Akbaş 1

Şehmus Akbaş

07140000388

Research and Writing Process Final Assignment

Research Assistant Dilek Menteşe

29.5.17

Ambiguity of Darkness Imperialism Creates in Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad is best known for his modern era critic novel Nostromo which takes

place in fictitious South American republic of “Costaguana”. As he was a seaman himself, he

worked in ships, sailed to different places and became a prolific writer later on. Among his

works are one of the best critic books of imperialism, colonialism and civilization as it is.

Heart of Darkness, which narrates the story of Marlow, the narrator’s captain, is written with

the frame narrative technique. While this technique lets the audience to read Marlow’s tale

from second hand, we know that Marlow is the character that Joseph Conrad identified

himself with. We should not read the tale as a biography, however “Despite D.H. Lawrence's

warning, 'Never trust the artist. Trust the tale', Conrad's own conception of his tale should not

be over-looked” (Raskin 3). Though the tale is the told from the perspective of Marlow they

are his memories that he cannot forget or get out of his mind. This journey that he took to

Congo as a steamer captain, lets us explore namely Free State of Congo under Belgian

occupation actually. While Belgians of the time under the reign of King Leopold II usurped

the richness of Congo, stealing ivory and timber and selling these materials to Europe,

Congoese people, unaware of white man’s pistols and rifles, had to extract their own richness

and give them to these intruders. Not until Marlow hears of Mr Kurtz that the barbarous and

horrific ways of tortures are revealed in the story; Kurtz is a highly educated European person

but he “has submitted to, rather than suppressed, the natives' savagery, with its hints of
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cannibalism and sexual license” (Stewart 2). Thus, Conrad’s own conception helps us profile

Kurtz, his imperial evolution and with his darkness imagery in the title Conrad refers “not

only to the heart of 'darkest Africa' but also to Kurtz's corruption, to benighted London, and to

innumerable kinds of darkness and obscurity, physical, moral, and ontological” (Watts 47).

Joseph Conrad conveys the idea of imperialism being an evil way of colonisation through

various kinds of darkness imageries, which are the literal darkness of Congo and the black

people, the evil side of European colonialism and the individual darkness into which a person

may be drifted in a horrific way.

First of all, the darkness imagery in the title is linked to the untamed and barbaric

nature of Congo and the Congolese, which requires civilization and prosperity in the

European man’s eye. Though for Marlow justification of this type of colonization is the idea

of taking the responsibility of Congo and taking the civilization there, the ways of doing it

from his perspective prove quite futile and wrong:

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have

a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when

you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not

a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea—something you

can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. (Conrad 8)

For Marlow the idea of colonizing Congo will enrich there just like Roman Empire colonized

what stands as Britain today before nine hundred years (Conrad 6). Actually imperialism may

come in several ways and important differentiations must be shown; in terms of imperial

aims, systems of administration, degrees of exploitation and even types of exploitation may

differ from time to time and place to place (Hawkins 4). As Hawkins has shown us, the faulty

justification Marlow puts forward shows up between the comparison of Roman colonisation
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and Belgian colonisation. Unlike in Britain those that die like flies in the colony are not the

Belgians in Congo, instead the natives or savages, brutes and what else as they call them are

exterminated (Conrad 83). We also witness the evolution of not only Marlow but also his

discourse throughout the tale. Although he uses words such as savage or nigger to refer the

natives it is because of the insufficient awareness and the savage in the tale turns out to be the

devils of violence, the devil of greed and the devil of hot desire, as Marlow discovers later on

(Conrad 24). Also Marlow would find out how insidious Kurtz could be, too, but after several

months and a thousand miles farther (Conrad 24). What shocks us about Marlow’s discovery

of Kurtz’s nature is that Marlow was not shocked to see one of those drying heads at the top

of poles around Kurtz’s house in his direction (Conrad 96). We learn that these drying heads

or skulls belong to the natives who were once alive and who knows what they did to deserve

such a way to be ants’ and vultures’ prey. While the natives are titular savages, it is the white

man, namely Kurtz who does the savagery in the heart of darkness.

The Belgian government of the time referred as the company in the tale shows the

reader the main profit of colonialism and the paradox in which so-called civilization tortures

the uncivilized in a barbaric way. The reason King Leopold II of the time while Conrad

decided to write Heart of Darkness is known as a tyrant today is that he acquired Congo as his

own property rather than as a Belgian colony through sly diplomatic tricks (Hawkins 5).

Though this is a fact known today, in the story we cannot see King Leopold’s name directly

because if Conrad referred to him by his name we could not read such story as Heart of

Darkness today. Instead, Conrad preferred to refer him as “company”. This company, namely

Belgian Societe Anonyme Belge pour le Commerce du Haut-Congo, is the same company

that hired Conrad as a steamer captain and the same company with the one in the tale that

hired Marlow, as well (Hawkins 6). We know today that King Leopold’s army, Force

Publique, to raise taxes were used in order to turn country into a slave yard. While King
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Leopold defended to idea to set up an army in Congo against Arab slave traders in Brussels

Conference 1890, the Force was a catalyst of slave trade itself, let alone fighting against it

(Hawkins 6). The illusion of colonialism does not only trick the natives of Congo but also

other European countries and the whole world. Marlow turns into a remnant or even a part of

Kurtz at the end of the tale from “something like an emissary of light, something like a lower

sort of apostle” (Conrad 9). Thus, this illusion of imperialism, invasion in other words tricks

both the individual and communities. Jonah Raskin says that Conrad’s indignation of being a

European slave and exploitation motivated him to create such an art in which Belgian

exploitation of Congo took place, and his sense of being on the “frontier between civilization

and savagery” transformed itself into a tale about the barbarism of colonialism (9-10).

