Skip to main content
Log in

Still the Heart of Darkness: The Ebola Virus and the Meta-Narrative of Disease in The Hot Zone

  • Published:
Journal of Medical Humanities Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

“Still the Heart of Darkness” analyzes Richard Preston's best-selling account of an Ebola virus outbreak in Reston, Virginia in 1989. Through a textual examination of The Hot Zone, this essay demonstrates how Preston grounds his narrative about the threat of rare emerging viruses from the third world in terms of the colonialist discourse about Africa as “the white man's grave,” most notably Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. By foregrounding previous outbreaks in Africa, Preston simultaneously darkens its landscape and inscribes the Ebola filovirus as an external biological threat to Americans in a post-Cold War world with porous borders.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

REFERENCES

  • Austin, B. S. (1989-1990). AIDS and Africa: United States media and racist fantasy. Cultural Critique (Winter), 129–152.

  • Brantlinger, P. (Ed.). (1988). The myth of the dark continent. Rule of darkness: British literature and imperialism (pp. 173–197). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

  • Cerullo, M., & Hammonds, E. (1988). AIDS and Africa: The Western imagination and the dark continent. Radical America, 21, 7–22.

    Google Scholar 

  • Conrad, J. (1988). Heart of darkness (3rd ed.). New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Curtin, P. (1964). The image of Africa. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Olsen, P. E., Hames, C. S., Benenson, A. S., & Genovese, E. N. (1996). The Thucydides syndrome: Elboa déjà vu (or Ebola reemergent?). Emerging Infectious Diseases, 2, 155–156.

    Google Scholar 

  • Preston, R. (1994). The hot zone (1st ed.). New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ransdell, E. (1995, May 29). The most persistent virus. US News and World Report, 43.

  • Real sickness behind Ebola. (1995, May 22). The Los Angeles Times, p. B10.

  • Scott, S., & Duncan, C. (2001). Biology of plagues: Evidence from historical populations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Triechler, P. A. (1999). How to have theory in an epidemic: Cultural chronicles of AIDS. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Watney, S. (1990). Missionary positions: AIDS, Africa, and race. In R. Ferguson, M. Gever, T. Minh-ha, & C. West (Eds.), Out there: Marginalisation and contemporary cultures (pp. 89–103). NewYork: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Douglas M. Haynes.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Haynes, D.M. Still the Heart of Darkness: The Ebola Virus and the Meta-Narrative of Disease in The Hot Zone. Journal of Medical Humanities 23, 133–145 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014846131921

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1014846131921

Navigation