Abstract:Joseph Conrad is one of the greatest English novelists and stylists of 20th-century, and one of his masterpieces, Heart of Darkness, is also one of the greatest novels in the world. The novel has rendered readers detailed descriptions of what Marlow sees and thinks as he moves on up the River Congo. Through Marlow’s accounts, readers are presented with an image of primitive, poor, barbaric African Congo, such as, inscrutable River Congo, dangerous jungle, and ugly and barbaric African blacks.

Reading and analyzing his works from the Postcolonial perspective, I find that we can neither consider him anti-colonialist, nor a racist. If he indeed has showed racism and imperial attitudes in Heart of Darkness, we should attribute such criticism to the strong Orientalism that Western writers hold toward the East.

Based on Edward Said’s Postcolonial theory, Orientalism, this thesis aims to first analyze the Western colonial discourse revealed in the text of Heart of Darkness, and then further analyzes the nature and harmful consequence of misunderstandings which his false, imaginative and unfair descriptions expressed his readers.

Keywords:  Conrad  Orientalism  western colonial discourse  darkness

Contents

Abstract

摘要

Chapter One Introduction-1

1.1 Joseph Conrad and His Major Literary Achievements-1

1.2 A Brief Introduction to Heart of Darkness-2

1.3 The Aim of the Thesis-2

Chapter Two Theoretical Perspective-4

2.1 A Brief Introduction to Edward W. Said-4

2.2 Understanding His Postcolonial Theory--Orientalism-4

Chapter Three An Analysis of Western Colonial Discourses in Heart of Darkness-7

3.1 Heart of Darkness: the Projected Image of Africa as “the Other World”-7

3.2 Black Africans Depicted as Barbaric, Bestial, and Ugly: the Antithesis of Western White-7

3.2.1 The Negative Descriptions of African Men in Contrast to Western Men-8

3.2.2 The Negative Descriptions of African Women in Contrast to Western Women-9

Chapter Four Conclusion-12

References-13