If we regard the Kurtz as a symbolic representative of European materialism or

London specifically, the very title of the tale refers not only to Africa as a continent but also

corruption of Kurtz and European imperialism. The important relationship between Marlow

and Kurtz in this respect of Kurtz’s corruption will help us understand how the evolution of

Marlow and Conrad’s discourse throughout the tale emphasized this notion of individual

darkness. To his question of Kurtz being the heart or soul of darkness repressed beneath the

accretions and delusions of civilization, what Marlow’s relation is John Tessitore says

“Marlow is mind-we might say ego or even superego to an id identified with those dark lusts

in the jungle” (Tessitore 6). Through Marlow and Kurtz relationship, Conrad lets us render to

analyse teaching, learning and negotiating alternative viewpoints. To exemplify: he offers

conflicting interpretations of Kurtz’s cry, ‘The horror! The horror!’. Perhaps these whispering

exclamations refer to Kurtz’s corruption, perhaps to the horror of a senseless universe. But

there is a chance of another meaning, as well, since no final explanation is offered (Watts 57).

By such symbols like darkness and double call of horror combined with the frame narration,

Joseph Conrad may also emphasize interplay of personal and social experience, perhaps
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dramatizing relativism of perception, limitations of knowledge or conflicts between private

and public codes (Watts 46). Another point that should be mentioned about Kurtz is his

postscript that says “Exterminate all the brutes!” on a letter to his company (Conrad 83). A

man to whose making all Europe contributed became a pseudo-god that forces people to

worship him and started to attack even white man in fear of losing his self-made god status.

Cedric Watts explains this overtly exaggerated godhood psychology of Kurtz and his

ferocious fulfilments with Freud’s emphasis on the divided self, the striving, lustful, anarchic

id seeking gratification despite the countervailing pressure of the ego or super-ego (Watts 50).

In conclusion, whether it is the dark nature of Congo, evil side of European

colonialism or Kurtz’s pose upon African people as a European Buddha, Heart of Darkness,

which narrates the reality behind the myths of imperialism and the colonisation, is “Marlow's

nightmarish journey explicitly likened to Dante's imaginary journey in The Inferno” (Watts

45). On the way to the heart of darkness, Kurtz’s inn, Marlow will go through a lot of paths

like Dante and he will reach his ultimate goal, to meet Mr Kurtz. Kurtz’s body is described as

“an animated image of death carved out of old ivory” ironically since he called all the ivory as

“My ivory” gathered from different parts of Congo by the natives of Congo (Conrad 80).

Kurtz did not only live a spiritual death, but the death he dealt to other people returned to him

with horrific appropriateness of his physical end, as well. We have watched allusions

accumulate from the beginning to the end of the tale, as he has slain he is the one that laid low

now; as he lusted, so death coverts him (Stewart 7). Life and death of Kurtz clarifies how the

evilness of colonialism not only affects societies, since the colonizing society corrupts as well

as the colonized society, but also the individuals. Though this story was intended as a

criticism of colonialists in Africa, Conrad gave us more than a bare criticism of invasion.

Thanks to the company that hired Marlow in the story, King Leopold of Belgium’s society to

legalize exploitation of Congo as it is written above, we know today this tale’s real life effects
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as well. Although the title of the story seems like describing dense forests of Congo, actually

it refers to many notions such as personal corruption of individual, degeneration of societies

or the evil nature of human in Freudian context. While Marlow starts his tale with a

justification of colonisation that shows his feelings of guilt, he develops an evolution and

helps us criticise this type of conquering the earth. This Divine Comedy-like journey Marlow

takes shows us how it turned out from “Exterminate all the brutes!” to “The horror! The

horror!” of European man’s heart.

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Works Cited

1) Raskin, Jonah. “Imperialism: Conrad's Heart of Darkness.” Journal of Contemporary

History, vol. 2, no. 2, Literature and Society, 1 Apr. 1967, pp. 113–131. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/259954?
ref=searchgateway:34e9c9a4239cdeab8cdeae18e7ca641. Accessed 30 May 2017.

2) Stewart, Garrett. “Lying as Dying in Heart of Darkness.” PMLA, vol. 95, no. 3, 1 May
1980, pp. 319–331. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/461876?
ref=searchgateway:ff85331fe0818ee4ee3f9e0dbe49393a. Accessed 30 May 2017.

3) Stape, John Henry., et al. The Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad. Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 2006.

4) Conrad, Joseph. The Heart of Darkness. Kessinger Publishing, 2010.

5) Hawkins, Hunt. “Conrad's Critique of Imperialism in Heart of Darkness.” PMLA, vol. 94,

no. 2, 1 Mar. 1979, pp. 286–299. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/461892?ref=search-
gateway:82769e37066fbecc247df6bdd161d0ce. Accessed 30 May 2017.

6) Tessitore, John. “Freud, Conrad, and ‘Heart of Darkness.’” College Literature, vol. 7, no.
1, 1 Jan. 1980, pp. 30–40. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/25111287?ref=search-
gateway:4cd0bad15eb036e8141346aff1225fd1. Accessed 30 May 2017.