Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………….

Chapter 1: Into the Auctorial Imagination

1.1. Social and Cultural Context…………………………………………………………
…….
1.2. Sources of Inspiration and Critical
Perspectives…………………………………………...
1.3. Synergy between Modernism and Nihilism in Heart of
Darkness……………………………

Chapter 2: Imperialism and the Descent into Darkness

2.1 The Fatality of Civilization and the Aporetic Primitivism…………………………………
2.2 Manichean Demythisation and the Illusion of Free-will………………………………......
2.3 On the Verges of Human Sanity, A Psychoanalytic Insight into Kurtz’s Character………

Chapter 3: Solipsistic Imagination and the God Complex

3.1 Introspective Pathway toward Illumination……………………………………………….
3.2 Nihil sine Marlow…………………………………………………………………………
3.3 Solipsistic Schemata……………………………………………………………………….
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….

Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………….
 Chapter 1 – Into the Auctorial Imagination

1.1. Social and Cultural Context

The time-frame when Joseph Conrad lived and wrote his literary opus was marked by
the transition between the Victorian Era and the ever-expanding influence of modernism. The
two currents intertwined, and their values are perfectly reflected by the author in his work.
More than this, he also looks upon the very nature of heroism, how it falls in line with a
character’s motivation and interaction with the world.
From a social point of view, the Victorian period (1830-1901) was marked by
revolutions all around, social, cultural, literary, and last but not least, a transformation of
mentalities. Moreover, considering the great influence that Queen Victoria had during this
time, the period is named after her: her legacy and name becoming synonymous to the many
positive changes of the era. What is more, Victoria herself supported the development of the
age, and she identified herself with the qualities that we now know to be Victorian –
earnestness, moral responsibility and ethical backbone, domestic propriety. For the most part,
we would often think of the Victorian Period and imagine it to be filled with sombre artists,
where hard work was closely followed by joyless abstinence from the worldly pleasures.
However, this is not all there is to this great era. The long reign of Queen Victoria saw
invention of the diesel engine, the light bulb and the telephone, the appearance of Darwin’s
“Theory of evolution on the origin of species”, all of them inventions and creations of
inestimable value to our current world. This was a time of great innovations, of great men and
women whose mind illuminated society as we see it. The Industrial Revolution marked the
very peak of technological revolutions that took place during this time-frame. And this all
came full circle with the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1851.
Originally the brain-child of Victoria’s husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and
Gotha, the Great Exhibition was initially devised to showcase the artistic advancements and
diversity for the benefit of all nations. However, after the concept of a self-financing event
became clear, and electrified as it was by the resounding success of the French Industrial
Revolution in 1844, Great Britain had to come up with something even bigger. As such, in

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1851, the Crystal Palace housed the grandest and most comprehensive exhibition of artistic
and industrial developments of the 19th century, with Queen Victoria herself doing the
opening ceremony. Many social, political, religious, technological, and scientific reforms
were the mark of an ever-growing British Empire whose hegemonic tendencies spread across
the known world. To put things into perspective, nearly a quarter of the known world was
under the dominion of the queen’s armies, with more than a quarter of the world’s population
at that time having been forced to submit.
The 19th century saw the apex of the British Empire’s territorial expansion with the
occupation of Africa and the continuous excursions of the East India Company into the
Indian countries. The governmental authority in India strengthened, and the crown jewel
shined the brightest. Beside the artistic, industrial, and technological advancements, as well
as the territorial expansion, there are also social changes that took place in Great Britain at
that time, transformations that changed society as a whole. Most importantly, what changed
was the way people saw each other, the relationships they fostered, the goals they aimed for,
and the means to get to those ends.
The most pregnant problem of the century was the fact that the vast majority of
British people could not vote. At the dawn of the Victorian Period, the two political parties
who controlled the political stage then, the Whigs and the Tories, were fighting bitterly to tip
the scales in one side or the other. The Tories were monarchists, and they argued that only
rich people who owned lands should have the right to vote. Evidently, the common class and
the working man did not fit into this category so they were excluded from voting. As for
women, they had it much worse, since even Queen Victoria thought that it was immoral for
women to be considered equal to men. Receiving the right to vote seemed like a far-fetched
dream.
The First Reform Bill in 1832 was the first step towards voting equality. Although the
working class was still excluded from partaking in politics, the right to vote was indeed
extended to more people. This was surely the beginning of something good, even if it was
made in small, incremental steps. The Chartist movement was born in this way, and they had
big ideals: giving the right to vote to all male population, the implementation of the secret
vote, since bribery and threats were the commonest of goods peddled at the voting booths.
The Second Reform Bill in 1867 came as a direct consequence of popular unrest and
the Chartist movement going strong on their demands. As such, the right to vote was still
based on property qualifications, but they were lessened to such a degree that many more
people could express their political views freely. However firm the campaigns for women’s

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right to vote was, it still was not the time for such a change to occur. The right to vote was
extended to more and more people through the Third Reform Bill in 1884, but only in 1918
would it coalesce to finally make the final move. Universal suffrage had finally been attained
– all men older than 21 and all women older than 30 had the right to vote, regardless of any
property requirements. From 1921, women were able to vote from the age of 21 as well.
Many more social reforms were adopted that dealt with how the working people were
perceived, the issue of exploitation, the problem of poverty, the lack of education, and even
public health were concerns that were dealt with slowly but steadily. To name the most
important social revolutions: then Ten Hours Act and the Factory Act in 1833 limited the
exploitation of children and factory workers; the 1834 Poor Law Amendment, the Corn
Laws, the 1870 Elementary Education Act which made the state education system
compulsory; last but not least, the 1875 Public Health Act made it possible for all people to
have more civilized living conditions. Even thought things had started to get better for the
working classes, there was still a stark social inequity present all over the country. While the
middle classes adopted the mask of respectability, public face, and self-control, it was all
supported by an overarching system of pettiness, corruption, a natural sense of superiority,
vanity, and exploitation. The majority of the population still lived in lacklustre conditions of
harsh poverty.
The Victorian literature is thus entirely possessed by this sense of underlying
morality, a virtuous nature that all men should have. Through bitter hard work and ambition,
walking through fire to finally overtake one’s condition, this is how the idealistic portrait of a
Victorian character looked like. It was no longer art for art’s sake, but it went so far as to
uphold a moral purpose as the end-goal of a functional human being. Some of the most
important Victorian writers were the Bronte sisters, George Elliot, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Oscar Wilde, Lewis Carrol, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis
Stevenson, Robert Browning, and Joseph Conrad. And most interesting is that the Victorian
literary values wondrously preceded the ascension of modernism and the modernist
mentality. Although going on a slightly different direction, the founding stones were still set
by the Victorians.
Modernism, on the other hand, made its way as a “revolt against decadence” (Weller,
2011, 1), a counter-attack against tradition and its expansion. An aesthetic phenomenon par
excellence, having ramification in philosophy, politics, and last but not least, literature,
modernism seeks to emphasize originality, to reject the principles made popular by the
Enlightenment. The cult of fragmentation and the loss of faith in progress made up the mind-

