Kanibale w ogrodzie Ewolucjonizm i jego demitologizacja w Jądrze ciemności Josepha Conrada

Joseph Conrad in his works frequently tests contemporary scientific theories and ideologies by re-applying them to the ‘real’ world of the common thought (Allan Hunter’s notice) and confronting with a different cultural context. In the same way the writer deals with evolutionism: we find a lot of references to Darwinian “survival of the fittest” theory, Spencer’s social evolutionism and Huxley’s ethical considerations in Conrad’s works. In Heart of Darkness the writer travesties the metaphor of civilization as a garden which should be cultivated according to the universal rules of the “horticultural process”, the metaphor used by Huxley in Prolegomena to the Evolution and Ethics. Doing this, Conrad tends towards examining the ethical limitations of evolutionary theory applied as a justification for colonial genocide. Simultaneously, pointing to the necessity of synchronous and contextual approach to the problem of cultural relativism the writer tries to transcend the linear scheme of evolution based on the simplified opposition between nature and civilization.