“Irony and the Absurd in Joseph Conrad’s ‘An Outpost of Progress’”

Joseph Conrad’s most famous novella, Heart of Darkness, is one of the focal points of Edward Said’s reflection in Culture and Imperialism. An Outpost of Progress, which shares the same African setting of Heart of Darkness and which was written and published shortly before it, is hardly ever mentioned by Said and has only recently gained attention from postcolonial criticism. The aim of this paper is to explore the possibility of reading An Outpost of Progress through Samuel Beckett’s categories of alienation and absurd. The perspective opened up by such a comparison can illuminate, I argue, the irony underlying Conrad’s writings, especially with regards to his debated attitude towards the Empire after Chinua Achebe and Said’s stances on it.