Conrad's modern nomads

Conrad juxtaposes Western culture with its native counterpart in order to formulate a vision that can guide the alienated individual who has lost his connection with his own nature, his family, and his society. Unlike many of his contemporaries who only describe this miserable human condition, Conrad offers guidance to rehabilitate the individual. His presentation of Western and native cultures focuses on their practices of cultural ritual, game, and gender relationships. His target is the Western mind, which needs to be decolonized by being reminded of the fundamental equality of all human beings. Once such a bond between the white and the native is established, each can learn and benefit from one another. His heroes who have come to accept the fundamental equality of all human beings are capable of achieving peace and tranquility in their lives. As a result of their interactions with the natives they are able to cherish a sense of belonging and sharing that can repair the damage caused by their painful experience of alienation. By marrying to the members of the native cultures, Conradian heroes and heroines learn how to exist as both individuals and social beings. A mutually respectful and complementary companionship between a male and a female becomes the backbone of a society of emotional solidarity and shared meaning Conrad. Conrad's female characters, especially those who are exposed to injustices and exploitations, play a very crucial role in the establishment of such a society. They are strong and capable enough to decenter the self-evidence of the binary opposition between the male as the superior and the female as the inferior. They bring balance not only into social environment but also into the power struggle between cultures. Conrad's juxtaposition of the native woman's presence and active participation in social life against the complete exclusion of the Western woman from social life is the most significant binary opposition he points out between the West and the native. Although Coppola bases his Apocalypse Now upon Conrad's Heart of Darkness and announces the end of Western civilization once patriarchal and imperialistic ideologies become invincibly dominant, he cannot see that Conrad offers a solution to prevent this undesirable end. Conrad's remedy is that once the male and the female can relate to each other without engaging in a power struggle, they will be able to taste peace and happiness. This mutual and complementary relationship becomes the symbol of the social order Conrad's art encompasses.