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set of the modernist people. Beyond this, ambiguity, alienation and introspection became
widely used techniques in literature, authors experimented with the powers invested in them
through pen and paper. It is these very elements that we see present in “Heart of Darkness,”
with a nihilist overlook to coagulate it all together.
Modernity, not to be confused with modernism, is the actual time frame when the
values of the 18th century Enlightenment were deeply ingrained within the collective mind-
set. The single most important values were reason, rationality, logic, and scepticism. As
Roger Griffin says (qtd. in Weller, 2011: 2), modernity is all about

the spread of rationalism, liberalism, secularization, individualism and capitalism, the

cult of progress, expanding literacy rates and social mobility, urbanization and
industrialization, the emergence of the urban middle class (capitalist), and the working
(rural and proletarian) classes from a feudal structure of society, the growth of
representative government and bureaucratization, revolutionary developments in
communications and transport, geographical discoveries and imperial expansion, the
advance of secular science and ever more powerful technology and technocracy.

Other modernist writers of the century like Virginia Woolf, Samuel Becket, T.S. Eliot,
James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Franz Kafka drove the standards even further, each creating
his or her own legacy. But it was Joseph Conrad that pioneered the kind of literary work that
dealt with the inner intricacies of the human mind, its tendency to go into cognitive
dissonance when presented with contradictory data. He was the one who sought to discover
and analyse the motivations, glitches, unconditional instincts and impulses that have an
influence on the individual as a whole, the ones that lead him astray, as well as the ones that
support his ascension.
Through modernism, the limitations of the mind, of the creative impetus, were thrown
away. The insightful spirit of the artist was unshackled, set free upon the world to experiment
and find new ways to ply his trade, to wipe away the dust and clean the cobwebs, to expand
the creative domain. New technological discoveries and innovations shell-shocked everyone,
and the culture had to keep the pace, constantly bringing forth new theories, new ideas which
were soon refuted or replaced. This cultural acceleration had its eyes set in multiple
directions, blindly grasping at anything that faintly resembled innovation, but it led to the
appearance of indisputably significant artistic currents: futurism, constructivism, Dadaism,
surrealism, cubism, and expressionism.

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 Conrad combines the heroic ideal of the Victorian period and casts a magnifying glass
over it using the modernist tools at his disposal. His “Heart of Darkness” is a perfect blend
between the two, but modernism comes out on top as the driving force of the entire novel,
mainly because it is sunken in nihilistic perspectives that incites the reader to a more attentive
and philosophical lecture. It drives one to ponder on certain existential and societal facts, on
the true nature of heroism, on the problem of morality, of good, evil, and the many shades of
grey existent in-between the two.

1.2. Sources of Inspiration and Critical Perspectives

Ever since he was young, Conrad dreamed of sailing the seas and commandeering his
own ship. To explore the vast expanses of the sea, and to go to places few people dared
venture, this was a goal that he sought to accomplish. After both his parents died, the young
Conrad went to live with his maternal uncle in Krakow (Bloom, 2009), where he started
reading the likes of Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo. He enlisted in the French merchant
marine in October 1874, and that is when his voyaging career started. After numerous
expeditions and nautical successes, receiving command of his own ship, and changing his
name to Joseph Conrad, the long-awaited moment came that would put a definitive mark on
his writing career, and act as a source of inspiration for future novels. In 1890, he was sent to
Africa with the express purpose of taking the steer of a riverboat sailing down the river
Congo. With hopes of fulfilling his boyish fantasies of uncovering uncharted lands, taking the
English flag in the furthest reaches of the savage lands, not even he realized that what
awaited was disillusionment and a humanity that not even he recognized.
For the first two months, he occupied the position of first mate on the ship, so he
hardly had any chance to indulge in his cravings for sailing the boat on his own. He would
only get his own ship after he would arrive on the Congo river, but fate had other things in
store. It seems like the boat was damaged, and he was forced to sail under someone else’s
command again (Bloom, 2009), an event which also transpires in his “Heart of Darkness,”
only with far more vividness and veracity. From that moment on, he bore witness to countless
atrocities and inhumane events, acts of utmost cruelty and incredibly sickening happenings,
things did out of greed, spite, and absolute evil. All his boyish fantasies crumbled to dust as
he had to endure the journey forward. Unarguably, he attributed the macabre and unchained

