ABSTRACT

This paper examines the representation of the Other in James De Mille's "A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder" and Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," revealing how both novels inadvertently celebrate colonialist views by employing European standards to judge encountered cultures. Focusing on the themes of cannibalism, darkness symbolism, language dynamics, and the sexualization of female characters, the paper argues that despite attempts to critique societal elements, both texts perpetuate a colonial approach that separates and dehumanizes native populations. By exploring these aspects, the paper sheds light on the broader implications of Eurocentric perspectives in literature and their impact on authentic cross-cultural understanding.

Keywords: Othering, Colonialism, Cannibalism, Darkness Symbolism, Language Dynamics, Female Characters, Eurocentrism, Postcolonial Critique, James De Mille, Joseph Conrad

In 1888, Harper’s Weekly published an anonymous story of adventure, romance, and new lands. James De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder was printed posthumously and was representative of the popular “Lost World” genre. In 1899 Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness was published, reflecting similar themes. The exploration of different worlds has long been a theme in literature, and much like the protagonist from De Mille’s text, Conrad’s characters find themselves on a journey into a land much different from their own. With this new world adventure comes interaction with new civilizations and new peoples. When literature depicts encounters with different cultures many canonical texts have the tendency to “other” the new culture, to mark them as so separate from European culture that they seem unrelatable or even sub-human. Both James De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness use European standards to judge the cultures encountered by their respective protagonists.

In his article An Image of Africa: Racism in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, Chinua Achebe addresses the problematic othering of Africans in the controversial novella by reminding readers that there is a desire and a “…need—in Western psychology to set Africa up as a foil to Europe, as a place of negations at once remote and vaguely familiar, in comparison with which Europe’s own state of spiritual grace will be manifest” (Achebe 397). While the Kosekins in Strange Manuscript are a fictional people, De Mille’s text does much the same, using the new culture in strong contrast to both the European sailors and to protagonist Adam More, whose European values are so powerful that he, in a truly colonial approach, is appointed ruler of the Kosekin people by the end of the novel. This is reminiscent of Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, who also manipulates his way in to a position of colonial domination. Despite one text focusing on a fictional race while the other addresses an existing culture, both texts take a distinctly colonial approach to the other, and, despite their attempts to critique elements of the authors’ societies, end up celebrating colonialist views by dehumanizing the native populations encountered in their respective journeys.

Both More and Marlow study the populations they meet with a distinctly judgmental eye, using their respective societal values as the benchmark by which other cultures earn their respect. Marlow’s impressions of the Africans he meets aligns them with monsters—animalistic and beastly. He describes them as “prehistoric”, noting that in Africa the “monster” is not shackled, stating “…there you could look at a thing monstrous and free” (Conrad 36)—not even acknowledging the Africans as people but rather as creatures to be feared. Marlow is incapable of recognizing humanity outside of the Europeans he encounters and is continually defining them through animalistic characteristics or attributes he finds grotesque, such as having filed teeth and being scarred (Conrad 37). Hunt Hawkins notes that these types of observations, as well as Marlow’s comparisons of the African people to ants, horses, hyenas, and bees supports Achebe’s accusations that Heart of Darkness dehumanizes Africans (Hawkins 333).

Adam More, on the other hand, does find moments to address the humanness of the Kosekins, describing them by stating “…their hair was black and straight, their features were quite regular, and their general expression was one of great gentleness” (De Mille 26). Despite his ability recognize their humanity, he still needs to separate them by adding that in the “general outline of features they were not unlike Arabs, but they were entirely destitute of that hardness and austerity which the latter have” (De Mille 26). For More, the Kosekins are human but not enough like himself to be regarded with respect, as he needs to connect their description back to a culture which he finds to have unappealing features.

While More takes a different stance than Marlow, comparing the Kosekins to humans rather than animals, he is still bound by his European ideology in the same way as his Heart of Darkness counterpart. His consistent assertion that the Kosekin belief system is revolting prevents him from fully accepting that there may be value in a culture that is different than his own. In addition, once he has decided that their way of life is lesser, he is able to use this judgement to justify the imposition of his own values on the Kosekin people by continually telling them that their way of thinking is backwards and wrong. Throughout the novel, this element of the Kosekins being backwards or in direct opposition to Adam More’s sensibilities is continually commented upon by the protagonist who is consistently baffled by their approach to life. More rarely takes the time to try to understand the views of the Kosekins, instead saying “all this was so utterly incomprehensible that I could pursue the subject no further” (De Mille 52). The only person he chooses to fully embrace is Almah, whose values reflect his own. Her love of the light and rejection of the dark, fear of death, and disgust of the Kosekin rituals align with his own throughout most of the novel, and, in this way, she is a perfect match for him. Her embodiment of European values places her in a more prestigious position in More’s mind.

