Symbolism In How To Read Literature Like A Professor, By Joseph Conrad
Conrad uses the accountant as a symbol of greed and conceitedness in Heart of Darkness similarly to how Foster describes the use of a symbol in his novel How to Read Literature Like a Professor. Symbols, according to Foster, have many meanings. Readers presume “them to mean something[,...] one something in particular[, but] it doesn’t work like that” (Foster); they have multiple meanings. In this way, Conrad uses his character, the accountant, as a symbol of both greed and egotism. When the accountant is first introduced, he is described as wearing “an unexpected elegance of getup [...] high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers...” (Conrad). These clothes are a commonplace in Europe, but are in rare form in Africa.
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Marlow, the narrator, while trying to relax underneath a tree, comments harshly on the white worsted around an African American’s neck: “it looked startling around his black neck, this bit of white thread” [...] “Where did he get it?” (Conrad). The opposed colors between the thread and the native’s skin create a shock for Marlow. He does not believe the native is fit to have such a refined “thread from beyond the seas” (Conrad); only Europeans should be privied to objects as fine as the worsted. This self-aggrandizement shadows the obvious problems at the Company Station which Marlow has no desire and initiative to solve. The lives of the African American “criminals” does not need to be harsh, yet without Marlow realizing that the natives and himself and equals, he puts them in harm's way. Conrad also uses ill-omened imagery of a tree in Marlow’s stop to criticize European’s, Marlow’s in particular, self-aggrandizement. This tree is where all of the African Americans come to rest from disease and eventually die. Conrad describes it as a “gloomy circle of some Inferno” where “bundles of acute angles sat with their legs drawn up” with “ attitudes of pain, abandonment and despair.” The natives “were nothing earthly now--nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation.” This ominous imagery creates a sense of apprehension for the reader and for Marlow who becomes
Marlow, the narrator, while trying to relax underneath a tree, comments harshly on the white worsted around an African American’s neck: “it looked startling around his black neck, this bit of white thread” [...] “Where did he get it?” (Conrad). The opposed colors between the thread and the native’s skin create a shock for Marlow. He does not believe the native is fit to have such a refined “thread from beyond the seas” (Conrad); only Europeans should be privied to objects as fine as the worsted. This self-aggrandizement shadows the obvious problems at the Company Station which Marlow has no desire and initiative to solve. The lives of the African American “criminals” does not need to be harsh, yet without Marlow realizing that the natives and himself and equals, he puts them in harm's way. Conrad also uses ill-omened imagery of a tree in Marlow’s stop to criticize European’s, Marlow’s in particular, self-aggrandizement. This tree is where all of the African Americans come to rest from disease and eventually die. Conrad describes it as a “gloomy circle of some Inferno” where “bundles of acute angles sat with their legs drawn up” with “ attitudes of pain, abandonment and despair.” The natives “were nothing earthly now--nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation.” This ominous imagery creates a sense of apprehension for the reader and for Marlow who becomes