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evil he had seen with the effects of imperialism, the attempt to occupy and civilize the savage
people of Africa.
It is not, then, without a strong fundamental basis in reality, that he starts writing the
“Heart of Darkness” after eight years upon his return to England, he himself admitting to this
fact (Bloom, 2009: 16). The events that he describes in the novel, from start to finish, have an
uncanny resemblance to his own experiences as a sailor, his own disappointment in
humanity, the disillusionment and shell-shock received after seeing how the civilized can
easily become more savage than the savage natives themselves. Moreover, the resemblance
between Charlie Marlow and Conrad himself is evident from the very start, but also certain
clues that link Kurtz with an injured imperialist agent that Conrad’s boat picked up on the
way. The agent died shortly after, which increases the likelihood of him being the inspiration
for Kurtz.
Perhaps out of patriotic zeal, although highly unlikely, considering his experiences,
the unwillingness to condemn an entire race, or simply because he wanted to avoid
stigmatization, Conrad does not directly accuse the English imperialism of dehumanization.
Instead, he makes it so that Marlow is hired by a Belgian company, under whose name he
sails into Congo. The camouflage appears true because Belgium’s King Leopold organized
many excursions in Congo during those times (Idem). As such, the English readers could
avoid feeling guilty with their national culture and their past, even though the novel is clear
about its inspiration sources, and London’s status as the most affluent and influent city in the
world is constantly reinforced in the beginning.
However, as far as inspiration goes, “Heart of Darkness” is not just a recalling of the
author’s experiences on the sea and journey on the river Congo. We must also take into
account his own life, his personal history that led to such feelings of cynicism, nihilism, loss
of faith in humanity, and the formation of his social views. The death of his parents because
of political reasons, for example, clearly played a significant part in the development of his
political perspectives, and the visible isolation from his country propelled “Heart of
Darkness” on the global stage. (Idem)
Regarding his critical reception, Conrad can be said to have been very prolific. The
fact that his “Heart of Darkness” had a very controversial subject, clear deductible
implications, concise allusions, and a scalpel-like way of showcasing the realities of
imperialism and Africa contributed by quite a large margin, to say the least. The novel was an
eye-opener, and it still is even now, and so it can easily be misunderstood or perceived for
something it is clearly not. In any case, what Conrad did can be said to have been a first,

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depicting the cold, harsh, and utterly cruel nature of man, the hypocrisy of his civilizing
attempts, and the slow but steady descent into savagery and amorality. However, like all eye-
opening constructs and perspectives that go against the status-quo and the general opinion,
“Heart of Darkness” received the critics’ naked criticism and blunt attacks. Some of the
topics addressed Conrad’s image of Africa, scepticism and the search for God in man, and the
envisioning of Kurtz.
To start with, Peter Edgerly Firchow talks about the many different perspectives and
opinions on Kurt’s identity, the man behind the mask, the historical personality that served as
a model for the character (Bloom, 2009: 32). It seems that Conrad himself said that his novel
is inspired by actual events and experiences, but that he slightly made some alterations, all
“for the perfectly legitimate, I believe, purpose of bringing it home to the minds and bosoms
of the readers” (qtd. in Bloom, 2009: 32). The first and foremost critic who addressed this
claim was Normal Sherry, who argued that the changes made by the author are not only
“slightly” but more expansive that it would appear on a first glance. More specifically, he
talks about the one character that seems to have only played a small role in Conrad’s own
experiences on the river Congo, Kurtz.
It is known that the riverboat on which Conrad sailed as a first mate on the Congo
river picked up a wounded company agent named Georges Antoine Klein, who died on the
way back of tropical fever. The same sickness also led to Kurtz’s demise. Sherry argues that
beyond this similarity, there is actually no other common ground between the two men, one
real and one fictional. Perhaps this is for the best, since Kurtz’s descent into madness, all the
terrible things he has done, the conflicts that he sparked, and his manipulative nature, we
believe none of these are such small matters that burdening Klein with them would be
forgivable or deemed insignificant. Indeed, they are grave sins that Kurtz himself is
accountable for, aspects of his malady and moral decadence, acts that Klein had never
partaken in.
Peter Firchow raises the question of the identity of Kurtzs’ model on an even stronger
note, seeing as though neither Klein, nor Arthur Hodister, Conrad’s superior during the
Congo expedition, have any good reason to be considered for this role. The answer he comes
up with is “multitudes” (Bloom, 2009: 35). Meaning there are multiple people that have been
considered to be Kurtz’s role model, amongst which we can name Emin Pasha, the
Englishman Edmund Barttelot, Charles Henry Stokes (an ivory trader), Carl Peters, Paul
Volet, and Henry Morgan Stanley. All of them had tumultuous lives of exploration and
conquest, in some way or another, untimely deaths, or illustrative achievements. Henry

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Morgan Stanley, for example, is “the infamous/famous Anglo-American explorer who more
than any other single figure helped establish the Western stereotype of <<darkest Africa>>”
(Idem). The proponent of this suggestion was Ian Watt, who further said that Henry Morgan
Stanley acted not as the character model per se, but that his skewered moral compass and
dubious ethical background acted as a crucible for Kurtz as we see him in the novel.
However, none of these men sank so low as Kurtz did. But it seems rather that his
character was inspired by a multitude of models together, that it could represent the nefarious
and mortuary influence of European men on Africa, the corrosive effect of white people
trying to civilize the natives. We look upon Kurtz not as being the result of painting on a pre-
existing canvas, a type of Frankenstein stitched together from multiple parts, but as a singular
entity that gathers together all of the author’s intentions and inspirations. He has a life of his
own, personal convictions and motivations, which are entirely his, and the way he interacts
with the world is not that of a copy-cat, but a genuine living, breathing, and thinking being.
The critic Chinua Achebe addresses Conrad’s image of Africa that he portrays in the
novel, one filled with clear-cut contrasts between the civilizing European forces which
degenerate into uncouth, greedy, and petty individuals, and the simplistic and pure-of-heart
savages that inhabit the virgin forests of Africa. The point that the critic wants to make is that
the author is unquestionably a racist, that he intentionally demeans the European man, his
civilizing attempts, snuffing out any semblance of ethical truth or higher value. This image is
built upon in many different occasions; in the beginning, when the river Thames is described,
we see that it is “at the decline of the day after ages of good service done to the race that
peopled its banks” (Conrad, 2002: 4). At the opposite end of the spectrum, we have the river
Congo, that Marlow describes as “travelling back to the earliest beginnings of the world,
when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings.” (Ibidem: 67)
Achebe goes on to say that it is not the stark differences between the two rivers that
hints at the underlying racism, but rather the fact they are related to one another (Bloom,
2009: 73). The Thames too had gone through dark times, through treachery, cruelty, that it
too had been occupied by savagery and uncivilized people. While it has since survived the
bloody crucible and won itself the right to rest in tranquillity, the fact still remains that there
are some remaining splinters nudged deep within, in a dormant state. If it were to be exposed
to such outward stimuli that those inner demons awoke, all the accumulated efforts to rise
from the swamp of savagery would go to waste. It would undergo a deformed
metamorphosis, becoming muddy and toxic. Evidently, this analogy points out to the
devolution of European men, of the company agents, especially Kurtz, whose acts of utmost

