Ideologies of the Colonizers and Colonized
In the study of world literature, one of the preeminent questions for contemporary scholars to answer is the question of ideology -- more specifically, of the reflection of ideology within a work of literature. Josef Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness presents readers with a picture of Africa from the perspective of a European, Marlow. Marlow is a representative of a more specific form of ideology that is integral to the analysis of world literature; this form of ideology, hegemony, is a pervasive force of dominating, or dominant, ideology stemming from the influence of major world powers. Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness displays a fine level of nuance in regards to hegemony; the work certainly reflects the hegemony, or dominant ideology, but the character Marlow is often critical of it. Given this, Marlow could be labeled as a “virtuous” colonist. Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things differs from The Heart of Darkness in its ideological perspective. Similarly, however, Roy’s novel offers many levels of nuance in regards to the reflection of ideology in literary pieces. In The God of Small Things, fraternal twins Estha and Rahel as well as the Untouchable Velutha are the lens through which the reader perceives ideology. Estha and Rahel are representatives of counter-hegemony, a term developed by Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci, and the colonized (Lears 568). In examining these two texts, The Heart of Darkness and The God of Small Things, a picture emerges of the relationship between hegemony, colonizers, and the colonized, where the literature of colonizers reflects the hegemony, and the literature of the colonized reflects the counter-hegemony.
Here, the definition of hegemony is the keystone of the analysis of Conrad and Roy’s works, as understanding the ideological dimensions of both texts (hegemonic and counter-hegemonic, respectively) depends on a formalized definition of hegemony. For this formalized definition, Antonio Gramsci provides a strong foundation. As much of Gramsci’s work remains untranslated, the following is from T.J. Jackson Lears’s The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities,
What comes closest is [Gramsci’s] often-quoted characterization of hegemony as “the spontaneous consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group; this consent is ‘historically’ caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production (Lears 568).
Using modern language to refine Gramsci’s definition of hegemony, the fatalistic and ill defined “‘spontaneous consent’” that Gramsci suggests might be more appropriately referred to as a sociologically generated feeling that the dominant ideology is the default, and therefore correct, ideology (Lears 568). For Gramsci, says Lears, consent and domination “nearly always coexist” (Lears 568). This latter point, the coexistence of consent and domination, will be especially pertinent in the analysis of Conrad’s novel and Roy’s novel.
As already discussed, Conrad’s novel features the “virtuous colonist” protagonist of Marlow, a white European who visits Africa and has sympathy for the Africans, and contempt for the European system of domination, but nonetheless perceives Africa through the hegemonic lens and characterizes Africa as an other. Within the first few pages of Heart of Darkness, the reader is made aware of a number of explicit ideologically tinged references from Marlow to the Africans and the place of Africa itself,
Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him -- all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There’s no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him (Conrad 20).
The vast majority of the references in this passage, for instance, “wild men” and “detestable,” carry a negative connotation (Conrad 20). Those that do not, “fascination,” for instance, carry a voyeuristic connotation, which invokes two different sensed in regard to African. First, “fascination” places Africa in an other position in relation to Marlow and the reader. Second and consequentially, otherizing Africa implies that Africa occupies a space outside the space of legitimate ideology -- this delegitimizes Africa and Africans and presupposes European superiority (Conrad 20).
Thusly, at the beginning of the story, we see that Marlow carries these ideas with him to the Belgian Congo. Marlow calling the natives in Africa “wild men” and referring to the continent as the home of “savagery” immediately tells the reader that he is entering Africa not as a visitor, but a voyeur (Conrad 20). This generates a dissonance between Marlow, as the voyeur, and the Africans, as subjects, affecting both parties negatively, as we will see. Indeed, Marlow suggests that Africa is “incomprehensible” with “no initiation” to assist in familiarizing him with Africa and Africans (Conrad 20). In this first passage the reader understands without a doubt that Africa, save for the “civilized man” is the other (Conrad 20).
In fact, the definition of civilized immediately loses any ideological certainty when used in the context of colonial presence in Africa, a dissonance that Marlow has to reconcile over the course of the narrative. Marlow’s description of natural Africa at the beginning of the story contains a number of positive words, “The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist” (Conrad 26).
Taken at face value, without respect to Marlow’s inherited hegemonic ideology, Marlow’s description is at worst neutral. Descriptions of a “dark green” jungle speak of lush forests and vibrant life; descriptions of “white surf” connote a pure, kinetic force (Conrad 26). However, placed back in context, it is clear that, because the text is informed by Marlow’s internal ideology, the reader is supposed to understand that instead of a pristine natural landscape including “white surf” and “dark green” jungle, the landscape of the Belgian Congo is a “God-forsaken wilderness” (Conrad 26). Indeed, a reader is aware of some tension within Marlow’s description of the river when Marlow describes a jungle, “so dark green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf” (Conrad 26).
Here, the narrator invokes the black (dark green jungle) and white (white surf) racial dichotomy. In this instance, because of Marlow’s experience as a sailor, the “white surf” carries a clear positive connotation; it is safe, it has been civilized, it is familiar to Marlow’s internal hegemonic narrative (Conrad 26). Later, Marlow codifies the river as positive more explicitly, “The voice of the surf heard now and then was a positive pleasure...It was something natural” (Conrad 26). Additionally, traditional symbolism suggests that the water is pure, though in this instance the traditional mode may not be applicable, as Marlow says that men have drowned in the river. The “dark green” jungle -- the almost black jungle -- carries a different connotation (Conrad 26). It is not safe, it is uncivilized, it is outside of Marlow’s internal hegemonic narrative. The river acts as a safeguard for the travelers, “fring[ing]” the jungle, it divides the hegemonic world and the other world cleanly in two, staving off the advance of the otherness of the jungle (Conrad 26).
