콘래드의 ｢진보의 전초기지｣에서 관료주의, 자본주의와 제국주의 작동방식

The Workings of Bureaucracy, Commercialism and Colonialism in Joseph Conrad’s “An Outpost of Progress”

This paper analyses Conrad’s view of colonialism as practised by Belgian colonial power in the Congo Free State in “An Outpost of Progress.” Colonialism involves both colonial desire and colonial expansion. The object of colonial desire is ivory, a luxury item used to make piano keys and elaborate statuettes. Collecting tusks was a lucrative business at the time. And colonial expansion represents the ideal of the civilising mission, which includes the suppression of barbaric customs such as human sacrifice to exorcise evil spirits. In “An Outpost of Progress,” Conrad raises alarming concerns about the illegal ivory trade linked to slavery, not to mention the dysfunction of colonialism. The work examines how bureaucracy and commercialism are inextricably linked in the operation of the Great Trading or Civilizing Company in the Congo Basin. The Managing Director appoints Kayerts as chief and Carlier as subordinate and encourages them to collect ivory, only to see the operating system collapse, partly due to Carlier’s disobedience, among other things. The two Belgians fall victim to the wheel of commercialism, which gives priority to making a profit. Both of them are caught between the Manager and Makola, a civilised cunning nigger. Conrad highlights both Kayert’s murder of Carlier and his suicide. Finally, Kayert taunts the Manager, suggesting that the civilising mission is nonsense. Through irony, Conrad successfully forces the reader to see the failure of colonialism. Conrad, therefore, cannot easily be denigrated as an imperialist.