8
barbarity and moral degeneracy are shown to be caused by these vestigial splinters of
darkness from a primordial past long forgotten. This atavism is ever-present and impossible
to stop once the frenzy sets in, is what Conrad is trying to say.
But it is the description of the people that brings it all together, the single most
important reflection of Conrad’s underlying racism. The critic points out to the stark
difference between the African woman that was Mr. Kurt’s mistress, and the European
woman at the end of the novel. The descriptions of the two characters are so far apart that
they might as well be placed at opposite sides of the spectre in terms of visible humanity and
depth of expression. While the native queen of the jungle is “savage and superb, wild-eyed
and magnificent…” (Conrad, 2002: 126), proudly occupying her rightful place in the savage
lands but incapable of speech at the same time, the English woman is brought out to have a
certain capacity for profoundness and consciousness. The fact that she verbalizes her
thoughts to the narrator while the native girl seems to be expressionless clearly marks a
definitive existential abyss that splits them apart.
Achebe notices that there are few moments in which Conrad allows his African peons
to ever utter a word (Bloom, 2009: 77), and both instances are delineated by such contexts
that the otherwise intellectual and superior act of speech is rendered grotesque and repulsive.
The first of these events takes place when the savages can’t resist their cannibalistic instincts
anymore, and this dialogue ensues: <<“Catch ‘im” he snapped with a bloodshot widening of
his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth – “catch ‘im.” Give ‘im to us.” “To you, eh?” I asked;
“what would you do with them?” “Eat ‘im!” he said curtly…>> (qtd. in Bloom, 2009: 77-78).
The second occasion is when Kurtz’s death is announced by the somewhat-domesticated
savage on the ship – “Mistah Kurtz – dead” (Conrad, 2002: 145). Having wilfully thrown
himself to the heart of darkness and succumbing to the savage ways of the natives, Kurtz
loses his status as a civilized man of England. It is only fitting that it’s not a white man that
declares him dead but one of the natives.
The critic ultimately comes to the conclusion that Conrad’s racism becomes crystal-
clear from the very beginning when he decides to use Africa as merely the background for
Kurtz’s psychological deterioration (Bloom, 2009: 79). In order for this process to be as vivid
and illustrative as possible, the African natives should evidently be positioned outside
humanity. For the differences to arise naturally and the idea of dehumanization to be
inculcated in the readers’ minds, the natives had to be both a cause for Kurtz’s devolution, as
well as fulfil the savage stereotype, devoid of all emotions or complex thoughts, controlled
only by sheer desire and animalistic instincts. They are invested with some kind of corrosive

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power, a malevolent influence that speaks to the atavistic persona in the Europeans. And
when they do manage to manifest some kind of civilized expression and superior thought, the
contexts themselves in which these events happen are a far cry from having a positive or
hopeful outlook. If anything, the reader is either beset by laughter or a feeling of superiority
when the desperate natives fail to control their cannibalistic tendencies. The English words
that they utter do nothing but convey a sense of derision and dehumanization yet again, the
feeling that they could never partake in civilization, never to overcome their natural savagery,
never to be as “human” as the Europeans.

1.3. Synergy between Modernism and Nihilism in “Heart of

Darkness”

Having strayed from the typical Victorian novel that sought to emphasize the heroic
nature of man or specific moral principles that one should have to live rightfully, Conrad’s
“Heart of Darkness” deviates and takes another path. It looks towards the breaking of such
traditions, towards innovation, introspection, and a bleak outlook on morality. Where you
would once see hard-working men whose grit and valour turned them into true paragons of
ambition and manliness, there is now an existential sickness, a devaluation of humanity.
More than this, there are various modernist characteristics that Conrad utilizes throughout
“Heart of Darkness.” Indeed, the novel itself is built from the ground up using such
modernist tools. For example, the multiple narrators technique is one such tool, one of them
being the unnamed narrator at the beginning of the story who bears witness to Marlow’s story
on the Nellie, and one being Marlow himself. Consequently, the confusion and uncertainty
that Marlow experiences every step of the way, and which Conrad seems to strongly
emphasize, are the make-up of a modernist novel as well. Omniscience is replaced by
subjectivity, the eagle’s eye vision with the up and personal. Much of what is happening
around Marlow is covered in mystery, unexplainable, and any guess is as good as another – “I
looked around, and I don’t know why, but I assure you that never, never before, did this land,
this river, this jungle, the very arch of this blazing sky, appear to me so hopeless and so dark
so impenetrable to human thought, so pitiless to human weakness.” (Conrad, 2002: 115)
One more defining modernist element is the large number of interpretations that can
be attributed to the actual story. Things are not what they seem at a first glance, that much is
clear. Marlow’s journey through Africa, his meeting with Kurtz, the conflict between

10
Europeans and natives, none of these events are so simple to decipher or understand. The fact
that Conrad throws the ball into the reader’s court, letting him take the lead and actually
deduce what the author might have meant with the story, this is a modernist tactic through
and through. Whether it is a harsh reflection of the effects of imperialism on conquered lands,
a journey into the human mind, a metaphorical descent into madness or a canvas showing the
dehumanization of man, they are all open for debate.
The temporal displacements in the story can be said to be modernist as well, the times
when Marlow jumps from one timeline to another, from the present to the past, from
recollection to reality. Even inside the story itself, the narrator makes sudden leaps in time,
bringing up events from the past or describing something that had transpired, that is
connected to what is happening in the present. For example, at one time after his quite
insistent speech on how much he hates and despises lying, Marlow unexpectedly cuts off the
story, and the unnamed narrator starts describing the surroundings on the Nellie yet again

