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Marlow meets the company’s Chief Accountant when he arrives at the Outer Station, and he is surprised to find him in such a pristine condition despite the environment in which he lives and works. The most notable aspect of the Chief Accountant’s character is his attire as his clothes reveal a significant amount of information about him and the colonial enterprise he serves. Described as “a sort of vision,” Marlow is amazed by the Chief Accountant’s starched collar, alpaca jacket, long pants, and shined boots. Every single aspect of his attire, not to mention their pure, snow-white color, is extremely impractical for life alongside the Congo. This choice of wardrobe emphasizes how out of touch the Chief Accountant is with the realities of his environment. By extension, his insistence on maintaining formal European dress despite its impracticalities reflects the absurdity of the company’s imperialist mission as a whole. The Chief Accountant’s attire is also indicative of his overall personality, one which Marlow quickly discovers is very precise and impersonal. He spends all of his time focusing on clerical work in his makeshift office while disregarding the seemingly unending displays of human suffering occurring around him.
Conrad’s choice to juxtapose the elegant Chief Accountant with the scenes of the chain gang and the grove of death calls attention to the hypocrisies and undeniable brutality of imperialism. Despite all of the intense physical labor that the company forces the Africans into, the Chief Accountant admits that his main accomplishment has been teaching a native woman to upkeep his wardrobe. Marlow explains to his audience that he has respect for the Chief Accountant, but his reputation as an unreliable narrator invites the possibility of this commentary being more ironic than genuine. What Marlow certainly takes seriously, however, is the Chief Accountant’s assessment of Mr. Kurtz. The Chief Accountant is the first one to mention Kurtz to Marlow, and he describes him as a remarkable man who will surely go far in the company. These details act as the spark for Marlow’s desire to discover who Kurtz truly is.
