Stand Up

In Heart of Darkness, Marlow starts narrating his adventures of when he was employed by a Belgian company to go in an expedition through the Congo River. Right before he is about to leave he says something that was like a déjà vu to me. I had been watching a movie called Even the Rain. In this movie, just like in Heart of Darkness, the character comes across an inner conflict: Continue being part of an unjust situation, or do something against it.

To understand what I’m talking about first I’ll give a fast summary of Even the Rain. It is about a Spanish producer, Costa, who is producing a movie about the colonization of the Indians in Hispaniola. They go to Bolivia to film and to hire the indigenous people. However, as they start filming they find out the Indians from Bolivia, including their main actor, are doing a strike against the government who wants to privatize the water supply. In the end the producer has to decide between the movie or helping the Bolivians.

Just like Costa, Marlow is disturbed when he finds out the company has really no honest intentions in mind. They just want profit. Both of them have higher morals that tell them something is wrong. However, they are not sure how to respond to it. In the movie, the film they are making shares the story of Fray Bartolome de Las Casas who stood up for the Indians. In both the movie and the book I was hoping and expecting that either one would stand up for their morals.

They both did. Even though they did not defend the Indians nor the Africans, nor did they do something to stop the cruelty, Marlow gives one a biscuit.  He describe the men he sees as:

 “dying slowly […] they were not enemies, they were no criminals, they were nothing earthly now, - nothing but black shadows if disease and starvation…” (pg.27-28)  

He feels pity for them and has nothing else to offer other than the biscuit.

This shows us that Marlow does know something is wrong and that he feels the need to do something. However, he continues to work for the company. On the other hand, Costa decides to abandon his movie and help a family of Bolivians whose daughter was injured. I wonder if like Costa, Marlow will stop working with the company and even better if he will stand with the Africans and Indians being unjustly treated or if he will just let it go and gain profits.