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Austin Peay State University

Critical Comparison
“Seasons of Migration To The North” & “Heart of Darkness”

Angelica M. Santana Vegerano

“Season of Migration To The North” and “Heart of Darkness” are two distinct novels

constantly compared to each other. They both have different story lines with similar themes that

depict a greater idea. One of the themes they share is the theme or idea of imperialism , which is

a policy of extending a country’s power and influence through diplomacy or military force. In

“Heart of Darkness” the imperialism is depicted by the Europeans taking control or colonizing

African countries. Their idea of imperialism in the countries of Africa especially in this novel

was to civilize the natives there, to make them act more like the Europeans and give up their way

of doing things. The Europeans the main character in the novel Marlow, described them as

savages and animals. In “Seasons of Migration Of The North” is somewhat similar but it’s a little

backwards compared to “Heart of Darkness”. One of the main characters Mustafa Sa’eed when

he was younger traveled to London for schooling, while he was there he slept with many English

women which when you go deeper into studying this can symbolize that he was sexually

conquering the English women. Now despite the many similarities these novels have their

differences, like I said above, the themes are somewhat backwards with each other, but also in

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad heavily focus on racism and superiority in this novel, while in

Seasons of Migration of the North Tayeb Salih focuses on the sexual superiority over women.

In “Seasons of Migration To The North” the story begins with the narrator introducing

his seven year long journey to Europe to study and how he’s now back in his home village.

Further into the story he sees a man he’s never seen before amongst all the villagers he knows,

and later gets to meet him when this man drops off some fruit from his field and learns his name

which happens to be Mustafa Sa’eed. Mustafa becomes a very important and main character as

we begin to see his true character unfolding. So, after meeting Mustafa Sa’eed the narrator has

another encounter with him at a drinking session along with another man who happens to be
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president of the committee in the village. In the drinking session Mustafa tries to talk to the

president about a project they are working on but the president avoids that at all cost and gets

Mustafa to drink. As he continues to drink the narrator begins to see that he seems to be letting

his guard down, he looks more relaxed and vulnerable than he is sober and what shocked him

most is that he begins to recite English poetry in a perfect English accent. This shocks him

because in the beginning of the novel it is said that the narrator spent seven years living and

studying English poetry in Europe and when he came back people were amazed because to his

knowledge he was the only one who was able to study abroad and learn the English language.

This was so shocking that the next day the narrator went to Mustafa’s home to discuss the events

of that night and to his surprise Mustafa tells his whole life story on how it came to be that he

learned about English poetry and the ability to recite it. Mustafa had went to school at a very

young age and fortunately advanced in his studies rapidly, so much so that he was offered a

scholarship to study abroad in London. There he was able to learn English poetry and study the

language, however; he also went to pursue as many women there as possible in order to seduce

them all into sleeping with him. Mustafa’s journey to London in search for English poetry and in

search for English women to seduce is like the revere narrative of “Heart of Darkness”.

In “Heart of Darkness” the mains character Marlow sets off on a boat by an ivory trading

company be in charge of cargo boat. In his journey through the Congo he is able to witness the

horrible treatment of the natives of Africa by the white ivory traders stationed there. He also

hears these stories about another important character Mr. Kurtz who is one of the most well

known ivory collector. He hears the Mr. Kurtz is severely ill and sets off to find him but the

journey to do so was costly as his company on the boat was attacked by the natives throwing

arrows at them. When he was able to find where Mr. Kurtz was staying he saw severed heads of
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the natives on sticks surrounding the tent that Mr. Kurtz was staying in. Marlow previously

learned that Mr. Kurtz was seen as a god like figure and authority over the natives. When

Marlow finds Kurtz he sees how completely insane he’s gone, he then dies but before dying his

last words were “the horror, the horror”. The problem of imperialism and colonization in the

heart of Africa in this novel was so horrific, the natives were treated like slaves here, beaten and

because of their conditions many died.

