Joseph Conrad's short story “An Outpost of Progress” follows the lives of two civilian men, Kayerts and Carlier, stationed at a trading post in Africa. Between the departure and return of the Company's steamer, Kayerts and Carlier are free from the rules, morals, and beliefs of civilization that facilitate a chain of command, commerce, and comfortable living. When forced to live without society, men slowly sink into madness. I will argue that “An Outpost of Progress” illustrates humanity's propensity to fall from civilization when free from a conventional society. At the beginning of the short story, there is evidence of civilization around men. The narrator writes, “There were two white men in charge of the trading post. Kayerts, the boss. . . Carlier, the assistant. . . The third man on the staff was a Negro from Sierra Leone, who claimed to be called Henry Price” (Conrad 3). This system imitates the bureaucracies of a civilized world. There is a white man in charge, someone working under him, and a lower level often made up of natives. However, this broken bureaucracy is the first sign of Kayerts and Carlier's fall from civilization. When the men from the coast arrive at the trading post, Makola (Henry Price) converses with them about the ivory trade. When Kayerts questions him the next day, Makola evades all attempts to get close to him (Conrad 12). Makola, the lowest level in the chain of command, avoids reporting to Kayerts, the acting chief. This break is also evident during the discussion between Kayerts and Carlier about sugar. Following civil bureaucracy, Carlier would have to accept Kayerts' refusal to let him put sugar in his coffee. Instead, Carlier shouts, “Who's the boss? There is no leader here....... middle of paper......conforms with his morals. A thick fog clouded his lucidity and «he looked around like a man who had lost his way; and he saw a dark spot, a cross-shaped spot, on the changing purity of the fog” (Conrad 25). Kayerts hangs himself from the cross, symbol of one of civilization's greatest institutions. Despite men's best efforts to sustain civilization, those of Kayerts and Carlier are doomed. Men are just “insignificant and incapable individuals, whose existence is made possible only through the high organization of civilized crowds” (Condrad 5). The steamship, their only real connection to civilization, sets sail and leaves them in the wilds of Africa. Without a connection to society, Kayerts and Carlier slowly fall from civilization. Works Cited Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness and Other Stories. Ed. Cedric Watts. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.