This Eurocentric point of view is also demonstrated in the murder of Agnew early in the novel. When Agnew and More first encounter the Kosekins on the island, Agnew takes a much more open approach, viewing them as welcoming and kind: “My dear More […] they're not a bad lot. They mean well. They can't help their looks. You're too suspicious and reserved. Let's make friends with them and get them to help us, ” (De Mille 18) leaving behind the colonist approach in favour of an honest curiosity. His willingness to embrace a different culture formulates the basis of a warning—trusting other cultures will lead to severe consequences. Where More is critical of the Kosekins and survives having determined that “beneath all this there must be some sinister design” (De Mille 18), Agnew is killed and becomes a meal for the cannibalistic population. The narrative of De Mille’s text is used to support a colonialist approach, as not only does More survive due to his innate skepticism of the other culture, but, by the end of the novel, has demonstrated that a commitment to European values will lead to great power, essentially transcending into a deity, whereas Agnew and his open mind are dead.

It is important to note that both texts contain references to the other as being cannibalistic. The inclusion of this element provides a strong dichotomy between Europe and the populations encountered. European values are hard set against the consumption of human flesh and therefore what better way to prove that a culture is threatening or frightening than to endow them with a characteristic so repulsive that a reader would be incapable of accepting it as part of a “civilized” population. Maggie Kilgour’s discussion of cannibalism in Strange Manuscript further addresses this by stating that “the cannibal is the perfect demon for a culture” (Kilgour 22), but also suggests that this representation moves beyond a depiction which induces a feeling of repulsion for the other to an internal conflict in which Europe’s own values are questioned. This fear of cannibalism thereby becomes an interpretation of the fears that underlie Imperialism and the emergence of consumerism. She argues that Imperialism fears its own consuming appetite, and so displacing them on to others provides an outlet for these fears, keeping them at arm's length and therefore allowing for them to be associated with someone else (Kilgour 22). She makes a strong suggestion that this is present in both Strange Manuscript and Heart of Darkness.

Kilgour’s discussion recognizes that this reflection of Europe’s fears of becoming all-consuming takes a nightmarish turn when placed upon a culture other than their own, thereby emphasizing that culture as different and worthy of judgement and disdain. Adam More’s continual reference to the Kosekin rituals as “a sight of horror—awful, tremendous, unspeakable! ” (De Mille 53) provides a prime example of how the inclusion of cannibalism as a feature of the other creates an insurmountable barrier for authentic connection with the native populations. The blatant titling of the event as The Awful Mista Kosek both in chapter title and expression of the event are used to enhance the disturbing nature of the ceremony, creating a distinct and important separation between More, whose European values abhor such behaviors, and the Kosekins, which celebrate them and even desire them. It is in the early encounters with the cannibals (later to be determined as potential Kosekins themselves), where Agnew meets his demise, that we see one of the few times where De Mille’s text echoes Conrad’s in its description of the other as subhuman. The people encountered early in the text are described by More:

The vilest and lowest savages that I had ever seen were not so odious as these. A herd of monkeys would be far more congenial, a flock of wolves less abhorrent. They had the caricature of the human form; they were the lowest of humanity; their speech was a mockery of language; their faces devilish, their kindness a cunning pretence; and most hideous of all was the nightmare hag that prepared the cannibal repast. (De Mille 19)

This is a rare occasion where De Mille compares the other to an animal and it is done at a time when the subject of that comparison needs to be considered as repulsive as possible, echoing the sentiment in Conrad’s novella which continually makes that connection.

