You Should see the Other Guy: Representing the Other in Heart of Darkness and A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder

Abstract

Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness has often been considered controversial in its portrayal of African peoples. Similarily, James De Mille's A Strange Manuscript found in a Copper Cylinder approaches the fictional Kosekin people with a distinctly colonial eye.  While Strange Manuscript is somewhat obscure Canadian cannon, the suggestion has been made that it is a crude precurses to Conrad's novella, with similar themes and colonist approaches. The following is a comparsion of the two texts and an exploration of the ways the repective protagonists approach the other.