The British Empire at a glance, appears to warrant a seemingly clear definition. Expansive areas were under the rule of the British military and economic control, territories and seas were united by the British Crown and governed in the main city of London, this is the Empire on which the Sun never set.
The Empire at its height, constituted a large section of land area on a global scale. Porter highlights that citizens of the empire as well as its subjects constituted a significant transection of mankind, including peoples from a variation of colors, ethnicities and religions. Taking into account the previously mentioned, images of ‘dedicated (or arrogant) proconsuls in plumed helmets, and brave (or bullying) redcoats forming in squares, supported by enterprising (or greedy) and self-sacrificing (or fanatical) missionaries exerting a dominion over palm and pine’ encapsulate the milieu of nations under the British rule. Given the aforementioned, an additional image is formed of a Victorian society in support of the British Empire and what it represented, Edward Said in Always on Top asserts that the Empire even prior to its pinnacle during the 1850’s would have had adverse effects in sustaining and expanding control over territories sans the oftentimes tacit approval of the British senso commune. The ‘senso commune’ represents judgement with the absence of reflection by individuals on every level of the social hierarchy and is used by Said to illustrate unanimous support of the English with respect to British territories.

Homi K. Bhabha delineates in Nation and Narration that ‘Nations, like narratives, lose their origins in the myths of time and only fully realize their horizons in the mind\’s eye.’ The previously mentioned, forms a connection between culture and imperialism where the metanarrative of liberation and enlightenment impelled the people under colonial rule to fight against imperial subjugation. This forms the basis for postcolonial theory which seeks to ascertain the effects of European colonialism throughout its many territories, identifying facets of the lives led by the colonized people as well as the role of colonialism in the development of Western literature and philosophy in the ex-colonies during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in conjunction with the advent of literature pertaining to dissidence and resistance. Leading figures in the field of postcolonial theory include the likes of Edward Said, Homi K. Bhaha and Gayatri C. Spivak.

In The Heart of Darkness, Conrad illustrates the atrocities that occurred in the Belgian colony, Congo Free State. Said author provides calculated estimations of the human costs and revenues gained by King Leopold II, the King of Belgium; the preceding is contrasted and reinforced through metaphorical prose on the ambiguity, enigma and clandestinity that encompasses Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Conrad pre