Previous The Manager. Next The Harlequin. Removing book from your Reading List will also remove any bookmarked pages associated with this title. Disturbed Marlow leaves the grove to soothe his shaken mind. Rather than confront the horror head-on, he retreats; later he will not have this luxury. Marlow moves from the natives to a European: the Company's chief accountant, who suggests the immense amount of money that the Company is making from its campaign of terror and whose dress is impeccable.
Marlow calls the Accountant a "miracle" because of his ability to keep up a dignified European appearance amidst the sweltering and muddy jungle. He even has a penholder behind his ear. Completely and willingly oblivious to the horrors around him, the Accountant cares only for figures and his own importance: When a sick agent is temporarily placed in his hut, the Accountant complains.
He also tells Marlow, "When one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages — hate them to the death. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you - 95 - a dream -- making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is of the very essence of dreams.
No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence -- that which makes its truth, its meaning -- its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream -- alone. You see me, whom you know. For a long time already he, sitting apart, had been no more to us than a voice. There was not a word from anybody. The others might have been asleep, but I was awake. I listened, I listened on the watch for the sentence, for the word, that would give me the clue to the faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative that seemed to shape itself without human lips in the heavy night-air of the river.
Yes -- I let him run on," Marlow began again, "and think what he pleased about the powers that were behind me. I did! And there was nothing behind me! There was nothing but that wretched, old, mangled steamboat I was leaning against, while he talked fluently about 'the necessity for every man to get on. Kurtz was a 'universal genius,' but even a genius would find it easier to work with 'adequate tools -- intelligent men.
I saw it. What more did I want? What I really wanted was rivets, by heaven! To get on with the work -- to stop the hole. Rivets I wanted. There were cases of them down at the coast -- cases -- piled up -- burst -- split! You kicked a loose rivet at every second step in that station-yard on the hillside. Rivets - 96 - had rolled into the grove of death. You could fill your pockets with rivets for the trouble of stooping down -- and there wasn't one rivet to be found where it was wanted.
We had plates that would do, but nothing to fasten them with. And every week the messenger, a long negro, letter-bag on shoulder and staff in hand, left our station for the coast. And several times a week a coast caravan came in with trade goods -- ghastly glazed calico that made you shudder only to look at it, glass beads value about a penny a quart, confounded spotted cotton handkerchiefs.
And no rivets. Three carriers could have brought all that was wanted to set that steamboat afloat. I said I could see that very well, but what I wanted was a certain quantity of rivets -- and rivets were what really Mr.
Kurtz wanted, if he had only known it. Now letters went to the coast every week. There was a way -- for an intelligent man. He changed his manner; became very cold, and suddenly began to talk about a hippopotamus; wondered whether sleeping on board the steamer I stuck to my salvage night and day I wasn't disturbed.
There was an old hippo that had the bad habit of getting out on the bank and roaming at night over the station grounds. The pilgrims used to turn out in a body and empty every rifle they could lay hands on at him. Some even had sat up o' nights for him. All this energy was wasted, though. No man -- you apprehend me?
I could see he was disturbed and considerably puzzled, which made me feel more hopeful than I had been for days. It was a great comfort to turn from that chap to my influential friend, the battered, twisted, ruined, tin-pot steamboat. I clambered on board. No influential friend would have served me better.
She had given me a chance to come out a bit -- to find out what I could do. No, I don't like work. I had rather laze about and think of all the fine things that can be done. I don't like work -- no man does -- but I like what is in the work -- the chance to find yourself.
Your own reality -- for yourself, not for others -- what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means. You see I rather chummed with the few mechanics there were in that station, whom the other pilgrims naturally despised -- on account of their imperfect manners, I suppose. This was the foreman -- a boiler-maker by trade -- a good worker. He was a lank, bony, yellow-faced man, with big intense eyes. His aspect was worried, and his head was as bald as the palm of my hand; but his hair in falling seemed to have stuck to his chin, and had prospered in the new locality, for his beard hung down to his waist.
He was a widower with six young children he had left them in charge of a sister of his to come out there , and the passion of his life was pigeon-flying. He was an enthusiast and a connoisseur.
He would rave about pigeons. After work hours he used sometimes to come over from his hut for a talk about his children and his pigeons; at work, when he had to crawl in the mud under the bottom of the steamboat, he would tie up that beard of his in a kind of white serviette he brought for the purpose.
It had loops to go over his ears. In the evening he could be seen squatted on the bank rinsing that wrapper in the creek with great care, then spreading it solemnly on a bush to dry. Then in a low voice, 'You. I put my finger to the side of my nose and nodded mysteriously. To educate people in colony learning how to live as the same as white was considered to be grace.
Therefore, the ideology of whiteness became a trick to govern those colonies. As the influence of whiteness becomes mighty, the ideology of whiteness becomes noble. The achievement of the account is to distinguish the difference between the savage from the civilized. It reveals that the definition of dignity of whiteness is superficial. To judge people good or bad by if the appearance of people conforms to the principle of white or not no matter what the substance is.
This kind of ironical situation can find in history of colonialism and we can realize how arrogant and ridiculous of colonialists and racialists. The accountant who Marlow encounters brings three ironies in these paragraphs. First, before Marlow meets the well-dressed accountant, he sees the dying aboriginal people. Marlow notices one of them ties a bit of white worsted.
However, the dying aboriginal people have no food, the white worsted cannot help them at all. Later, in the place where is dirty and is full of dying people, the accountant appears elegantly.
He was amazing, and had a penholder behind his ear. It is similarly violent that the aboriginal people think they do not need to be civilized but the white people force them to be. In conclusion, these ironies make civilization unreasonable and absurd. However, the accountant disregards the bad environment and the dying people that may also kill him. What they really want is just the bloody ivory. There are actually a lot of ironies in these paragraphs. In my opinion, the accountant is completely a big irony.
For example, when Marlow made towards the station, he saw groups of the black were dying, feeling in a hell. The main work of the accountant did was making correct entries of perfectly correct transaction. Marlow mentioned that everything in the station was in a muddle; climate and environment there was extremely awful.
All he concerned was to make the book perfectly. Grooming rituals are proud by Europeans and are seen as the symbol of civilization. Although the appearances of the black are horrible, they are more conformable to the environment. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die.
And the superiority of being whiteness in Africa only proves the Europeans to be barbarous because the more civilized they dress on appearance, the more sacrifices the natives undergo and the more inhuman the Europeans are. Thus, here comes the biggest and the last irony: The center of light is proved only to be the opposite- the center of darkness.
When Marlow near the buildings on the journry, he met a white man who is a accountant with elegant dressing. In addition, his brushed hair is so clean that like a dummy. We can know some irony Marlow narrated.
First, what is the accomplishment he achieved? He devoted himself to his books rather than helping those natives. He said that one native woman dislikes the work so that his instruction is very difficult.
What is on earth the accountant can teach? White people considers themselves to be a leader to educate those savage, black, and filthy people; but they ignore their dignity and real need.
Second, why the accountant eagers to have the grooming ritual? He has the superiority like most of white people. However, he only cares his imperial hygiene instead of helping to improve the terrible living the native people inhabits. It is so ironic that his clean appearance can become a backbone for eduacting those natives. Apparently, when he knows the groans of the sick person, he just feels it is so noisy that distracts his attention.
The truth that his quality of being a human is already corrupted cannot be covered by the flawless, neat and tidy outfit. The imperial intruders have only darkness cannot bring any brightness to the native people. Before Marlow meets the accountant the depiction of land is waste and dark.
It reveals a strong contrast while the image of the accountant is white and cleanness shows up.
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