Comparisons of Motive in both Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and J.M. Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians"

John Conrad's Heart of Darkness and J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians are two quite similar books that portray a search for morals about colonization and that question the righteousness in the motives of huge imperial empires, from the Conrad's Imperial Africa to Coetzee's South-African police state, to colonize. Focusing on one character and his internal struggle between what his country thinks is right and what he thinks is right, the two novels ultimately arrive at the same conclusion: colonialism is a terrifying and horrific practice that blurs the line between the civilized and the uncivilized.

Both told from a first-person perspective, the novels ultimately reach this common theme through the way in which they present it. For starters, both novels begin at a restful state, one where the conflict of morals and the physical conflict that initiates it has not yet begun. In Heart of Darkness, this peaceful situation happens when Marlow is simply applying for the job, completing a typical transition from one job and a period of unemployment to the next. Similarly, in Waiting for the Barbarians, the magistrates post is relatively peaceful and, while he is a bit upset and curious about why Colonel Joll has locked up the man and the boy, who appear completely innocent, he himself is completely fine and any doubts about morality are simply pushed aside and the book moves forward.

Then, as the plots move along, a slow, but steady questioning of morality begins to enter the minds of the protagonist. In the magistrate's situation, it is the arrival and his subsequent affair with the barbarian girl that causes him to seriously question the morality of the Empire's actions. He realizes that he more or less has strong feelings for the girl, despite the fact she is of the "inferior race" or a "barbarian," and, as a result, begins to wonder why they are trying to launch a land-confiscating war against a people that can love and be loved just as much as any one of the Empire's citizens. With Marlow's case, this same situation arises as he notices the attitude taken toward the natives in the Congo and, because of his complete naivety to any and all culture of Africa, is quite shocked by the opinions he hears of people who are just as human as he is. For both these people, these situations eventually lead into that greater questioning, in which what each character's employer is doing seems quite wrong. For Marlow, this thinking predisposes him to a view that in arguably takes favor to the natives and sets himself up for the greater, physical challenge ahead. For the magistrate, sleeping with the girl and asking himself why he is so enthralled with her opens up the door to new inquiries, such as what happened in Joll's torture rooms and why the Empire is taking prisoners and torturing and killing them when, in his mind, there is clearly no offense being launched upon the frontier. These events ultimately set the stage for the climatic events that follow.

Finally, sooner or later, each story reaches that breaking point, where the main character is finally challenged in regard to what he believes and put through a test of both endurance and horror in order to see whether or not those beliefs will hold. This point is obvious in Waiting for the Barbarians, as the breaking point is undoubtedly the arrest of the magistrate upon his return from the moral act of returning the barbarian girl. Through torture and captivity, this period of the book is where his beliefs are challenged to the point of abandonment as he asks himself why does he care about the barbarians so much, was does he care about what is right, and why he is opposed to the colonization that the Empire has gone forth with. Luckily for the magistrate, his beliefs stay with him, regardless of the ends they are pushed to and as the story wraps up, they are able to resurface in a better light.

On the other hand, in Heart of Darkness, Conrad pushes Marlow to this point when he finally arrives at the station with Kurtz and Marlow decides that Kurtz's opinions toward the natives are more honorable and righteous than that of the Russian and the manager. As a result, he becomes almost vilified by the two white men, who regard Kurtz as a lost cause who has sadly been consumed by the savage way of thinking. This leads to further difficulties once Kurtz dies as Marlow is now faced with the prospect of figuring out the meaning of Kurtz's last words, while, at the same time, dealing with the death of the only person who had the same perspective on Africa as he did. Thankfully for Marlow, however, he soon becomes ill and it is not long until he is evacuated from the jungle and makes his return to the mainland of Europe.

In the end, both characters ultimately cleanse themselves of their moral dilemmas, with Marlow returning to Europe and the magistrate finally leading an autonomous town that lives at peace and without the moral ignorance of the Empire overhanging its streets, and thus the stories conclude.

From these outlines, it is quite apparent that the two stories are more or less the exact same and thus, their lesson that challenging authority and doing whats right ultimately works out in the end and so should be pursued no matter what is equally supported by both works. While both books may have a few different perspectives, this lesson is still prevalent in equal and whether a reader reads one or another is irrelevant: the message is still the same. Furthermore, the "hero's journey" that both characters go through also add to the theme by giving a process to moral questioning in order to give readers the ability to recognize it both in themselves and also in their own leaders. From this process, people can hopefully better identify the good and the evil in similar situations in the future, whether simply in one's own life or in the government of one's resident country. Therefore, because of these valuable lessons, Waiting for the Barbarians and Heart of Darkness are both amazing works and will continue to probe the topic of morality and empire for centuries.