In his suggestion that there is “no initiation” to Africa, Marlow inserts a hegemonic assumption into his interaction with the colonized. The assumption is, essentially, that as a white male of the dominating world powers, he has an intrinsic right to have an initiation to Africa. When Marlow makes this assumption, he claims part of Africa for himself. This claim is inherently rooted in the hegemonic ideology, but flies under the radar of explicit racism for a number of reasons. The most prominent of these is Marlow’s tangible disgust for European imperial practice, epitomized in his reference to Brussels as the “sepulchral city” (Conrad 73). However, Marlow’s wish to de-otherize Africa -- that is, to have an introduction to Africa, to make Africa less of an other -- at first intrinsically means that he wishes for a familiar ideology, the hegemonic culture he brought with him from Europe. Eventually, Marlow finds a third way and finds a oneness with Africa, “I imagined myself living alone and unarmed in the woods to an advanced age” (Conrad 68). This conflict -- Marlow’s clear contempt for European imperialism but simultaneous feeling of entitlement to an initiation to Africa -- exemplifies Marlow’s role as a virtuous colonist.
Further, however, Marlow’s entitlement is kindred with the imperialistic ideology, and reflects Gramsci’s characterization of hegemony as a system where the coexistence of consent and coercion generates the environment of hegemony (Lears 586). The coercive aspects of hegemony are evident in The Heart of Darkness: for instance, a scene where Marlow feels the vibrations of an explosion demonstrates the forced development of Africa, “A heavy and dull detonation shook the ground...The cliff was not in the way or anything; but this objectless blasting was all the work going on” (Conrad 28). Development, in this context, can be understood as a capitalist phenomenon where African nations were forced to follow the linear European concept of development -- that is, developing to mimic the European ideology and society.
The consensual aspects of hegemony are equally visible. Marlow’s African helmsman holds a dual role, that of a “savage” by Marlow’s own designation, but also as a de-otherized African (Conrad 57). Indeed, Marlow’s helmsman is the first and possibly most important African that Marlow empathizes with, presumably as a result of the helmsman’s consent to the European hegemony, and consequential accessibility to Marlow’s presuppositions of European hegemony,
I missed my late helmsman awfully...Perhaps you will think it passing strange this regret for a savage...Well, don’t you see, he had done something...a subtle bond had been created, of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken...that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains...like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment (Conrad 57).
Here, Marlow illustrates another concept of Gramsci’s formulation of hegemony, that of the dual consciousnesses. Gramsci speaks of,
“Two theoretical consciousnesses (or one contradictory consciousness): one which is implicit in his activity and...one, superficially explicit or verbal, which he has inherited from the past and uncritically absorbed...the contradictory state of consciousness does not permit any action, any decision, or any choice, and produces a condition of moral and political passivity (Lears 569).
Indeed Marlow holds contempt for the European system of imperialism. This is his first Gramscian consciousness, action. However, Marlow’s language, his way of referring to Africans, as “wild men” that possess “savagery” demonstrates a historical nuance of European hegemony (Conrad 20). These terms would likely have been accepted as factual or objective, even scientific, descriptions of Africans in the consensus of European consciousness. Thus, in using these terms, Marlow has “‘inherited...and uncritically absorbed’” European hegemony (Lears 569). This is Marlow’s second Gramscian consciousness, the “‘superficially explicit or verbal’” consciousness (Lears 596). This is the pervasive, systemic aspect of Marlow’s adherence to the European hegemony; though he may detest the “sepulchral city,” his language and presuppositions prevent him from significantly criticising the European ideology because, in a number of crucial ways, he does not know it exists (Conrad 73).
The role of this African as an operator of European technology allows Marlow to more easily empathize with him. As already discussed with Marlow’s assertion that he may live in an African jungle, this may allow Marlow to, later, more concretely empathize with Africa and African people. Additionally, the fact that the helmsman operates a steamboat has a subtle link to the more coercive forms of hegemony, as the steamboat was a tool that allowed Europeans to outpace Africans and thus achieve domination over the continent, de-otherizing it in the process.
Because European development allowed white colonizers to outpace Africans, colonizers were able to think of Africa in a monolithic sense, hegemonically eliminating the spaces and cultures within Africa with the result of, in the white European mind, a single Africa. Paul Virilio, an eminent scholar in the field of dromology, asserts that the elimination of space through time is a prime manner to homogenize the globe. In warfare, Virilio states,
A kind of chronological and pendular war [that] revives ancient popular and geographic warfare by a geostrategic homogenization of the globe. This homogenization was already announced in the nineteenth century, notably by the Englishman Mackinder in his theory of the “World-Island,” in which Europe, Asia and Africa would compose a single continent...a theory that seems to have come to fruition today with the disqualification of localizations (Virilio 202).
The linear development that Europeans espoused as part of their hegemony ultimately allowed Europeans to homogenize Africa, to disqualify Africa’s independent locations in favor of an easily comprehensible African monolith. This newly generated, fictitious Africa exists only in the European hegemony; however, based on Virilio’s writings and the strong essence of place in The Heart of Darkness, it is also necessary to the de-otherizing of Africa. If Africa and African people were allowed a level of nuance, a level of depth and heterogenization, the European hegemony would not be rhetorically or ideologically equipped to colonize the continent.
