『어둠의 심연』과 전(前)정치적 서사의 정치성

Critical discourses on Joseph Conrad`s Heart of Darkness have been polarized into two camps. While a group of critics attacked Conrad for his denigration of Africans, the other group defended the polish emigre by pointing out his satirical portrayal of the depraved Europeans in Congo. As a result, the critic, engaged in this controversy, have tended to address the issue of how Marlow`s statements should be `interpreted` or `classified,` to put it somewhat bluntly, whether he was racist or not. While the critical approach of the past scholarship on Conrad mainly focused on what is said in the fiction, this study has as its primary aim to analyze what is done by the fiction, namely its performative dimension. The premise of this study is that, to borrow Fredic Jameson`s insight, every literary work is in its own way an imaginary or symbolic solution the contradiction of society. By locating Conrad`s novella in the historical context of the late nineteenth century, this study points out a prevalent, fin-de-siecle anxiety about the moral and civilizational decline in the text and, above all, how this anxiety is not only rehearsed but also exorcised in the text. In so doing, this paper reveals how the topic of `bad Europeans in a colony.` which is a political issue, is transformed into a moral, psychological examination of the psyche of a depraved, yet `remarkable,` European. The act of choosing a subjective, individualizing perspective as the camera eye of the narrative, this paper argues, plays a crucial role in de-politicizing the political, or at least potentially political, narrative. In other words, an apolitical or pre-political presentation of a highly political and volatile material is itself a very political act. This paper argues that the horrifying realities of the Belgian Congo are drowned by Marlow`s moral and moralizing report; and the de-politicization enables him to heroize Kultz, the fallen colonial agent. The conclusion of this paper is that through granting a moral authority to Kurtz, the representative of Europe, Conrad was able to exorcise the anxiety about the moral and civilizational decline shared by his contemporary readers.