It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see one another. For a long
time he, sitting apart, had been no more to us than a voice. There was not a word from
anybody. The others might have fallen asleep, but I was awake. I listened, I listened on
the watch for the sentence, for the word, that would give me the clue to the fain
uneasiness inspired by this narrative that seemed to shape itself without human lips in the
heavy night-air of the river. (Ibidem: 54)

As for the nihilistic influences and ideas presented throughout the novel, it can be said
that “Heart of Darkness” delves into what is formally known as existential nihilism. The
meaninglessness of the world, the lack of a greater purpose or a sense of belonging.
Throughout Marlow’s journey, we are being transported through innumerable events fraught
with pessimistic and dystopian images of absurdity, cruelty, the lack of morality, and an ever-
so-present blurry line between good and evil. The enslavement of the natives under the
pretence of civilization is one such idea that resurfaces from time to time throughout
Marlow’s journey, as he himself talks about the “savage who was fireman […] a thrall to
strange witchcraft, full of improving knowledge. He was useful because he had been
instructed” (Ibidem: 74). Even more illustrative of this idea is Kurtz’s mission to collect ivory
for the Company, an activity that leads to his effective downfall. He loses himself in the
chase for material goods, he forgets about his humanity, about principles and more
importantly, about his origins. On his long treks through the jungle where he would

11
“disappear for weeks, forget himself amongst these people” (Ibidem: 117), he becomes more
and more embroiled with the ways of the savages.
Ultimately, Marlow finds himself spinning uncontrollably towards an abyss of his
own making, while consciously chasing after the elusive and commanding presence of Kurtz.
At first, he pursues the noble goal of civilizing the savage lands, bringing the light into the
hearts of these Africans. He despises lying, yet further down the road he falls prey to the
same vices he himself criticizes – “Well, I went near enough to it by letting the young fool
believe anything he liked to imagine as to my influence in Europe. I became in an instant as
much of a pretense as the rest of the bewitched pilgrims” (Ibidem: 53). And he does this
almost naturally, but also knowingly, on the spur of the moment, out of strong desire to
further pursue the path that would lead him to Kurtz.
As for the relationship between modernism and nihilism in “Heart of Darkness,” it is
not one of opposition, but rather one of synergy. The characteristics of the two cultural and
literal movements work together in the novel. However, while the modernist techniques are
visible from the very start, indeed, they are the structural make-up of the entire novel, the
nihilistic approach is more implicit. Its effects are felt, ripples on the surface of the water,
tiny bits and pieces that you put together from many different places. The events themselves
are nihilistic in scope (the descent into the darkness of humanity, the pointlessness of
imperialism, and the evident suggestion that savagery can be more humane than civilization).
Furthermore, the characters themselves are built to eventually end up entertaining nihilistic
ideas, and their very development, or shall we say, devolution plays out quite fittingly under
the nihilist approach. The modernist tools help set up the background and the necessary
environment for Conrad to better present humanity’s fall into the void.
Slocombe once said that nihilism is “the philosophy of absence and nothingness, it
must remain paradoxically present within philosophy and culture” (Weller, 2008: 17), trying
to revalorize nihilism. Where Nietzsche makes a difference between active and passive
nihilism, Slocombe differentiates between modernist and postmodern nihilism. He goes on to
say that modernist nihilism, what we are dealing with in Heart of Darkness, is essentially a
“rage against Being,” while the postmodern variant is “intrinsically self-reflective and
deconstructive” (Idem). In the Conradian novel, we bear witness to a plethora of human
values and principles thrown into a vortex of nothingness, of existentialist absurd, with
Marlow there trying to find some form of meaning in all of this. It certainly reminds of Albert
Camus’ The Stranger, where Meursault was once plagued by a similar need to acknowledge
the void, the meaninglessness of trying to find a meaning in the first place, something that he

12
achieves rather naturally eventually. But where Meursault was admitting the void of his own
volition, Marlow is beset by uncertainties, his experiences shrouded in mystery, as he himself
admits countless times that he simply does not know what to believe – “I think I would have
raised an outcry if I had believed my eyes. But I didn’t believe them at first – the thing
seemed so impossible” (Conrad, 2002: 133). Conrad is constantly reinforcing this sense of
confusion, of unknown and unknowable, and Marlow seems to play out his role brilliantly as
judge, jury, and executioner, in part, in this game of cat and mouse. Marlow does not realize
that his path leads to a total devaluation of his being, to a consistent rupture of his principles
and convictions, to the sinking of his humanity.
Kurtz, on the other hand, is both a paragon for modernism, but also for nihilism. He
alone incorporates the best of both worlds. If anything, we could say that Kurtz’s destiny is
the single most significant, possibly even unique in this respect, literary medium that Conrad
utilizes to act as a symbol on multiple plans. In spite of the many perspectives that critics
came up with, identifying the original inspiration for Kurtz’s persona, the character himself
appears to be a mélange of European mind-sets, a symbol to stand out for the many European
historical men who came before him to explore the wilderness. Whether it is Emin Pasha,
Edmund, Barttelot, Charles Henry Stokes or even Henry Morgan Stanley himself, Kurtz
embodies them all. From this point of view, he reflects that gritty mind-set that once sent
many explorers on their path of no return into unknown lands, the thirst for discovery but also
a demoniac craving to control and seek to enslave nature to their own whim. Of course, Kurtz
is a man of violence, much more than what we are lead to believe by taking a look at his
possible inspirations. Where once he was animated by an honest initiative to explore, to
further the goals of the imperialist agenda, just a man with “a passion for maps”, like Marlow
himself recounts of his own childhood (Conrad, 2002: 11), he is now an “emissary of pity and
science and progress, and devil knows what else” (Ibidem: 49), taking a “high seat amongst
the devils of the land.” (Ibidem: 100)
More importantly, Conrad transforms Kurtz into a nihilistic persona, reflecting the
dark metamorphosis that can befall a man once he is confronted with the required outward
stimuli to bring out his atavistic instincts into the light. He perfectly embodies the
Nietzschean dictum that says: “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby
becomes a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee”
(Friedrich Nietzsche, 2004: 94). His presumably strong convictions that have led him to
Africa, to the “heart of darkness”, are the very ones that took him on a road to perdition.
Between modernism and nihilism, Kurtz acts as the trigger to the synergetic links that