A duality regarding monolithic African culture exists within the virtuous colonist narrator, Marlow. As already discussed, Marlow’s dual Gramscian consciousnesses -- of condemning European culture but also of tacitly accepting the inherited wisdom of African inferiority -- contributes to the virtuous and hegemonic aspects of his character. With regards to the fantasy African monolith, Marlow’s Gramscian consciousness is even more evident. In one scene, Marlow refers to the steamboat, a physical representation of the European ability to homogenize Africa through speed, as a “fierce river-demon beating the water with its terrible tail and breathing black smoke into the air” (Conrad 69). Again, Marlow’s distrust of the European ideology is evident; in this instance, it is the European ideology of speed and development.
With regards to Marlow’s acceptance of African culture, however, he views African culture as a monolith. Referring to all Africans as “savages” and “wild men,” Marlow’s sympathy for the Africans’ plight is often paternalistic and voyeuristic (Conrad 20). According to scholar Devlin’s Marlow’s treatment of the annihilated space of Africa is voyeuristic, “An equally phantasmagoric visual interpretation of the African wilderness can be located in the obsessive sense of it as a human being and body, specifically a female one” (Devlin 26). This increases the paternalistic and voyeuristic connotations of Marlow’s relationship with Africa in an unsettling way -- Africa is a body that needs development according to European ideology.
The question of development in The Heart of Darkness is an especially pertinent one, given the vivid and often violent imagery of machines in Conrad’s book. Paired with Gramsci’s characterization of hegemony as consent given by the masses as to the direction imposed on social life, the question becomes one of cultural hegemony and time, rather than space. In Gramsci’s formulation, development or Westernization can roughly substitute “direction” with respect to Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness (Lears 568).
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things presents a different take on hegemony. In The God of Small Things, the epoch moves from the colonial epoch to the modern epoch, and so the reader is faced with the hegemonic master narrative of postmodernity rather than the master narrative of modernity (Habermas 1). Indeed, chronology is essential in understanding Roy’s novel. True to postmodern stylistics, Roy’s novel is chronologically fragmented between 1969 and 1993, following the twins Estha and Rahel in their early childhood (the segments set in 1969) and in their adulthood, when they reunite (the segments set in 1993).
The God of Small Things is politically charged and, contrary to Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness, names hegemony (Small Things). That is to say, where Marlow illustrated behaviors that were inherited and uncritically accepted, in the Gramscian formulation, Roy, through her novel, acknowledges the existence of hegemony, an act of defiance in itself simply due to the invisible nature of hegemonies. Because The God of Small Things takes place largely through the eyes of the colonized, Estha and Rahel are able to observe the hegemony more clearly, being outside of it instead of immersed in it, as Marlow is.
It is helpful, then, to observe the framework in which Roy’s scholarship operates, in order to more clearly perceive the ideological dimensions Roy names in The God of Small Things. Roy’s book, Capitalism: A Ghost Story, covers a number of topics related to the Indian hegemonic narrative, a narrative she identifies as part of the more global neoliberal hegemonic narrative. Roy calls the postmodern, neoliberal political era the “era of the Privatisation of Everything” (Capitalism 9). In the book, Roy discusses at length the popular Indian narrative of being the largest democracy in the world -- and questions this Indian master narrative, lamenting,
As Gush-Up concentrates wealth on to the tip of a shining pin on which our billionaires pirouette, tidal waves of money crash through the institutions of democracy—the courts, Parliament as well as the media, seriously compromising their ability to function in the ways they are meant to. The noisier the carnival around elections, the less sure we are that democracy really exists (Capitalism 10-11).
While it is not the intent of this text to assert an authorial claim, in Roy’s Capitalism: A Ghost Story, readers can observe the conception of postmodernity that Roy works within, and thus gain a context for the Indian and global reflections in The God of Small Things.
There are a number of scenes where the neoliberal hegemony is laid bare in The God of Small Things, but none more so than the scene in the Abhilash Talkies. The chapter begins with a description of the theatre, the Abhilash Talkies theatre, laden with brand names and capitalist marketing language, “Abhilash Talkies advertised itself as the first cinema hall in Kerala with a 70mm CinemaScope screen. To drive home the point, its facade had been designed as a cement replica of a curved CinemaScope screen...It said Abhilash Talkies in English and Malayalam” (Small Things 90). Here, the reader sees the invasion of a small part of rural India by capitalist development. Additionally, the reader can observe that when referring to the languages at the Abhilash Talkies, English, the language of neoliberal and US hegemony, takes primacy. This implies a cultural hegemony in addition to an economic hegemony.
This, however, is the surface level observation of the Abhilash Talkies; shortly after this relatively neutral capitalistic description, the chapter delves into a number of passages that illustrate that the presence of the Talkies is malevolent. In a particularly harrowing scene, a character known only by the childish name Orangedrink Lemondrink man molests Estha. Estha then makes his way back into the theatre, where he continues watching The Sound of Music, a Western film, and has the following thought process, “They were clean, white children, and their beds were soft...Oh Baron von Trapp, Baron von Trapp, could you love the little fellow with the orange in the smelly auditorium? He’s just held the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man’s soo-soo in his hand, but could you love him still?” (Small Things 101). The narrator says, before the family arrives at the Abhilash Talkies, “Chacko said that going to see The Sound of Music was an extended exercise in Anglophilia,” a statement clear in its scorn -- Chacko does not attend the film (Small Things 54).
In analysing this passage, it is helpful again to refer back to Gramsci and his theory of cultural hegemony. From this scene with Estha’s molestation in a Westernized establishment, the reader could draw the conclusion that the West does indeed possess hegemonic power over Kerala. However, Gramsci, “implied an active commitment to the established order, based on a deeply held belief that the rulers are indeed legitimate” (Lears 569). In the Abhilash Talkies chapter, the reader can observe that the rulers are not legitimate; whereas in Conrad’s novel, the hegemony is at times visible, but normally covered under the shroud of inherited consent, viewing hegemony from the perspective of the colonized exposes the malevolency of the hegemonic rulers and the resistance of the colonized.