To a certain extent Conrad takes a different approach when it comes to the cannibals depicted in Heart of Darkness, briefly romanticizing them by describing them as “big powerful men…with courage, with strength… ” (Conrad 41) and focusing on describing their physiques, before still ultimately resorting to reducing them to a primitive anomaly to be gawked at, while Marlow contemplates their willingness to restrain themselves. While, unlike the Kosekins, we never see the cannibals in Heart of Darkness eat humans, the inclusion of this behaviour cannot be ignored as it provides a contrast between the European and the African – the cultured and the creature. Marlow’s disgust at the consumption of flesh is echoed in his consideration of what they could have eaten instead. While he acknowledges that “it didn’t enter anybody’s head to trouble how they would live” (Conrad 41), his suggestion that they could have eaten rotten hippo-meat further degrades the African people by considering an alternative that would not be suitable for European consumption.

It is not only the act of cannibalism that separates the other from the Europeans depicted in the novels. Both Conrad and De Mille use the imagery of darkness connected with the other to enhance the separation between the two cultures. In Strange Manuscript this juxtaposition of cultures is blatant, as the Kosekins are portrayed as opposite to Europeans in as many ways as possible, including their dislike of the light and love of darkness. More addresses this difference upon his first encounter with the chief, using the experience to immediately demonstrate the difference between himself and the Kosekins, stating:

Here, in this darkness, where there was but a faint twinkle from the feeble lamps, their eyes seemed to serve them as well as mine did in the outer light of day; and the chief, who outside had moved with an uncertain step, and had blinked painfully at objects with his eyes almost closed, now appeared to be in his proper element; and while I hesitated like a blind man and groped along with a faltering step, he guided me, and seemed to see everything with perfect vision. (De Mille 35)

This seemingly innocuous addressing of Kosekins’ preference to darkness becomes the basis of More’s judgement towards the peoples. In this first interaction with the community, he has already determined that they are different from him. They love the darkness and he the light, therefore they are as different from him as possible. Each interaction with the Kosekin people from this point on furthers the reflection of the Kosekins as an oppositional force to More’s European sensibilities.

The symbolism of darkness moves even deeper when paired with the Kosekin’s oppositional development to Western civilization by drawing on their comparison to the lost Hebrew tribe, as Melick does when reading the manuscript aboard the ship. This implies that the Kosekins are untouched by the later developments of society and are therefore not only literally living in the dark, but also figuratively, as they are not influenced by Greek and Roman philosophy and the resulting moral guidelines (Parks 71). This moral lacking is further emphasized by the Kosekins being a godless race, in contrast to Europe, where religion holds a strong influence. Parks suggests that this lack of religion leads to the Kosekins being suspicious of pleasure and enjoyment, placing them in contrast to Western society where these elements are celebrated. Parks also makes the argument that these same suspicions are reflected by what is referred to as Christian extremists, as “ [b]oth devalue life as something to be released from as quickly as possible so long as the release is honourable, ” drawing attention to suicide as taboo in both the Kosekins and those with strong religious backgrounds (Parks 73). The symbolic nature of the Kosekins living in darkness becomes a stronger moral judgement with this combination –- not only do the Kosekins exist in darkness in a literal sense, but they are also living with the same distorted conceptions as those who are carrying religious values beyond the acceptable levels of commitment and devotion. Both are equally lost and blind, equally in the dark.

Conrad, too, uses darkness to provide separation between Europe and other. It begins early with the description of the river, providing the reader with the sense that there is an ominous presence as they travel through it. The allusion to the snake and its connection to the downfall of man in the Garden of Eden is paired with the description of the river, which “…seemed to beckon with a dishonouring flourish before the sunlit face of the land a treacherous appeal to the lurking death, to the hidden evil, to the profound darkness of its heart” (Conrad 33). This image of leaving the safety of the sunlight and progressing towards the shadows leaves a sense of discomfort with the reader, who is made to realize that the approaching land, and the people who dwell within it, are a threatening force.

This pairing of light and dark is one that carries throughout literature as a trope which continues to be used today. It is within darkness that fear and evil dwell. There are countless tales of the “things that go bump in the night”, and the pairing of the Kosekins and the Africans with the darkness can only serve to enhance their connection to terror. This juxtaposition moves beyond landscape, particularly in Conrad’s text, and is also applied to the people themselves. Conrad frequently uses the word “black” to describe the Africans. This happens so frequently in the novella that Achebe addresses it by pointing out that “…sometimes his fixation on blackness is equally interesting, as when he gives us this brief description: ‘A black figure stood up, strode on long black legs, waving long black arms’—as though we might expect a black figure striding along on black legs to wave white arms! But so unrelenting is Conrad’s obsession” (Achebe 315). Conrad does use the description of “black” as a common descriptor when discussing the Africans, to drive home the point that the people he has encountered are not white, not European.

