The Fear of the Unknown

Douglas Kerr's article, "Three Ways of Going Wrong: Kipling, Conrad, Coetzee” highlights nearly every important similarity between both Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians; however, he fails to touch upon the prevalent theme illustrated in both novels: the fear of the unknown. When I first read Heart of Darkness, I felt that the term “savage,” used to characterize the inhabitants of Africa, was overtly racist and politically incorrect. In fact, one of the most obvious and recurrent themes in Conrad’s book is how darkness is the abyss of evil while light is the pure savior. This too can also be applied to race, as the text may be commenting on how the people with dark skin are inherently inferior while the lighter white-skinned people are born superior. Still, while the terminology in Heart of Darkness is undeniably offensive, after reading Waiting for the Barbarians, I soon realized that this root of this derogatory language was not race after all. In fact, this same sense of superiority amongst a more advanced people is evident in Waiting for the Barbarians as well, but unlike a white society discriminating against a black one, it is a powerful Empire being hateful towards the peaceful people who live just outside of the boundaries. Much like how the less advanced and less power-hungry peoples of Africa are deemed “savages,” the nomads and fishermen who inhabit the land outside of the Empire are termed “barbarians.” What is it that these savages and barbarians have done to be insulted, hated, tortured, and ultimately, treated no better than wild beasts? It all boils down to an more “civilized” society’s belief that they are the best by nature, and therefore, are meant to exert this destined dominance; however, there is also an underlying fear that the peoples and customs that which they are incapable of understanding could ultimately be the cause of their downfall. Now why is it that a people with a greater spectrum of education and civilization are so afraid of the unknown? The problem is that because they cannot make sense of these people or their ways, they are unable to methodically analyze their actions, and therefore, must always be in suspicion. The ultimate travesty for them would be if anything got in the way of them and their power. And so, they must always be sure that they keep the barbarians and savages in check, and in doing so, they can flex their muscles to the world. In the end, power is everything, and cowering in fear of the unknown could potentially compromise that power (434).