Idea of Progress in An Outpost of Progress by Joseph Conrad Essay Example

arms smuggling for the Carlist cause in Spain.

After being wounded in a duel or of a self-inflicted gunshot in the chest, Conrad continued his career at the seas in the British merchant navy for 16 years” According to Petri Liukkonen in his biography of Joseph Conrad, he acquired, in 1886, his certificate as master mariner, commanding his own ship in Otago. In the same year he obtained his British citizenship, furthermore this was the year when he changed his name to Joseph Conrad. While being at the seas Conrad visit a lot of places “including Australia, various ports of the Indian Ocean, Borneo, the Malay states, South America, and the South Pacific Island.

In 1890 he sailed in Africa up the Congo River”. Several of these journeys influenced a lot of his works, as well as his health. Pursuant to C. D. Merriman in the biography of Joseph Conrad, our author aggravated his health by working on a paddle-steamer and travelling to Congo Free State. In terms of his works, the atrocities he witnessed and his experiences in Congo served to create one of the most famous novels he had “Heart Darkness” and also the short story we work for this essay, “An Outpost of Progress”.

An Outpost of Progress was written in 1896 a long with it is a story which is about a mockery, irony of the whole idea of civilization in African lands in the 19th Century (as we have discuss in our English Literature I classes). Throughout the story we can see the different topics and themes that Conrad illustrate within it in order to show in his work the realities that people

from that century were living, or even better, what he see in his journeys all over the world, consequently to the literary movement that was going to appear after Romanticism.

Criticism, that fine flower of personal expression in the garden of letters” Joseph Conrad The purpose of this essay is to appreciate the criticism of an ironic civilization movement Joseph Conrad presents in this short story: “An Outpost of Progress” and the idea of “Progress” in order to understand the policy of colonialism that was presented in the colonial situation of Africa. Getting into that point we focus on some factors of society as ignorance and slavery. Therefore we need to know the events that were happening in the 19th century, which is the time when the story was written.

We have that Industrialization, one of the events of 19th century, was a process where social and economic changes transformed human agrarian societies into industrial ones, now “the lack of an industrial sector in a country can be a handicap in improving a country's economy and power, pushing governments to encourage or enforce industrialisation” as a result we can have an idea of the reason why the British colonies are in Africa, and it is because of “Advances in technology eventually provided Europeans with the means to colonise Africa at a time of peculiarly intense ompetition between the European powers”.

In Africa were gold and ivory, lures for all traders of European countries, and that it is what Conrad present as the task for the main characters, Kayerts and Carlier, they have to take part in ivory trading, hoping to financially benefit the company as well as themselves.

Kayerts an employee from the Administration of the Telegraphs and Carlier “an ex-non-commissioned officer of cavalry in an army guaranteed from harm by several European Powers” were sent to a British trading post in some place in Africa to civilize that region.

First example of ironic civilization process is the way how are describe this two people, “They were two perfectly insignificant and incapable individuals, whose existence is only rendered possible through the high organization of civilized crowds” (An outpost of progress, 1896) and also the physical description against to all expectations of them in this kind of work, “Kayerts, the chief, was short and fat; Carlier, the assistant, was tall, with a large head and a very broad trunk perched upon a long pair of thin legs. When we look for civilize in the Oxford dictionary it says “to make people or a society develop from a low social and cultural level to a more advanced one”, what British colonies were trying to do.

Whereas should any natural person want to civilize a region, this person has to be a civilized one, if not, it would not have much sense according to the civilized concept we have in the Oxford dictionary, “well organized; having a high level of social and cultural development. [and also another meaning that the dictionary have is] polite and reasonable. “…high level of social…development” we did not see this at the end of the story when they were fighting for the sugar when one kill the other. “Well organized…” they did not do the requirement by themselves they were only at the hut, for fear of what the sun cause them. Both

the physical description and the idea of what they, Kayerts and Carlier, were in that continent for are the ways Conrad disclose, ironically, they are the ones who successfully will civilize that region, of course also in some lampoon way.

In terms of society we focus on ignorance that society and the characters had, we can see it from British part, by putting two people in a place where they will have not success, their superior develop country it is not the only argument for a civilizing process because as we see that did not help the “two fellows”, as they call themselves in the story, so there were a lot of lacking things in British “organization” for a better civilization.

The ignorance of Kayerts and Carlier when they thought “it was a consolation” to think that there will be chaps read that they were the first civilized men to live in that spot; ignorance about slavery, something that was present in that time, Instead of took society and develop it “from low social and cultural level to a more advanced one”, as the dictionary says, because that was the project British were saying they will do when they enter to Africa; they just observed and live it because they were part of that slavery, they were slaves of their society, they could not do anything without “the high organization of civilize crowds” they were as blind as many others from their society, and there are not better words for explaining this than Conrad’s, when he tell us in the story: “Few men realize that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their

audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings.

The courage, the composure, the confidence; the emotions and principles; every great and every insignificant thought belongs not to the individual but to the crowd: to the crowd that believes blindly in the irresistible force of its institutions and of its morals, in the power of its police and of its opinion. But the contact with pure unmitigated savagery, with primitive nature and primitive man, brings sudden and profound trouble into the heart. To the sentiment of being alone of one's kind, to the clear perception of the loneliness of one's thoughts, of one's sensations--to the negation of the habitual, which is safe, there is added the affirmation of the unusual, which is dangerous; a suggestion of things vague, uncontrollable, and repulsive, whose discomposing intrusion excites the imagination and tries the civilized nerves of the foolish and the wise alike.

In conclusion Conrad in a position of mariner and having the experiences he had, show us through the story the wrong idea of progress these British colonies as well as the colonizers had regarding to civilization of a country, on the other hand show us through characters their lack of politeness and unreasonable human beings they were by still have slavery when, first, in that time was ceased in some parts of this continent and second, because it was a contradictory idea to keep slavery when they were “creating a civilization progress” in a society with low social and cultural develop. In this way we have understand the criticism to the idea of progress in “An outpost of progress” Conrad made, focusing on

the ironic view of civilization.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad

http://www.gradesaver.com/author/joseph-conrad/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrialisation

http://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/africa.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Outpost_of_Progress

http://www.classicreader.com/book/305/1/