The Kosekins, as well, are subjected to this type of description, and while they are not described as black and their skin colour is not a regular part of their physical descriptions, they are nonetheless shown to be of a different pigment than the white European. Those reading the manuscript debate as to the ethnic nature of the Kosekin people, comparing them to various races, including “an aboriginal and autochthonous race, ” Arabs (De Mille 54), and ultimately moving towards Melick’s discussion of the Kosekin as one of the lost Hebrew tribes. None of the real-world populations discussed are painted in a positive light, thereby maintaining the presumption that Europeans, particularly English Europeans, have an elevated existence when compared to those viewed as different.

Where the texts differ in their approach to the other is with their relationship to language. While De Mille endows the Kosekins with their own language which More needs to learn, Conrad chooses to keep this primarily for the Europeans, essentially relegating the Africans to languageless beings who grunt rather than speak. For Achebe this is a quintessential highlighting of the racism Heart of Darkness directs towards the Congolese population. They are described as howling and foot-stomping rather than speaking, save for a few key moments in the text such as the announcement of Kurtz’s death, where four simple words are delivered by a messenger. Once those words are spoken, however, the description returns to the animalistic, with the men “…[shouting] periodically together strings of amazing words that resembled no sounds of human language” (Conrad 66). Achebe makes the argument that withholding language further others the Africans by reducing them to “rudimentary souls” (Achebe 312), and thereby continues the devaluation of the native population. Dorothy Trench-Bonett takes a slightly different view to the silence, suggesting that the muteness of the African characters may not be a sign of inferiority but rather of Conrad’s mistrust of spoken communications between humans (Trench-Bonett 5).

Trench-Bonett's argument, that in Heart of Darkness no one understands anyone, has the book beginning, “….with misunderstanding, as [Marlow] is warned about Africa when in Belgium and doesn’t understand the warning and ends with his deliberate lie to the Intended” (Trench-Bonett 5), certainly opens the opportunity to consider whether Conrad intended for the lack of language to be demeaning or rather to highlight Europe’s inflexibility in regard to unfamiliar cultures. Regardless of the intention, be it Achebe’s accusation of racism, or Trench-Bonett's suggestion of distrust in language, the approach to the communication styles still leaves the reader with the impression that these two populations are distinctly different from each other and unable to connect on this fundamental level. In contrast, Adam More does manage to find ways to speak with the Kosekins, whose voices are frequently heard throughout the novel, but it is through Almah that these first strides are made.

Much like the Africans in Heart of Darkness, the Kosekins are described as having a language that’s “full of gutturals and broad vowels” which seemed strange to More, who initially declares that “language has no use” (De Mille 36). Part of the focus on language in Strange Manuscript is the question of whose language has value. This is explored on two different fronts, once through the communication barrier that initially exists with the native population, and also in the argument between Melick and Oxenden about the origins and roots of the language (Wilson 124). Through their debate we see the somewhat unintentional othering takes place. They initially take a scientific approach to the Kosekin language by debating the relationship between different dialects, with Oxenden determining that “I am inclined to think that if they were spelled with perfect accuracy they would show the same relation between the Kosekin language and the Hebrew that there is between the Saxon English and the Latin” (De Mille 70); however, they also note that “their love of darkness, their singular characteristics, both physical and moral, all go to show that they can have no connection with the races in our part of the earth” (De Mille 69). The men then provide a Conradesque animalistic comparison by relating the Kosekins to eyeless fish. The debate over language origins takes place after More has encountered Almah, the Kohen and the Mista Kosek. Throughout this process More’s cultural bias becomes evident, as while the Kosekins dote upon him and provide him with everything he needs, he makes no attempt to communicate. He takes what he wants from them while expressing his bewilderment at the strangeness of the people. As previously mentioned, it is not until he meets Almah that he shows any willingness to explore their language. It is his attraction to Almah that provides him with the motivation to learn, and where Europeans in Conrad’s text cannot or will not learn the native languages, Adam More becomes intensely focused on finding a way to communicate with the exotic and beautiful woman in front of him. The desire to learn this new language has very little to do with More’s desire to connect with his hosts but rather with his lust for her.