In fact, a significant amount of The God of Small Things revolves around attending to the different countervailing forces in Kerala, with the effect that hegemony is highly visible in Roy’s novel. None of these forces are more prominent than the Communists and Comrade K.N.M Pillai, the leader of the Marxist movement in Kerala. The narrator indicts land-owners, the archetypal ruling-class elites, “In Kerala the Syrian Christians were, by and large, the wealthy, estate-owning (pickle-factory-running), feudal lords, for whom communism represented a fate worse than death” (Small Things 64). Comparing property-owners to “feudal lords” suggests that modern capitalists have brutal, outdated methods comparable to those of lords under feudalism (Small Things 64).
The countervailing force to these lords, communism in various forms, has a contrasting portrayal. In discussing why the radical left is successful in Kerala, the narrator informs the reader that, “A second theory claimed that it had to do with the comparatively high level of literacy in the state. Perhaps. Except that the high literacy level was largely because of the communist movement” (Small Things 64). This passage is especially telling, as it implies a level of inherited, hegemonic thought and also the nature of reality in Kerala. The inherited thought is based on the causal logic of the first scenario, that the success of communist movements in Kerala is due to high literacy. This implies that less educated areas of India would not be able to resist hegemony as effectively. Additionally, the hegemonic assumption reveals that it is convenient for the dominant culture to strip the radical left movements of positive outcomes
Velutha is perhaps the most essential vessel through which the reader perceives hegemony. Roy established Velutha’s importance as she identifies him as the titular God of Small Things, “Strangely...Margaret Kochamma never thought about...Velutha...Perhaps this was because she never really knew him, nor ever heard what happened to him. The God of Loss. The God of Small Things” (Small Things 250). The contrast between Velutha and Margaret Kochamma imbues this passage with an acute sense of hegemony. Margaret Kochamma, throughout the novel, tends to represent cruelty and Westernization -- that is to say, the neoliberal Western hegemony. For instance, “She’s living her life backwards, Rahel thought. It was a curiously apt observation. Baby Kochamma had lived her life backwards. As a young woman she had renounced the material world, and now, as an old one, she seemed to embrace it” (Small Things 23). The idea that the material culture is backwards, as Rahel observes, is an idea that directly confronts the hegemony of neoliberalism; the doctrine that, in Capitalism: A Ghost Story, Roy refers to as the Privatization of Everything. Additionally, Margaret Kochamma is described as a “restless” and “unhappy” individual (Small Things 25).
Velutha, by contrast, occupies the lowest niche of society, yet simultaneously rejects consumer hegemony and is a happy individual, taking delight in the small things -- the aspects of life that can be considered natural, rather than a product of capitalist consumer cycles. As well as being an Untouchable, Velutha is a member of the Communist Party. Of Velutha, the narrator says, “He was suddenly happy. Things will get worse, he thought to himself. Then better. He was walking swiftly now, towards the Heart of Darkness. As lonely as a wolf...Naked but for his nail varnish” (Small Things 274). Unencumbered by the neoliberal hegemony, Velutha is able to feel happy. In fact, Velutha, as seen in this passage, is literally unencumbered by hegemonic assumptions; Velutha is naked, “but for his nail varnish” and thus detached from capitalist culture (Small Things 274).
Velutha’s most poignant defiance of hegemony in India is his relationship with Ammu. Much of The God of Small Things focuses on the social constraints, both traditional and capitalistic, on love -- Velutha and Ammu defy all of these constraints by falling in love. In one passage, Velutha considers the consequences of being intimate with Ammu, “He tried to be rational. What’s the worst thing that can happen? I could lose everything. My job. My family. My livelihood. Everything” (Small Things 317).
The reader observes her a culmination of the hegemonic assumption through the eyes of the colonized; where consent does not exist, resistance exists by definition. Here, we can again refer back to Virilio’s idea of the annihilation of space, but refine his ideas so that, instead of focusing on war, they are focused on hegemonic domination. Much like the construction of Africa as a monolith in The Heart of Darkness, India’s construction at the hands of the hegemonic ideology of neoliberal capitalism is a fantasy. Necessarily, hegemony creates a fantasy. According to the theories of Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, “ideological positions are always what people impute to Others” (Sharpe). Because the dominating ideology is that of neoliberal capitalism, that ideology is only visible from the perspective of the Other.
In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, then, the text is structured in such a way that hegemony is not an object within the novel, and never could have been given that it is written from the perspective of the virtuous colonizer. Marlow is critical of some aspects of hegemony, but nonetheless still perceives the world through the fantastic lens of a pervasive, invisible ideology. Meanwhile, in Roy’s The God of Small Things, hegemony is an intrinsic object that cannot be ignored, because it is told from the position of the Other, thus otherizing the hegemonic ideology for the reader and creating the object of hegemony, removing its invisible, assumed state. Estha, Rahel,Velutha and Ammu do not exist in the hegemonic ideology. They stand outside it and are able to bear witness to it. By contrast, Margaret Kochamma is unable to remember Velutha, because he exists outside of the fantasy of hegemony, “Perhaps this was because she [Kochamma] never really knew him [Velutha], nor ever heard what happened to him. He left no footprints in sand, no ripples in water, no image in mirrors” (Small Things 250). Based on this comparison of The Heart of Darkness by Josef Conrad and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, readers can observe that the reflection of ideology in literature is really a question of the non-reflection of hegemony. If a text is written from a hegemonic (here “virtuous colonist”) perspective, the hegemony will dissolve in the text. In much the same way that a solute dissolves to invisibility in a solvent, such is the relation of hegemony to culture -- unless there is an excess of ideology (the solute), hegemony will dissolve perfectly into the text (the solvent). By contrast, texts written from a non-hegemonic perspective (here, “the colonized”) expose hegemony -- to extend the above metaphor, non-hegemonic literary works put a flame to the solvent, evaporating and annihilating the shroud under which the hegemony usually rests, leaving it bare and comprehensible for the reader.
