Going Native: A Comparison of Two Imperial Administrators

Douglas Kerr's "Three Ways of Going Wrong" is a convincing article that connects the African colonial stories of Kipling, Conrad, and Coetzee and successfully creates a "myth" that all three stories' plots follow. He is careful to point out, however, that Coetzee inverted the myth by telling his story from the eyes of the transgressor (the Magistrate), the one who "goes native". However, the Magistrate is quite different from someone of Kurtz's nature, and it is in this aspect that Kerr's argument of plot unification becomes unraveled.

In "The Heart of Darkness", Joseph Conrad creates a primordial setting in which a man named Kurtz becomes a fallen hero for the Empire. His capacity to collect rubber is unmatched, but as he becomes more and more acquainted with the local lifestyle, he finds himself unable to resist the call of the wild people and that of the wild forest itself. Kurtz has an insatiable greed for power, so much so that he achieves a supernatural status in both races: a god to the natives, and a Lucifer (a fallen angel) to the Empire. In the pursuit of power, Kurtz loses all inhibitions due to his time spent deep in the recesses of the Congo. His outpost is lined with poles, atop of which sit the severed heads of his enemies. When he is finally forced to leave with the rest of the men, Kurtz becomes increasingly weak as he leaves his place of power, and perhaps more clear-headed as well. His famous last words, "The horror!" indicate that he finally had an epiphany and has seen the evils of his ways, presumably before going to meet the evilest one of them all. There is no doubt in anyone's mind of the nefarity with which Kurtz strays from imperial decree and goes, as Kerr puts it, "beyond the pale."

On the other hand, Coetzee's Magistrate does not appear to have evil intentions when he "goes native". Rather, his interest in not just the barbarian girl but also the barbarians themselves and their culture is more like an intellectual curiosity - at first. However, as he becomes more and more associated with the barbarian girl, and finally when he is arrested, he is viewed as someone who became too close to the barbarians, someone who sympathizes with them. Whether he is genuine in this emotion is debatable: the Magistrate is a man who likes to think he is doing something noble and just so it can be recorded in history, when he reality he doubts everything about himself and the people around him. However insecure the Magistrate may be, his reasons for fighting the will of the Empire are far more benevolent than those of Kurtz'.

Both the Magistrate and Kurtz have steely resolves, yet both ultimately fail in their quests. The Empire triumphs, leaving Kurtz dead and the Magistrate, in effect, a non-entity. This similarity is one that Kerr could have pointed out: that no matter how the individual fights, the Empire wins, even in the face of defeat (as in "Waiting for the Barbarians"). The cold sunglasses of Colonel Joll represent much more than a fashion statement. His face is the impassive face of any Empire: a face that betrays no emotions, save for the unending quest for eternal self-preservation. It is a quest that neither the fanaticism of Kurtz nor the pathos of the Magistrate can extinguish, revealing, in the end, how similar they are. (575)