On the surface, both Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness and the 1939 film Gunga Din are tales of great adventure and great prosperity obtained in foreign lands. Beneath these basic archetypal storylines, however, lies a wholly European perspective: in each work, European protagonists seek adventure and wealth in a distinctly European sense, concerned primarily with benefitting themselves as members of Western society while overlooking any negative consequences. These European characters, then, must necessarily have non-European counterparts who form the reverse side of the Western imperialist narrative. In both stories, this opposing group consists of indigenous peoples who function as the objects-in contrast to the agents-of exploitation and colonization. It is in the disparate representations, descriptions, and judgements of these native societies and European civilization that imperialistic biases are most evident. Through both film and literature, Heart of Darkness and Gunga Din exhibit a clear dichotomy between Europeans and natives: while Europeans are portrayed as individuals and endowed with admirable traits, native peoples are overgeneralized, dehumanized, and described negatively. Moreover, natives are only depicted more favorably when they align themselves with the imperialist cause, and European characters only lose favor if they abandon Western ideals; these critical exceptions to the rule serve to further illustrate the dichotomy itself.
Both Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Gunga Din portray Europeans and indigenous peoples in starkly different ways. While Europeans are differentiated as individuals and granted a relatively positive connotation, native populations are characterized en masse in a negative light and often using dehumanizing language. In Heart of Darkness, the dichotomy manifests itself whenever people are described. In a particularly salient example, the European chief accountant of a trade company is labeled "amazing" and his appearance painstakingly described by Marlow, the narrator: "a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clear necktie, and varnished boots.