Here, the definition of hegemony is the keystone of the analysis of Conrad and Roy’s works, as understanding the ideological dimensions of both texts (hegemonic and counter-hegemonic, respectively) depends on a formalized definition of hegemony. For this formalized definition, Antonio Gramsci provides a strong foundation. As much of Gramsci’s work remains untranslated, the following is from T.J. Jackson Lears’s The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities,
What comes closest is [Gramsci’s] often-quoted characterization of hegemony as “the spontaneous consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group; this consent is ‘historically’ caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production (Lears 568).
Using modern language to refine Gramsci’s definition of hegemony, the fatalistic and ill defined “‘spontaneous consent’” that Gramsci suggests might be more appropriately referred to as a sociologically generated feeling that the dominant ideology is the default, and therefore correct, ideology (Lears 568). For Gramsci, says Lears, consent and domination “nearly always coexist” (Lears 568). This latter point, the coexistence of consent and domination, will be especially pertinent in the analysis of Conrad’s novel and Roy’s novel.
As already discussed, Conrad’s novel features the “virtuous colonist” protagonist of Marlow, a white European who visits Africa and has sympathy for the Africans, and contempt for the European system of domination, but nonetheless perceives Africa through the hegemonic lens and characterizes Africa as an other. Within the first few pages of Heart of Darkness, the reader is made aware of a number of explicit ideologically tinged references from Marlow to the Africans and the place of Africa itself,
Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him -- all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There’s no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him (Conrad 20).
The vast majority of the references in this passage, for instance, “wild men” and “detestable,” carry a negative connotation (Conrad 20). Those that do not, “fascination,” for instance, carry a voyeuristic connotation, which invokes two different sensed in regard to African. First, “fascination” places Africa in an other position in relation to Marlow and the reader. Second and consequentially, otherizing Africa implies that Africa occupies a space outside the space of legitimate ideology -- this delegitimizes Africa and Africans and presupposes European superiority (Conrad 20).
Thusly, at the beginning of the story, we see that Marlow carries these ideas with him to the Belgian Congo. Marlow calling the natives in Africa “wild men” and referring to the continent as the home of “savagery” immediately tells the reader that he is entering Africa not as a visitor, but a voyeur (Conrad 20). This generates a dissonance between Marlow, as the voyeur, and the Africans, as subjects, affecting both parties negatively, as we will see. Indeed, Marlow suggests that Africa is “incomprehensible” with “no initiation” to assist in familiarizing him with Africa and Africans (Conrad 20). In this first passage the reader understands without a doubt that Africa, save for the “civilized man” is the other (Conrad 20).
In fact, the definition of civilized immediately loses any ideological certainty when used in the context of colonial presence in Africa, a dissonance that Marlow has to reconcile over the course of the narrative. Marlow’s description of natural Africa at the beginning of the story contains a number of positive words, “The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf, ran straight, like a ruled line, far, far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a creeping mist” (Conrad 26).
Taken at face value, without respect to Marlow’s inherited hegemonic ideology, Marlow’s description is at worst neutral. Descriptions of a “dark green” jungle speak of lush forests and vibrant life; descriptions of “white surf” connote a pure, kinetic force (Conrad 26). However, placed back in context, it is clear that, because the text is informed by Marlow’s internal ideology, the reader is supposed to understand that instead of a pristine natural landscape including “white surf” and “dark green” jungle, the landscape of the Belgian Congo is a “God-forsaken wilderness” (Conrad 26). Indeed, a reader is aware of some tension within Marlow’s description of the river when Marlow describes a jungle, “so dark green as to be almost black, fringed with white surf” (Conrad 26).
Here, the narrator invokes the black (dark green jungle) and white (white surf) racial dichotomy. In this instance, because of Marlow’s experience as a sailor, the “white surf” carries a clear positive connotation; it is safe, it has been civilized, it is familiar to Marlow’s internal hegemonic narrative (Conrad 26). Later, Marlow codifies the river as positive more explicitly, “The voice of the surf heard now and then was a positive pleasure...It was something natural” (Conrad 26). Additionally, traditional symbolism suggests that the water is pure, though in this instance the traditional mode may not be applicable, as Marlow says that men have drowned in the river. The “dark green” jungle -- the almost black jungle -- carries a different connotation (Conrad 26). It is not safe, it is uncivilized, it is outside of Marlow’s internal hegemonic narrative. The river acts as a safeguard for the travelers, “fring[ing]” the jungle, it divides the hegemonic world and the other world cleanly in two, staving off the advance of the otherness of the jungle (Conrad 26).