The similarities of the theme of imperialism in both stories are comparable because just

like the women that Mustafa Sa’eed in “Seasons of Migration To The North” were conquered, so

were the natives of Africa in “Heart of Darkness”. The women in “Seasons of Migration To the

North” that Mustafa seduced were degraded, they were taken advantage of. Mustafa Sa’eed

knew exactly was he was doing when he was on his mission to seduce women as Mustafa

himself stated “For a while she remained silent. I was not alarmed for I felt that satanic warmth

under my diaphragm, and when I feel it I know that I am in full command of the situation”

(Salih, 34). He had a routine of alluring women , he had techniques and after he lured them into

his trap he would take them home and seduce them in bed. He made them all think he loved them

and that he would marry them, but didn’t live up to it and broke their hearts which caused two of

those women he slept with do kill themselves. In the same way that Mustafa was able to sexually

conquer these women, the European were able to conquer the African natives while they were on

there scavenger hunt for ivory In “The Heart of Darkness”. In the same way that the women

Mustafa slept with were degraded, so were the African natives degraded in their own homelands

and killed off in large numbers.

Another way that imperialism is similar in both stories, is the conquering of ones own

culture in both novels. In “Heart of Darkness” Marlow the main character’s goal is to “train” the
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African natives to be more civilized and more like himself. He was an improved specimen he

could fire up a vertical boiler. “He was there below me and upon my word, to look at him was as

edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind-legs. A

few months of training had done for that really fine chap” (Conrad, 37). Here Marlow is talking

about a Fireman one the boat who happened to be one of the natives. He compares the native to a

dog, then speaks about how training him to do his job has done him well. He then goes on to say

later on that “He ought to have been clapping his hands and stamping his feet on the bank,

instead of which he was hard at world, a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving

knowledge” (Conrad, 37). Here he degrades the native of his culture and the way they act and do

things in their homeland , and infers that he’s training him to be more civilized and human in

sense. This similar form of training used on the natives in Africa by Marlow is seen in “Seasons

of Migration to the North” but in a positive perspective rather than a racist way.

In “Seasons of Migration To The North” when Mustafa Sa’eed was a little boy in the city

he grew up in Khartoum , schools began to open up, but the natives were not a fan of them so the

government officials would go out and find children to take them to school. One government

official found Mustafa outside playing with friends, and asked young Mustafa if he wanted to go

to school and Mustafa replied with yes. The official takes him on his horse to get registered at a

school , and Mustafa begins his learning journey there. Schooling was not something the natives

were fond of, reason is because they thought it was evil. Due to the fact that the European

government was in control of Sudan. Sudan was taken under their control in 1899 but later

gained their independence in 1956 according to the discussion we had in class. So during this

novel it was the 1960’s which is when they started to somewhat adjust the post-colonial ways.

The Sudanese people were still very hesitant and still having difficulty transitioning into the
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European ways, like that of education. So, in their mind it was as if sending their children off to

school would most likely further them away from the culture and heritage. This is similar to the

idea of training, in Heart of Darkness because that is what happened to the natives, slowly they

were being trained to be less like their culture and more like the Europeans.

One major difference between the two novels is the obvious theme of racism in “Heart of

Darkness” that is not present in “Seasons of Migration To The North”. The natives in “Heart of

Darkness” tortured, beaten, and enslaved by the ivory collectors that were stationed in their

homeland. They were seen and treated as if they were rabid animals , and often called savages.

So since Marlow classified them like that, he his idea was to train them to act more “human”.

However in “Seasons of Migration To The North” it wasn’t this way, the officials set off to find

to children to be able to educate them, maybe their intention was to make them act more

European, but not in a racist or cruel way, like that of the natives in “Heart of Darkness”.

In conclusion, both of these stories are exquisitely informational when it comes to the

historical context of each novel. From the racism in Heart of Darkness to the post-colonial issues

in Seasons of Migration Of The North, these novels educate you on topics that are very often

overlooked and forgotten. These novels have exposed the truths of about the many different

hardships that a certain particular group of human beings go through, that not a lot of people are

aware of. Reading novels like these help you to grow more informed on history from third world

countries who are constantly being stereotyped and degraded. The depiction of the natives in

heart of darkness sparked tons of backlash on the author Joseph Conrad, and how his

descriptions of the natives were extremely racist and foul. The depiction of women in Seasons of

Migration To The North were extremely sexualized, objective, and due to this the novel itself

was deemed pornographic and banned in Sudan for a very long time as discussed in class.
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Overall, learning about subjects like these open up your mind to real world problems that have

been forming since centuries ago.

Works Cited

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. 5th ed., W.W. Norton & Company, 2016.

Salih, Tayeb, and Laila Lalami. Season of Migration To The North. Translated by Denys

Johnson- Davies, The New York Review of Books, 1966.