13
connects the two cultural and literary currents. The novel revolves around the character of
Kurtz, and even the protagonist himself, the second of two parallel modernist narrators, is
deeply marked by his “gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted
and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart
of an impenetrable darkness” (Conrad, 2002: 97). Through Kurtz, Conrad gives life and
purpose to his novel, and a faceless goal for Marlow who suffers a revelation of his own, an
opportunity to gaze into the void of his own being, to glare at the harsh reality of man’s
existence: any man, no matter how noble in scope or principled, can descend into the darkest
abysses of extremity with strong enough convictions, and powerful enough outward stimuli
to deform those convictions.

Chapter 2 - Imperialism and the Descent into Darkness

2.1. The Fatality of Civilization and the Aporetic Primitivism

Conrad reduces the civilizing efforts of Kurtz and Marlow, as well as all the other
imperialist agents in Africa, to a mere pointless act that does nothing but the complete
opposite. Instead of being “Something like an emissary of light, something like a lower sort
of apostle” (Conrad, 2002: 21), Kurtz ends up one of the “devils of this land,” and this takes
place behind the scenes. We are already presented to Kurtz’s deformed persona when Marlow
finally meets him. Indeed, even from Marlow’s first steps on the Outer Station, after first
hearing of Kurtz, he’s rightfully mesmerized and dazzled by his image in the eyes of the
others. In the beginning, he is a “first-class agent,” an exceptional man, and then he becomes
“an emissary of pity and science and progress, and devil knows what else.” The confusion
already begins to set in, and as Marlow penetrates even deeper into Africa, the fatality of
civilization becomes painfully clear. At the same time, Kurtz materializes as a corrupted
imperialist enforcer that “collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory than all the other
agents together” (Ibidem: 96). And this isn’t because he was evil at heart, at least not in the
beginning. At the very least, there is no conclusive evidence to point out to this inherent
malevolence or corruption.
Instead, the image that begins to coalesce around Marlow’s discussions and
experiences is that the presumably noble goal of civilizing a primitive population is nothing
else but a façade, a cover-up for the true imperialist agenda – taking over the native’s

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resources. The savages themselves, far from being the inferior and uneducated bunch that
should be brought out into the light, are merely tools, slaves, a target to be “exterminated,” as
Kurtz himself says in his report to the International Society for the Suppression of Savage
Customs. The very name of this institution leaves nothing to be interpreted as to the main
goals of the unique voice that is Kurtz. Supressing the savage customs, this could be done in
two very different ways: first, by exerting patience and attempting to lead the savages by way
of guidance from their barbaric and primitive practices, to dull their seemingly iron-clad
societal traditions and to replace it with the wonders of civilization. The other way, a much
easier one in comparison, is to exterminate the savages in their entirety, a genocide of a
people in other words, so that their customs do not stain the civilized world.
Kurtz chooses to follow the first solution, since, even he says that, in the eyes of the
savages, “we whites […] must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of
supernatural beings – we approach them with the might of a deity […] by the simple exercise
of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded” (Conrad, 2002: 103). He
truly wants to act as a spiritual guide, as a prophet to lead these people from the heart of
darkness into the light of civilization. However, something happens that changes his
perspective completely, and in the end of his pamphlet, a few words are written:
<<”Exterminate all brutes”>> (Idem). From theorizing benevolent ideas pertaining to the
status of the savages, civilizing them, to downright acting in a completely opposite direction,
a malevolent solution par excellence, is an issue that remains to be discussed. Arthur C.
Clarke theorized three laws in his writings, and one of them postulates that any sufficiently
advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The corpus of the law itself can be
restructured to encapsulate the present situation as such – any sufficiently civilized society
appears to be unreachable and limited to godly worship in the mind of a primitive population.
Regardless of how intriguing and vanity-fuelling this idea is, the question still remains: can
knowledge and self-sustaining development be granted to people who worship you as a god
with blind belief? Only with an honest drive to curiosity, the will and desire to learn, but not
one born from an instinctual impulse to conform to an authoritative figure, can one strive for
development and civilization. Unless the spark of illumination comes from within, the
civilizing attempts are futile at best, corrosive and degrading at the very worst.
It seems that the fatality of civilization stems, on the one hand, from this very
contradiction that appears in Kurtz’s peroration. At the level of primitive culture that the
savages were clearly situated at, it was not gods that they needed, but an indirect guidance,
for the Europeans to play the long game, not to directly interfere with the comings and goings

15
of their culture. Their operations in the area, the hunt for ivory and the many contacts they
have had with the savages only succeed in taking them on the road to apotheosis in the eyes
of the natives. The further interactions between the two peoples are fractured, and the rift
between them becoming more and more powerful. Not even the ones they forcefully take
away to work for them, to presumably compel to learn from the Europeans’ ways, will
actually become civilized in a proper sense of the word. Marlow takes note of the absurdism
and nihility of such an attempt when observing the fireman who looks like “a dog in a parody
of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind-legs” (Conrad, 2002: 74). He goes on to
say that he is out of place inside the bowels of the ship, taking care of the steam-engine
unless “the evil spirit inside the boiler would get angry through the greatness of his thirst, and
take a terrible vengeance.” (Idem)
Whether no one bothered to even explain the inner workings of the ship or simply
because he was incapable of suddenly taking it all in, the fact remains – imperialism fails, the
attempts at civilizing the natives stand behind the sign of fatality. In fact, this particular
native was forcefully abducted from his culture, from his natural habitat, from among his
peers, and brought into the folds of the “gods” to do their bidding. This rupture did nothing
but utterly scare him into submission. It does not facilitate in any way the process of
development, nor does it make it easier for him to become civilized. Quite the opposite, he is
left aghast and incapable to comprehend the change. The sudden leap from “clapping his
hands and stamping his feet on the bank” to “a thrall to strange witchcraft, full of improving
knowledge” (Idem) does not do anything to address the gap between the two states of
civilization, one belonging to primitivism, and one a paragon of modern industrial
development. He is expected to simply adapt to the change, to somehow possess a priori
knowledge of the industrial contraptions he is ordered to operate, as well as the necessary
state of mind to not be appalled by the “divinity” of the machines.
On the other hand, the fatality of civilization appears as an inevitable conclusion once
we agree on the aporetic character of the natives’ primitivism. Their archaic culture and
animistic civilization are incompatible with the scientific rigor and technological advances of
the imperialist world of that time. They cannot exist at the same time because one precludes
the other. Animism cannot coexist with science just as primitivism cannot coexist with an
advanced state of civilization that manipulates and moulds nature instead of being controlled
by its excesses. The massive forested areas of Africa and the surroundings of the Outer and
Inner Stations are there to obscure perception, to remind us of the ages long past where nature
was the sole ruler of man’s life. It is impenetrable, a land filled with mysteries that the

