enslaved them.

Such as in the Heart of Darkness The Europeans first set foot in the Africa terrain to seize all

land and property to then claim if for their country.

“The word ‘ivory’ rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You
would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew
through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I’ve never seen
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anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silent wilderness
surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something
great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing
away of this fantastic invasion.”(Conrad 20)

In the novel, the word Ivory basically Grew into a life of its own it was the leading cause of

the Europeans arrival to Africa. They were in the pursuit of gaining ivory and bring ivory

meant power and money due to every European craving to be high ranked men. However,

upon the discovery of ivory, they discovered native Africans.In the minds of the Europeans

for civilization to occur conquest needed to happen first and the Africans who were thought to

have been living a stateless life were seen as easy to control so they began using them as

tools to carry, pick and aid them in any task needed. “Day after day, with the stamp and

shuffle of sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each pair under a 60-lb. load. Camp, cook, sleep,

strike camp, march. Now and then a carrier dead in harness, at rest in the long grass near

the path, with an empty water-gourd and his long staff lying by his side.”(Conrad 17) they are

used to do slave labor only doing the hard and dangerous tasks the white men didn’t want to

do as it “they were dying slowly ...now, nothing but black shadows of disease and

starvation”(Conrad 14) the harsh work taking a toll on their bodies which was killing off the

natives population and lowering the number of Africans and they were left for dead.

The mindset of the Europeans is one where racism is presented as blatantly

dehumanizing, Europe is exploiting any resources they can find or want from any country to

receive more and more money. Being considered uncivilized humans the Europeans

demonstrated their bitterness toward this group of people by using racial slurs such as

“Nigger”, “Cannibals” and other derogatory statements used by the protagonist in the story
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“ It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well,
you know, that was the worst of it—the suspicion of their not being
inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun,
and made horrid faces, but what thrilled you was just the thought of their
humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and
passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough; but if you were man
enough, you would admit to yourself that there was in you just the faintest
trace of a response to the terrible frankness of that noise, a dim suspicion
of their being a meaning in it which you-you so remote from the night of first
ages—could comprehend.”(Conrad page )

This furthers the idea that they thought they were uncivilized, inhuman people that they could

use to achieve the highest pentacle they could. They degraded the natives slanted the

society and culture that had been flourishing to gain power and successfully convert and

bring wisdom to this civilization. The thought of helping these people out of there primitive

ways into a more structured begin fueled a never-ending race to horrifying experience in

which land and lives would be destroyed that would take years upon years to salvage.

.In contrast, there was only one man that wasn’t affected by the want of needing to be

being recognized as a powerful English man within the company and Europe that man being

Mr. Kurtz. Mr. Kurtz is seen as a threat to those who are also in Africa working for the

company because of how much over here has obtained and sent back to England. He’s

considered to be the light in the heart of darkness as he is a European turned “Savage” and

loved by the natives. In a lecture by Bradley, she states “Heart of Darkness takes place at a

time when there were mere hints that colonialism was not working as it should. It was a time

that appeared on the surface, perhaps to be the height of the Empire, a time to be bullish

about colonialism in Africa.”(Candice Bradley 3 ) The English tactic was slowly breaking

down as seen in the Heart of Darkness it can be said that once “The jungle” gets to you-you
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become a savage. The Englishmen that were let loose unleashed their true and real vile

spirits showing that civilized people can become savage like. Bring along the idea that

uncivilized is just a word because there is no true definition of what a civilized society is or

can be. However, it tells this story on how there are certain boundaries that people have

established and once those boundaries are crossed certain living conditions and

circumstances become a blur based on the civilization that we apart of. Also that every

civilization has a different way to go about life, such as the Native Africans and the

Europeans. And based upon that society they base standard lifestyle expectations, beliefs

and rule on what they believe to make a decent human. All in all, we all lead different lives so

we shouldn’t try to change what he doesn’t know isn’t broken.

The Europeans wanted power , wealth and to convert people to ideologies and beliefs

about how you should live life. Africa was a country where many civilizations were prospering

in their own way with their own advancements. The just so happened to be in the Europeans

pathway of conquest and this ultimately led to the demise of several African civilizations

based on the facts that the native Africans were viewed as stateless savage-like. Such as in

the heart of darkness where Marlow's fellow English men were using the natives as well as

stealing foreign goods and resources. However when in the vicinity of african civilizations

where they didn't have any restraints they unleashed their true selves the darkness within

leaving what the standard of civilization when they entered into the jungle. Civilization and

what it stands for is left up to the people who live in that area and there's actually no one

definition of what civilization actually is.