An Outpost of Progress is a short story by Conrad that shows how the controls of a civilization are necessary for the sanity of the people. Two ordinary white men, Kayerts and Carlier, have been posted to a distant trading station in the heart of Africa. His job is to oversee the collection of ivory at the station. In a strange land, with different customs and different people, Kayerts and Carlier are essentially isolated; they depend on each other for any significant company.
In this context, Conrad exposes how men fall apart if they do not have the strict controls of a society that disciplines them. Kayerts and Carlier are seen to simply pass the time, waiting for things to happen on their own, resigning themselves to their fates. They are incapable of improving their living conditions, they do not show any initiative and they are seen headed for a gradual degradation.
In the end, we see how these two men, who once called each other ‘my dear friend’, are consumed by mutual distrust and fight over very small things. Finally, one man kills the other over a trivial dispute and unable to face the consequences of his action, he commits suicide.
‘Coping effectively even with material problems requires more serenity of mind and nobler courage than people often imagine.’ Conrad shows us how these two individuals are unable to maintain decent living conditions when left alone simply because they are completely isolated from a society with its system of rewards and punishments. ‘they… don’t know what to do with their freedom’.
The central irony of the story is that these two individuals had been sent by a civilized European country to a ‘dark’ Africa. Their mission is to bring ‘light, faith and commerce to the dark places of the earth’. It is ironic how, instead of achieving this goal, men fell prey to the dark forces of “pure and unmitigated savagery”, “primitive nature” and “primitive man”. Men lose the values that civilization had taught them and succumb to the dark forces within themselves that the chains of society had long suppressed.
This irony is a common theme in many of Conrad’s stories. These include Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim. In both stories we see examples of how men who have been sent to the colonies succumb to a life of degradation.