Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. Vol. 1. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 24)

Tibor Tóth: Conrad's 'Secret Garden'

They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind - it is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means that taking away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.

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9 Still he finds justification for British imperialism in its efficiency and its idea, certainly exposing awareness of the unconscious hypocrisy he betrayed in Lord Jim. When Marlow says that it is good to see the vast amount of red on the map (red stands for the British colonies), there is a touch of nationalism in his statement. But his loyalty to the British Empire has also elements of a kind of positive discrimination based on historical facts, namely that British Imperialism had become so experienced that it was able to rectify at least some of the worst features of its previous stages ill-famed for some of its practices like slave-trade. Marlow is sent to the Belgian Congo, the population of which dropped drastically during the European rule. The Belgians, the French, the Portuguese and the Spanish were extremely aggressive towards the native populations in their colonies. Clearly, Marlow's national blindness is part of Conrad's themes in his fiction. Conrad's presentation of the imperial theme begins in London and is continued in Brussels, culminating finally in the Congo. Marlow speaks of London as a place that has been one of the dark places of the world, but the imperial theme is projected against a European context (even Kurtz is of mixed parentage), since he intends to ask the question whether the white man is man enough to stand the tests the Romans had to stand. The answer will never be formulated because the novella remains open-ended. Marlow's experience of Africa interpreted at this level is inconclusive. In Brussels, the headquarters of the Belgian Empire, Marlow is still confident: 1

9 Heart of Darkness, 9 163