An important theme to recognize in King Leopold’s Ghost is the theme of deceit.
It is by means of deceit that King Leopold justifies his involvement with South
Africa. King Leopold said in an interview “In
dealing with a race composed of cannibals for thousands of years it is
necessary to use methods which will best shake their idleness and make them
realize the sanctity of work” (Pg. 118). Referring to Africans, as
“cannibals” is one way he demoralized African societies. He dehumanized them in
his speeches so that way if they were not seen as equals, his forced way of
labor could be viewed as justified and less people might be suspicious. This
theme of deceit will play a reoccurring role when we learn about the different
ways that Europe justified the decolonization of Africa.
A theme we can notice in the works of The Conservationist is redemption. When the black man is first found on the white industrialist’s
property, he is buried without any concern. However, due to floods his body
resurfaces and causes Mehring to reconsider the ways he saw this black man’s life come to a final
end. It is the black man who is granted redemption in a sense that nature has
given him a chance to be buried properly. This idea that the unnamed black man
has been redeemed is evident because we can now see him as a part of Africa
again, where his heart truly lies:"The one whom the farm received
had no name, He took possession of this earth, theirs; one of them." It is the white man who also has a chance at
redemption, as he looks to give this stranger a clean and meaningful burial to
clear his conscious and develop as a completely different character than the
story’s opening, which depicted him yelling at his black farmworkers.