Heart of Darkness & Waiting for the Barbarians

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians are extremely similar in their themes, messages, and main characters. While the two novels are different and unique, they are also suprisingly similar. They parallel each other quite perfectly.

The Africans in Heart of Darkness serve as an inferior race, a sort of enemy, or foil to the Europeans. They are "savage" animals who are uncivilized and unsophisticated. The Africans represent a common goal--one that unifies the European race within Heart of Darkness. But are they truly uncivilized and unsophisticated? Are they truly an enemy? To assume so would be to assume that the European ideal is the only correct ideal, and that all other civilizations whose communal conduct do not lie in accordance with this ideal are barbaric. In actuality, however, the Europeans' conduct while in Africa, illustrated by Marlow's observations, is inhumane and uncivilized. The Africans are the ones that are civilized. The Europeans mask their savagery and their imperialism by claiming that they were attempting to civilize other nations, when in reality this "white advantage" is merely a mask concealing the European imperialist intentions. Just like the Africans in Heart of Darkness, the barbarians in Waiting for the Barbarians serve a similar purpose. They become the victims of the Empire. They also act as a force that effectively unifies the Empire. The Barbarians represent the common goal of the empire--the ferocious enemy. But, once again, are they truly an enemy? Is this Barbarian population, composed of unthreatening families and citizens, truly a threat that must be dealt with? No it is not. Just as the Europeans used their imperialist motives and their hopes to civilize the savage African population as a means of unifying its people, the Empire needed an enemy to band against, so they chose one that seemed probable--one that its citizens would unify themselves against.

The Magistrate and Marlow are also very similar. In the beginning of both novels, each makes observations of cruelty and injustice committed by their own races. Each believes and knows that what is being done is wrong. In both novels, we see the crimes against "inferior" races take place through the eyes of one of these two men. The reader sees the perspectives and opinions of both the Marlow and the Magistrate, which are emphasized and placed above all other observations in both novels.

Each novel brings to the reader's attention, the themes of racism and the hunger for power, as well as the importance of individual opinion. Through the slight implications of the insanity of both Kurtz and Colonel Joll, the reader learns that perhaps with too much power comes a drunkness of power. (451)