Almah, herself, is othered by More in several ways. The most obvious of these is that she is a woman. The female characters in both novels fall victim to separation from the men. Marlow presumes that women are there only for beauty. He expresses that “…it’s queer how out of touch with truth women are. They live in a world of their own, and there had never been anything like it and never can be, ” (Conrad 13), leaving them in a limited capacity and often as peripherals throughout his story. While Almah is a central figure throughout Strange Manuscript, her initial appearance has Adam More captivated by her physicality. Where he initially calls the Kosekin women “hags” and is revolted by their appearance, he describes Almah as being “…unlike the others, and reminded me of those Oriental beauties whose portraits I had seen in annuals and illustrated books” (De Mille 36). She is different from both the Kosekins and the Europeans and he is drawn to her. Instead of othering Almah in a way that degrades or demeans her, he romanticizes her and turns her into an exotic trophy to be won. She, of course, falls for him proving that More, as a European man, is more appealing than the Kosekins with whom she has been living for quite some time. Heart of Darkness also takes this approach to the female other, as Kurtz takes on an African lover who is “savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent, ” and a “wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman” (Conrad 60). While both texts spend much of their time discussing the native populations in degrading terms, they both also take the opportunity to sexualize a female character and pair her with a European man; and while both women seem to make that connection willingly, there is a deeper implication that along with territory, women, too, are there to be conquered.

Conquering and power are themes highlighted in both Strange Manuscript and Heart of Darkness, with the reflection of Europeans entering new countries and simply taking what they want. In Conrad’s text, this is demonstrated though the Ivory trade, but also through the enslavement of the African people. Because, as Achebe concedes, this novel was written at a time when the view of Africans was at a particularly low level (Achebe 315), the ability to have characters assert both emotional and physical dominance over the native population was that much easier. This happens early in Conrad’s text when Fresleven beats the village chief. The Danish man felt himself wronged in some manner and used violence to exert his power over the African chief by beating him with a stick. While Fresleven is ultimately killed during his attempt to demonstrate his superiority, the majority of the Europeans are not subjected to the same consequences for their behaviour. Marlow, for example, relies on the enslaved African men who serve on their boats, taking great pride in his improved specimen who has the skills to work the boiler on the ship. While the reader does not see Marlow inflict violence himself, his description of the man as “…as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind legs… ” (Conrad 37) begs the question of with whom and how this training happened.

The assertion of power through violence is also evidenced in Strange Manuscript. More arrives with the quintessential demonstration of Western power—the gun, and, through his continual use of the “sepet-ram”, maintains himself in an oppositional position to the Kosekins, as he has a powerful weapon which they do not. Prior to his developing a relationship with the Kosekins, More essentially announces his intention to exert his power over them. As Milnes expresses in his exploration of colonialism in De Mille’s novel, “after he is made aware of their ritualized cannibalism, More's response is an elab¬oration of colonial practice: ‘I felt sure that our only plan was to rule by terror-to seize, to slay, to conquer’” (Milnes 96). He makes the decision to conquer through his use of his weapon, an object foreign to the Kosekin people. By the end of the novel, he has taken his (short-lived) position as ruler of the Kosekin people, and as Milnes notes, “More's victory over the Kosekin is a celebration of wealth, power, domination, the individual” (Milnes 100), which are all the things that the Kosekins deplore, but are celebrated in European society.

Canonical texts tend to celebrate the strength and power of Westernized cultures and both these texts follow in that pattern. Stephen Milnes draws attention to the argument that “…in a perverse way Strange Manuscript reads like an anticipatory parody of Heart of Darkness, ” (Milnes 104) and, therefore, regardless of the Kosekins being a fictional population, Adam More’s approach must be viewed with a critical eye. More and Marlow both struggle in their interactions with native populations. More can’t be bothered to understand the Kosekins, lamenting repeatedly that their way of life is backwards and confusing, and Marlow can’t see beyond the difference in cultural elements, labelling the Africans as animalistic creatures. Neither text effectively honours the humanity of the new people they encounter, as both protagonists refuse to look past their narrow view of what it means to be civilized. Both texts take a distinctly colonial approach to the explored lands and have effectively relegated their respective native populations to the role of other, thereby minimizing and dehumanizing those who live within.

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