In his suggestion that there is “no initiation” to Africa, Marlow inserts a hegemonic assumption into his interaction with the colonized. The assumption is, essentially, that as a white male of the dominating world powers, he has an intrinsic right to have an initiation to Africa. When Marlow makes this assumption, he claims part of Africa for himself. This claim is inherently rooted in the hegemonic ideology, but flies under the radar of explicit racism for a number of reasons. The most prominent of these is Marlow’s tangible disgust for European imperial practice, epitomized in his reference to Brussels as the “sepulchral city” (Conrad 73). However, Marlow’s wish to de-otherize Africa -- that is, to have an introduction to Africa, to make Africa less of an other -- at first intrinsically means that he wishes for a familiar ideology, the hegemonic culture he brought with him from Europe. Eventually, Marlow finds a third way and finds a oneness with Africa, “I imagined myself living alone and unarmed in the woods to an advanced age” (Conrad 68). This conflict -- Marlow’s clear contempt for European imperialism but simultaneous feeling of entitlement to an initiation to Africa -- exemplifies Marlow’s role as a virtuous colonist.
Further, however, Marlow’s entitlement is kindred with the imperialistic ideology, and reflects Gramsci’s characterization of hegemony as a system where the coexistence of consent and coercion generates the environment of hegemony (Lears 586). The coercive aspects of hegemony are evident in The Heart of Darkness: for instance, a scene where Marlow feels the vibrations of an explosion demonstrates the forced development of Africa, “A heavy and dull detonation shook the ground...The cliff was not in the way or anything; but this objectless blasting was all the work going on” (Conrad 28). Development, in this context, can be understood as a capitalist phenomenon where African nations were forced to follow the linear European concept of development -- that is, developing to mimic the European ideology and society.
The consensual aspects of hegemony are equally visible. Marlow’s African helmsman holds a dual role, that of a “savage” by Marlow’s own designation, but also as a de-otherized African (Conrad 57). Indeed, Marlow’s helmsman is the first and possibly most important African that Marlow empathizes with, presumably as a result of the helmsman’s consent to the European hegemony, and consequential accessibility to Marlow’s presuppositions of European hegemony,
I missed my late helmsman awfully...Perhaps you will think it passing strange this regret for a savage...Well, don’t you see, he had done something...a subtle bond had been created, of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken...that look he gave me when he received his hurt remains...like a claim of distant kinship affirmed in a supreme moment (Conrad 57).
Here, Marlow illustrates another concept of Gramsci’s formulation of hegemony, that of the dual consciousnesses. Gramsci speaks of,
“Two theoretical consciousnesses (or one contradictory consciousness): one which is implicit in his activity and...one, superficially explicit or verbal, which he has inherited from the past and uncritically absorbed...the contradictory state of consciousness does not permit any action, any decision, or any choice, and produces a condition of moral and political passivity (Lears 569).
Indeed Marlow holds contempt for the European system of imperialism. This is his first Gramscian consciousness, action. However, Marlow’s language, his way of referring to Africans, as “wild men” that possess “savagery” demonstrates a historical nuance of European hegemony (Conrad 20). These terms would likely have been accepted as factual or objective, even scientific, descriptions of Africans in the consensus of European consciousness. Thus, in using these terms, Marlow has “‘inherited...and uncritically absorbed’” European hegemony (Lears 569). This is Marlow’s second Gramscian consciousness, the “‘superficially explicit or verbal’” consciousness (Lears 596). This is the pervasive, systemic aspect of Marlow’s adherence to the European hegemony; though he may detest the “sepulchral city,” his language and presuppositions prevent him from significantly criticising the European ideology because, in a number of crucial ways, he does not know it exists (Conrad 73).
The role of this African as an operator of European technology allows Marlow to more easily empathize with him. As already discussed with Marlow’s assertion that he may live in an African jungle, this may allow Marlow to, later, more concretely empathize with Africa and African people. Additionally, the fact that the helmsman operates a steamboat has a subtle link to the more coercive forms of hegemony, as the steamboat was a tool that allowed Europeans to outpace Africans and thus achieve domination over the continent, de-otherizing it in the process.
Because European development allowed white colonizers to outpace Africans, colonizers were able to think of Africa in a monolithic sense, hegemonically eliminating the spaces and cultures within Africa with the result of, in the white European mind, a single Africa. Paul Virilio, an eminent scholar in the field of dromology, asserts that the elimination of space through time is a prime manner to homogenize the globe. In warfare, Virilio states,
A kind of chronological and pendular war [that] revives ancient popular and geographic warfare by a geostrategic homogenization of the globe. This homogenization was already announced in the nineteenth century, notably by the Englishman Mackinder in his theory of the “World-Island,” in which Europe, Asia and Africa would compose a single continent...a theory that seems to have come to fruition today with the disqualification of localizations (Virilio 202).
The linear development that Europeans espoused as part of their hegemony ultimately allowed Europeans to homogenize Africa, to disqualify Africa’s independent locations in favor of an easily comprehensible African monolith. This newly generated, fictitious Africa exists only in the European hegemony; however, based on Virilio’s writings and the strong essence of place in The Heart of Darkness, it is also necessary to the de-otherizing of Africa. If Africa and African people were allowed a level of nuance, a level of depth and heterogenization, the European hegemony would not be rhetorically or ideologically equipped to colonize the continent.
A duality regarding monolithic African culture exists within the virtuous colonist narrator, Marlow. As already discussed, Marlow’s dual Gramscian consciousnesses -- of condemning European culture but also of tacitly accepting the inherited wisdom of African inferiority -- contributes to the virtuous and hegemonic aspects of his character. With regards to the fantasy African monolith, Marlow’s Gramscian consciousness is even more evident. In one scene, Marlow refers to the steamboat, a physical representation of the European ability to homogenize Africa through speed, as a “fierce river-demon beating the water with its terrible tail and breathing black smoke into the air” (Conrad 69). Again, Marlow’s distrust of the European ideology is evident; in this instance, it is the European ideology of speed and development.
