Point of View

Joseph Conrad’s character, Kurtz, from Heart of Darkness and J. M. Coetzee’s narrator, the Magistrate, from Waiting for the Barbarians are two similar yet fascinatingly different personas. Their similarities and differences seem to be obvious on the surface. Both are agents of an Empire living far from the center of government who are more sympathetic toward the native populations being exploited by their respective governments. Both express their disillusionments with the policies of their Empires, Kurtz more in action than the Magistrate. Both are then branded as unsound and traitorous and are denounced by their respective governments. On the surface Kurtz seems to have an affinity for native ways more than the Magistrate does. The Magistrate never really communicates or lives with the barbarians. His only contact with the barbarians is when he delivers the barbarian girl back to her people. It seems that the Magistrates traitorous relation with the barbarians is unjustly exaggerated by the Colonel Joll, the emissary of the Empire sent to investigate rumors of a barbarian threat. Overall, the Magistrates rebellion seems to be based more in principle than action. The only action he takes is to publicly denounce the beatings of the barbarian captives. On the other hand, Kurtz seems to have been completely assimilated into native culture and from the point of view of Marlowe, Manager, and the rest of the Europeans, lost all sanity and morality.

These basic similarities and differences between Kurtz and the Magistrate can perhaps be explained by the point of view of the respective novels. Kurtz is perhaps portrayed as more of a villainous character in Heart of Darkness because that novel is told from the point of view of the law-abiding and conventional Marlowe. Marlowe is more inclined to condemn the actions of Kurtz because society has conditioned him to view the Europeans as superior to the natives. The reason Kurtz is not portrayed as a total villain in Heart of Darkness is because after Marlowe’s experiences in Africa, he is no longer sure of European superiority. At the same time Marlowe is not a convert like Kurtz who is assimilated into the African culture. Conversely, the Magistrate is portrayed as more of a hero because he is telling the story and the reader is therefore able to hear his thoughts, motives, and the justifications for his actions. If Heart of Darkness was told from the point of view of Kurtz, would the reader feel differently about his actions in the story? Would we feel that the reports of Kurtz’s complete moral degradation and insanity were exaggerated and untrue? Would Kurtz’s love of the natives and assimilation into African culture make sense to us? Perhaps we would learn that the heads on stakes outside of his house were not men he had killed, as was reported but customary gifts from the natives whom he had befriended. Perhaps he would explain that his mental degeneration was a result of a disease he had contracted that eventually killed him. We do not know. However, if Waiting for the Barbarians was told from the point of view of Colonel Joll, we can be fairly certain that his condemnation of the Magistrate would sound eerily similar to that of the Manager’s condemnation of Kurtz. Perhaps if these two novels had different narrators their, similarities would be heightened. (555)