Here We Go Again...

The very first sentence contrasts with the preceding one. The “apple pie order of the books,” is replaced by “everything else in the station was in a muddle- heads, things, and buildings.” I believe that this highlights more than the eccentricity of the accountant, but rather a disregard and disdain for the landscape as a whole. This view is reserved just for the accountant, but by most every white man to set foot on the hellish continent of Africa.
The accountant’s true nature is revealed when a very sick young man is brought in on a stretcher. All he has to say regarding this are “the groans of this sick person…distract my attention. And without that it is extremely difficult to guard against clerical errors in this climate.” His indifference to the needs of others is further highlighted through the author’s use of short, abrupt syntax. “He began to write again. The sick man was too ill to groan. The flies buzzed at a great peace.” Such choice of words triggered a red flag in my mind as I read them. My mind was quickly directed to the fact that the accountant was just discussing the ivory trade and Mr. Kurtz, while a man lay dying at his feet, and he did nothing to even comfort him.
Conrad offers us one last glimpse into the darkness of the accountant’s heart and his indifference towards his surroundings when he states that “He turned to his work. The noise outside had ceased, and presently in going out I stopped at the door. In the steady buzz of flies the homeward bound agent was lying flushed and insensible; the other, bent over his books, was making correct entries of perfectly good transactions; and fifty feet below the doorstep I could see the tree tops of the grove of death.” It is incredible to me how a human being could be so concerned with money when there is death and despair all around him. But Conrad uses this imagery to highlight the indifference of the white man to the sufferings of the Dark Continent and it’s people as they exploited it for resources.