Characters+-+An+Outpost+of+Progress

Characters:

Kayerts and Carlier
Kayerts is the chief of the station he, as well as his assistant Carlier, is new on the outpost. The first description of them is comically, they are both not good looking. "Kayerts, the chief is short and fat." (P.8) And Carlier is thin and tall. Kayerts came to this lonely outpost in order to earn money for his daughter, back in England. While Carlier came there because it was the last thing he could do. Back in England he had not a single penny in his pocket so he had to take the job. In the beginning they feel proud about their challenge. But soon they start to feeling uncomfortable about the wilderness around them and nothing there to protect them. At least they are glad to have each other. Except feeling uncomfortable both are completely incompetent to run the station. In the night when Makola sells the 10 workers Kayerts looses every courage and both start sttting around being sick and doing nothing. Things are becomming worse for them. The village people stop coming around of fear they get sold too and so the survival of the two Brits depends on their own. The situation grows more and more tensive and in the end so much that they start a fight, in which Carlier dies. Kayerts sees no more reason why he should stay alive and he commits suicide. Both of them are not used to be all alone, before they have lived in the safeness of British society and they have never been depended on their own. None of them knows how to survive in the wilderness, and how could they? They have ever been in the surroundings by people who had told them what to do. The safeness of European society is a luxury on one hand, on the other hand it is deathly for the two Company agents.

Makola (Henry Price)
Makola is the bookkeeper of the station. But because of Kayerts and Carliers incompetence he has to run the station all alone. Makola is well educated: he speaks English and french and has a neat handwriting. But those skills are just superficial marks of civilization and the author sets them in contrast with Makolas belief in "evil spirits". One day some slave traders appear at the outpost and offer him a good amount of tusks for the 10 workers. Makola makes the decision to sell the workers. Even when Kayerts blames him for what he has done he does not regret anything, he thinks this was a good job selling bad and sick workers for a lot of tusks. Makola does not care a lot about the two white guys, he actually dislikes them. Through the whole story we don’t get to know more about Makolas character and we don’t even know what he thinks. So it is not clear why Makola did sell the workers, and why he really hated the whites.

The Village-people ( Gobila)
The village people and their chief Gobila believe that the two whites are some kind of Gods. They often come around watching the whites or bringing food. Their relationship to Kayerts and Carlier suddenly changes when the slave traders accidentally take some of the village people with them. From this point on they do not come near to the station and when the two Brits would come near to their village they would shoot at them to chase them away. Some of the villagers are even shouting for revenge but Gobila stops them, he believes that they would someday disappear under the earth.