Conclusion

Abstract

The figuring of the cannibal in the popular culture I have examined gives an insight into the taxonomy of Western fears in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ultimately, the cannibal is portrayed as Other and the labelling of one group or person as cannibal suggests fear or loathing of that person. The colonial adventure fiction from Robinson Crusoe to Tarzan thrived on gleeful descriptions of savage cannibals and the dashing heroics of the English men pitted against them. Driven by a need to justify imperialism and to glorify Englishness, these books built on a long tradition of labelling the enemy or Other as cannibal. By reducing the natives to animal status, the colonialists could rape the land with impunity and label themselves civilizers. However, beneath all of these heroics was a creeping anxiety. Joseph Conrad questioned the rapacity of the colonial system itself and shed a glimmering light on the not-so-attractive appetites of the supposedly civilized imperialists. In Heart of Darkness, Conrad suggested that the binary between savage and civilized, cannibal and non-cannibal was not such an easy or clear-cut one. Kurtz haunts future attempts at easy jocularity regarding the colonial cannibal and his descent into participation in unspeakable rites sparked much needed discussion on Eurocentrism, racism, truth in history, and contemporary perceptions of Africa well into the latter decades of the twentieth century.