Week 7: Introduction and Background of Heart of Darkness Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Historical Context of Heart of Darkness

During the last two decades of the 19th century, European nations battled each other for wealth and power. This battle caused the "scramble for Africa," in which European countries competed to colonize as much of Africa as possible. While the colonizing Europeans claimed to want to "civilize" the African continent, their actions spoke otherwise: they were interested solely in gaining wealth and did not care how they did it, or who was killed. One of the most brutal of the European colonies in its treatment of the native Africans was the Belgian Congo, the property of the Belgian King Leopold I. In 1890, Joseph Conrad worked as a pilot on a steamship in the Belgian Congo, and Heart of Darkness is at least in part based on his experiences there.