16
civilized men of Europe cannot hope to fathom. This is because they no longer possess the
necessary mind-set or prehistoric instincts to enact a link to Nature, at least not at the same
level as the natives do

We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown
planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed
inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil. […] We
were cut off from the comprehension of our surroundings; we glided past like phantoms,
wondering and secretly appalled, as sane men would be before an enthusiastic outbreak in
a madhouse. (Conrad, 2002: 72-72)

The choice of words here is most interesting, especially the “cursed inheritance” that
Marlow describes. Indeed, at this moment in time, he has already caught more than a glimpse
of the savage nature of man, of vanity and greed, of the sheer contradiction between
civilization and primitivism. He is no longer ruled by a sense of benevolence, but one of
harsh realism when he takes notice that the journey to Africa, to this “prehistoric earth” was
more of a journey through time, a cruel and incomprehensible time. At one moment, he says
that going deeper into the jungle was like going “deeper and deeper into the heart of
darkness,” a description that reminds one of the illustrative inscription at the gates of the
Dantesque hell: “All abandon hope, ye who enter here.” This attempt at civilization is akin to
a descent into darkness precisely because the civilizer himself is prone to devaluation, to a
moral degeneracy when coming into contact with the raw nature and spirit that exude from
the savage lands. It is here that we can take notice of a shred of existential pointlessness, a
form of nihilism, which we can link to Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus, where the
protagonist kept on toiling ad infinitum, pushing the boulder up the hill, even though it would
roll down again as soon as he reached the top. In this case, the protagonist was fully
conscious of the futility of his own act, whereas the Europeans have yet to reach this degree
of inner illumination. Quite the opposite, in fact, Kurtz’s persona and principles have been
corroded and utterly malformed, his once-noble goals turned into grotesque exhortations and
acts, but not because of a sudden revelation. Rather, it happened unknowingly, a result of the
many excursions deeper and deeper into the darkness, stemming from his many contacts with
the natives, reaching up to a point where he operates by the same “kill-or-be-killed”
principles.

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 The aporetic primitivism of Africa does not function by the same rules as the
industrial London. It does not run on altruism and principles, and it does not nearly have the
same amount of comfort or safety. In this world, Charles Darwin’s survival of the fittest is a
quite matching reflection of what Marlow discovers on his journey. Social Darwinism, in
other words, is the common denominator here. Whoever possesses the most survival instincts
and visceral resistance will subdue all others, and act as judge, jury, and executioner. It is just
as Marlow notes when he sees the manager of the Outer Station who says that “Men who
come out here should have no entrails” (Conrad, 2002: 42). Evidently, it is not only the
physical meaning that is striking, but the metaphorical allusion. Indeed, if one wants to
survive in Africa, one has to become a part of the wilderness, to commune with it, to accept
it. Just as the protagonist of The Myth of Sisyphus accepts the existential dilemma he is in, the
aporia or the paradox, whoever journeys this far into the darkness of civilization needs to drill
into his own consciousness, to reach a state where he can suspend common sense and reason.
The comparison between the Congo and the Thames rivers that the critic Chinua
Achebe brought forth as evidence for Conrad’s racism is illustrative here as well. The
Europeans were once quite similar in scope and mentality as these natives. They too had a
dark past which tested they survival instincts, where Darwinism was the only thing that
mattered. Europe’s past was also shrouded in darkness, it too went through a period of
primitivism, where the same would have happened if another advanced civilization came to
illuminate them. The idea is that those splinters of the past are not fully gone. They are
embedded in both the genetic code and the instinctual nature of any European. The
propensity for violence and atavism is there, ready to come out at any time. It just needs a
powerful-enough trigger to be brought to the surface, and that trigger is the aporetic
primitivism of the river Congo and Africa. Just as we see in Robert Louis Stevenson’s
“Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, atavism is inherent in each of us, an evil persona
based on visceral instincts that acts not on reason and planning, but on impulsivity and the
need for immediate gratification. Kurtz is the personification of that atavism, although
slightly reformed to suit the context – the fatality of civilization and the aporetic primitivism.