With regards to Marlow’s acceptance of African culture, however, he views African culture as a monolith. Referring to all Africans as “savages” and “wild men,” Marlow’s sympathy for the Africans’ plight is often paternalistic and voyeuristic (Conrad 20). According to scholar Devlin’s Marlow’s treatment of the annihilated space of Africa is voyeuristic, “An equally phantasmagoric visual interpretation of the African wilderness can be located in the obsessive sense of it as a human being and body, specifically a female one” (Devlin 26). This increases the paternalistic and voyeuristic connotations of Marlow’s relationship with Africa in an unsettling way -- Africa is a body that needs development according to European ideology.
The question of development in The Heart of Darkness is an especially pertinent one, given the vivid and often violent imagery of machines in Conrad’s book. Paired with Gramsci’s characterization of hegemony as consent given by the masses as to the direction imposed on social life, the question becomes one of cultural hegemony and time, rather than space. In Gramsci’s formulation, development or Westernization can roughly substitute “direction” with respect to Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness (Lears 568).
Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things presents a different take on hegemony. In The God of Small Things, the epoch moves from the colonial epoch to the modern epoch, and so the reader is faced with the hegemonic master narrative of postmodernity rather than the master narrative of modernity (Habermas 1). Indeed, chronology is essential in understanding Roy’s novel. True to postmodern stylistics, Roy’s novel is chronologically fragmented between 1969 and 1993, following the twins Estha and Rahel in their early childhood (the segments set in 1969) and in their adulthood, when they reunite (the segments set in 1993).
The God of Small Things is politically charged and, contrary to Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness, names hegemony (Small Things). That is to say, where Marlow illustrated behaviors that were inherited and uncritically accepted, in the Gramscian formulation, Roy, through her novel, acknowledges the existence of hegemony, an act of defiance in itself simply due to the invisible nature of hegemonies. Because The God of Small Things takes place largely through the eyes of the colonized, Estha and Rahel are able to observe the hegemony more clearly, being outside of it instead of immersed in it, as Marlow is.
It is helpful, then, to observe the framework in which Roy’s scholarship operates, in order to more clearly perceive the ideological dimensions Roy names in The God of Small Things. Roy’s book, Capitalism: A Ghost Story, covers a number of topics related to the Indian hegemonic narrative, a narrative she identifies as part of the more global neoliberal hegemonic narrative. Roy calls the postmodern, neoliberal political era the “era of the Privatisation of Everything” (Capitalism 9). In the book, Roy discusses at length the popular Indian narrative of being the largest democracy in the world -- and questions this Indian master narrative, lamenting,
As Gush-Up concentrates wealth on to the tip of a shining pin on which our billionaires pirouette, tidal waves of money crash through the institutions of democracy—the courts, Parliament as well as the media, seriously compromising their ability to function in the ways they are meant to. The noisier the carnival around elections, the less sure we are that democracy really exists (Capitalism 10-11).
While it is not the intent of this text to assert an authorial claim, in Roy’s Capitalism: A Ghost Story, readers can observe the conception of postmodernity that Roy works within, and thus gain a context for the Indian and global reflections in The God of Small Things.
There are a number of scenes where the neoliberal hegemony is laid bare in The God of Small Things, but none more so than the scene in the Abhilash Talkies. The chapter begins with a description of the theatre, the Abhilash Talkies theatre, laden with brand names and capitalist marketing language, “Abhilash Talkies advertised itself as the first cinema hall in Kerala with a 70mm CinemaScope screen. To drive home the point, its facade had been designed as a cement replica of a curved CinemaScope screen...It said Abhilash Talkies in English and Malayalam” (Small Things 90). Here, the reader sees the invasion of a small part of rural India by capitalist development. Additionally, the reader can observe that when referring to the languages at the Abhilash Talkies, English, the language of neoliberal and US hegemony, takes primacy. This implies a cultural hegemony in addition to an economic hegemony.
This, however, is the surface level observation of the Abhilash Talkies; shortly after this relatively neutral capitalistic description, the chapter delves into a number of passages that illustrate that the presence of the Talkies is malevolent. In a particularly harrowing scene, a character known only by the childish name Orangedrink Lemondrink man molests Estha. Estha then makes his way back into the theatre, where he continues watching The Sound of Music, a Western film, and has the following thought process, “They were clean, white children, and their beds were soft...Oh Baron von Trapp, Baron von Trapp, could you love the little fellow with the orange in the smelly auditorium? He’s just held the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man’s soo-soo in his hand, but could you love him still?” (Small Things 101). The narrator says, before the family arrives at the Abhilash Talkies, “Chacko said that going to see The Sound of Music was an extended exercise in Anglophilia,” a statement clear in its scorn -- Chacko does not attend the film (Small Things 54).
In analysing this passage, it is helpful again to refer back to Gramsci and his theory of cultural hegemony. From this scene with Estha’s molestation in a Westernized establishment, the reader could draw the conclusion that the West does indeed possess hegemonic power over Kerala. However, Gramsci, “implied an active commitment to the established order, based on a deeply held belief that the rulers are indeed legitimate” (Lears 569). In the Abhilash Talkies chapter, the reader can observe that the rulers are not legitimate; whereas in Conrad’s novel, the hegemony is at times visible, but normally covered under the shroud of inherited consent, viewing hegemony from the perspective of the colonized exposes the malevolency of the hegemonic rulers and the resistance of the colonized.
In fact, a significant amount of The God of Small Things revolves around attending to the different countervailing forces in Kerala, with the effect that hegemony is highly visible in Roy’s novel. None of these forces are more prominent than the Communists and Comrade K.N.M Pillai, the leader of the Marxist movement in Kerala. The narrator indicts land-owners, the archetypal ruling-class elites, “In Kerala the Syrian Christians were, by and large, the wealthy, estate-owning (pickle-factory-running), feudal lords, for whom communism represented a fate worse than death” (Small Things 64). Comparing property-owners to “feudal lords” suggests that modern capitalists have brutal, outdated methods comparable to those of lords under feudalism (Small Things 64).
