Immortality and blindness towards a dark continent Joseph Conrad's novel “Heart of Darkness” portrays an image of dark and inhuman Africa. Not only does he describe the real, physical continent of Africa as “so desperate and so dark, so impenetrable to human thought, so merciless to human weakness,” (Conrad 2180) as if the continent could neither generate nor sustain any real life human. . Conrad lived in a time when European colonies were spread across the world. This phenomenon and the doctrine of colonialism adopted in his time obviously influenced his views at the time of the publication of “Heart of Darkness”. Very few people saw anything wrong with colonialism in Africa and the African people. From a Eurocentric point of view, colonialism was the natural next step on the political agenda of any powerful country. The colonizers paid no attention to the native peoples in their territories, nor did they consider the natives anything other than savages. In “Heart of Darkness,” Joseph Conrad uses Marlow to contradict the acts of man and the destruction they have brought to Africa and its people. Conrad shows, through fiction, that the blindness and lack of morality in Africa allowed the liberation of darkness from the hearts of the settlers. In the opening of his novel, “Heart of Darkness,” Conrad, through Marlow, establishes his thoughts on colonialism. He says that conquerors use only brute force, “nothing to brag about” (Conrad 2143) because it arises, by chance, from the weakness of another. Marlow compares his later account of colonialism with that of the Roman colonization of Northern Europe and the fascination associated with such an endeavor. In comparison to Marlow's thoughts on European colonization, Sir Henry Morton Stanley, the writer of “Manchester Chamber of Commerce,” states that “No part of Africa, look where I could, seemed to me so promising as this neglected one. tenth part of the continent” (Stanley 2201) who seems to me to have been fascinated with colonization and getting money back for his discoveries, without any moral thought with the people who colonized there Stanley goes on and states, “but unfortunately the European nations will not listen to this I cry” (Stanley 2201), which clearly shows a careless act of taking control of a country that does not want to be touched. Marlow challenges this view by painting a grim picture of the horrors of colonialist enterprises as we delve deeper into the recesses of the novel.