The countervailing force to these lords, communism in various forms, has a contrasting portrayal. In discussing why the radical left is successful in Kerala, the narrator informs the reader that, “A second theory claimed that it had to do with the comparatively high level of literacy in the state. Perhaps. Except that the high literacy level was largely because of the communist movement” (Small Things 64). This passage is especially telling, as it implies a level of inherited, hegemonic thought and also the nature of reality in Kerala. The inherited thought is based on the causal logic of the first scenario, that the success of communist movements in Kerala is due to high literacy. This implies that less educated areas of India would not be able to resist hegemony as effectively. Additionally, the hegemonic assumption reveals that it is convenient for the dominant culture to strip the radical left movements of positive outcomes
Velutha is perhaps the most essential vessel through which the reader perceives hegemony. Roy established Velutha’s importance as she identifies him as the titular God of Small Things, “Strangely...Margaret Kochamma never thought about...Velutha...Perhaps this was because she never really knew him, nor ever heard what happened to him. The God of Loss. The God of Small Things” (Small Things 250). The contrast between Velutha and Margaret Kochamma imbues this passage with an acute sense of hegemony. Margaret Kochamma, throughout the novel, tends to represent cruelty and Westernization -- that is to say, the neoliberal Western hegemony. For instance, “She’s living her life backwards, Rahel thought. It was a curiously apt observation. Baby Kochamma had lived her life backwards. As a young woman she had renounced the material world, and now, as an old one, she seemed to embrace it” (Small Things 23). The idea that the material culture is backwards, as Rahel observes, is an idea that directly confronts the hegemony of neoliberalism; the doctrine that, in Capitalism: A Ghost Story, Roy refers to as the Privatization of Everything. Additionally, Margaret Kochamma is described as a “restless” and “unhappy” individual (Small Things 25).
Velutha, by contrast, occupies the lowest niche of society, yet simultaneously rejects consumer hegemony and is a happy individual, taking delight in the small things -- the aspects of life that can be considered natural, rather than a product of capitalist consumer cycles. As well as being an Untouchable, Velutha is a member of the Communist Party. Of Velutha, the narrator says, “He was suddenly happy. Things will get worse, he thought to himself. Then better. He was walking swiftly now, towards the Heart of Darkness. As lonely as a wolf...Naked but for his nail varnish” (Small Things 274). Unencumbered by the neoliberal hegemony, Velutha is able to feel happy. In fact, Velutha, as seen in this passage, is literally unencumbered by hegemonic assumptions; Velutha is naked, “but for his nail varnish” and thus detached from capitalist culture (Small Things 274).
Velutha’s most poignant defiance of hegemony in India is his relationship with Ammu. Much of The God of Small Things focuses on the social constraints, both traditional and capitalistic, on love -- Velutha and Ammu defy all of these constraints by falling in love. In one passage, Velutha considers the consequences of being intimate with Ammu, “He tried to be rational. What’s the worst thing that can happen? I could lose everything. My job. My family. My livelihood. Everything” (Small Things 317).
The reader observes her a culmination of the hegemonic assumption through the eyes of the colonized; where consent does not exist, resistance exists by definition. Here, we can again refer back to Virilio’s idea of the annihilation of space, but refine his ideas so that, instead of focusing on war, they are focused on hegemonic domination. Much like the construction of Africa as a monolith in The Heart of Darkness, India’s construction at the hands of the hegemonic ideology of neoliberal capitalism is a fantasy. Necessarily, hegemony creates a fantasy. According to the theories of Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, “ideological positions are always what people impute to Others” (Sharpe). Because the dominating ideology is that of neoliberal capitalism, that ideology is only visible from the perspective of the Other.
In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, then, the text is structured in such a way that hegemony is not an object within the novel, and never could have been given that it is written from the perspective of the virtuous colonizer. Marlow is critical of some aspects of hegemony, but nonetheless still perceives the world through the fantastic lens of a pervasive, invisible ideology. Meanwhile, in Roy’s The God of Small Things, hegemony is an intrinsic object that cannot be ignored, because it is told from the position of the Other, thus otherizing the hegemonic ideology for the reader and creating the object of hegemony, removing its invisible, assumed state. Estha, Rahel,Velutha and Ammu do not exist in the hegemonic ideology. They stand outside it and are able to bear witness to it. By contrast, Margaret Kochamma is unable to remember Velutha, because he exists outside of the fantasy of hegemony, “Perhaps this was because she [Kochamma] never really knew him [Velutha], nor ever heard what happened to him. He left no footprints in sand, no ripples in water, no image in mirrors” (Small Things 250). Based on this comparison of The Heart of Darkness by Josef Conrad and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, readers can observe that the reflection of ideology in literature is really a question of the non-reflection of hegemony. If a text is written from a hegemonic (here “virtuous colonist”) perspective, the hegemony will dissolve in the text. In much the same way that a solute dissolves to invisibility in a solvent, such is the relation of hegemony to culture -- unless there is an excess of ideology (the solute), hegemony will dissolve perfectly into the text (the solvent). By contrast, texts written from a non-hegemonic perspective (here, “the colonized”) expose hegemony -- to extend the above metaphor, non-hegemonic literary works put a flame to the solvent, evaporating and annihilating the shroud under which the hegemony usually rests, leaving it bare and comprehensible for the reader.