2.2. Manichean Demythisation and the Illusion of Free-Will

The distinction between good and evil has taken hold of much of the philosophical
debates and discussions ever since Antiquity. Many were the definitions attributed to the

18
understanding of this dichotomy, of what is perceived as morally positive, and what can be
thought to be morally negative. The Machiavellian consequentialist dictum that “The end
justifies the means” which Niccolò Machiavelli theorizes in his political treaty “The Prince”
is one such attempt at observing the differences between good and evil. Evidently, the social
and historic context in which he wrote his magnum opus differ greatly from the post-modern
world in which we live, and thus the same principles no longer apply. Such a cynical and
extreme way of thinking would lead to great social unrest and terrible ethical issues, but also
to societal degradation. Machiavelli’s concept of good and evil can only be inferred and
deduced, since the work itself is not in any way a treaty on the subject itself. There have been
multiple interpretations across the span of centuries, and only with the 19 th century did the
discussions enter the realms of psychology and science, where evil was seen as being an
integral component of the human psyche. The conscious and the unconscious, the
comprehensible and the incomprehensible, man’s instinctual craving for evil, the breaching
of ethical principles and reasonable norms of society, all of these have been at the heart of the
discussion. In “Promoting and producing evil”, Robert Fisher and Nancy Billias show that
“Evil has always been a primary category for exploring the boundaries and definitions of
human.” (Fisher, Billias, 2010: 68)
In “Heart of Darkness,” the concept of good becomes blurred, almost to the point of
turning void, non-existent. Instead, it is replaced with the lesser evil. In Africa, everything
seems to be degraded by the arrival of the Europeans; nothing holds the same traditional
values that it held in the civilized world. This is the Manichean demythisation at its finest.
There is no more distinction between the archetypal opposites of good and evil. Indeed, only
evil and lesser evil manifest through the eyes and actions of Conrad’s characters, especially
Kurtz. The first concrete example of this moral devaluation as a constant corroding process is
given by Marlow when he first begins his story. While talking about how he got to command
his own ship on the river Congo, he says that the previous captain was killed by the natives in
an altercation which centred around “two black hens”

Fresleven – that was the fellow’s name, a Dane – thought himself wronged somehow in
the bargain, so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village with a stick.
Oh, it didn’t surprise me in the least to hear this, and at the same time to be told that
Fresleven was the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs. No doubt he
was; but he had been a couple of years already out there engaged in the noble cause, you

19
 know, and he probably felt the need at last of asserting his self-respect in some way.
(Conrad, 2002:14)

This is the first image of Africa painted by Marlow, a place where the sensible and the
reasonable are mere accessories, trinkets worth not even the effort of acquiring them. Even
the most benevolent and empathetic European man would get downgraded and become
incapable from distinguishing between good and evil once enough time passes in those
darkest lands. The greatest danger that awaits the white men here is confusion, rather than a
pure malevolent metamorphosis – “Evil destabilizes boundaries and clouds distinctions”
(Fisher, Billias, 2010: 72). Africa seems to only distort the moral compass of any sensible
being, to suspend the ethical principles that once ruled the psyche. This is because the world
in which they willingly threw themselves in has different existential requirements, distinct
principles of being, looser moral guidelines. However, what results can arguably be defined
as evil and the many different shades it materializes in. In turn, evil further disrupts and
confuses the white man’s mind: “The danger of disorientation, of no longer being able to
distinguish clearly between good and evil, is itself taken to be one of the words effects of the
spread of evil, while conversely the fascination with evil is intertwined with a desire to
explore and go beyond limits.” (Idem)
The line between good and evil is not nearly as clear-cut as we would want it to be
though. Both Kurtz and Marlow have started off their journeys into the African continent
with nothing but idealistic goals in mind, Marlow seeing himself as an “emissary of light,
something like a lower sort of apostle” (Conrad, 2002: 21), while Kurtz is described by
another imperialist agent as an “emissary of pity and science and progress, and devil knows
what else”, and that he wants to further the “guidance of the cause intrusted to us by Europe,
so to speak, higher intelligence, wide sympathies a singleness of purpose” (Ibidem: 49).
Somehow, he becomes in the meantime one of the “devil of this land”, a tribal leader that
engages in the savage practices of the local people and professes the “extermination of these
natives”. This is a crazed act of evil that seems to come not from a moral and reasonable
person that would seek to civilize Africa, but one who has reached atavism, the intrinsic
animalistic evil that stays strong in each of us. For Kurtz, there is no more meaning in
humanity and civilization so long as he has to deal with the aporetic primitivism and the
savage ways of the natives. The perversion of his qualities and noble goals becomes apparent
at one time when Marlow says that “rivets were what really Mr. Kurtz wanted, if he had only
known it” (Ibidem: 56)

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 Marlow himself comes to the conclusion that morality and principles need to be
suspended when trying to get to the “heart of darkness”, deeper into the jungle, and as more
checkpoints of civilization go by in the form of the imperialist stations, the more the
surroundings turn into “a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, of feet stamping, of
bodies swaying, of eyes rolling, under the droop of heavy and motionless foliage” (Ibidem:
71). These lands would compel a man to change his values, to restructure his inner system, or
at least attempt such a thing, since the only thing that happens is befuddlement and confusion.
Evil and good are muddled, the lesser evil becomes the most sought-after choice, the survival
of the fittest becomes the common denominator, and any act, regardless of how grotesque and
abhorrent, is acceptable in this world. Everything is permitted here, and one only has to look
at the discussion between the uncle and his nephew that Marlow is a coincidental witness to
in order to understand this fact

‘We will not be free from unfair competition till one of these fellows is hanged for an
example,’ he said. ‘Certainly,’ grunted the other;’ get him hanged! Why not? Anything –
anything can be done in this country. That’s what I say; nobody here, you understand,
HERE, can endanger your position. And why? You stand the climate – you outlast them
all. The danger is in Europe. (Ibidem: 65):

What is perhaps the most illustrative fragment in Conrad’s work that perfectly
delineates the suppression of a conventional moral code and the blurring of the Manichean
schemata takes place when Marlow ponders on the real nature of his journey along the river
Congo. With a very lucid outlook and a rational mind-set, he brings it to our attention that the
reasonable and the normal state of things are inversed in Africa. At the heart of darkness,
nothing is like it once was. They need different tools, different perceptions, and different
ways of being in order to penetrate, understand, and peer into the surrounding world. A world
that the rational and conventional expectations of the European mind cannot hope to fathom,
nor adopt, not unless one returns to atavism, to a state of tabula rasa where primordial
instincts rule, where man proposes, and nature disposes

The mind of man is capable of anything – because everything is in it, all the past as well
as all the future. What was there after all? Joy, fear, sorrow, devotion, valour, rage – who
can tell? – but truth – truth stripped of its cloak of time. Let the fool gape and shudder –
the man knows, and can look on without a wink. But he must at least be as much of a man

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 as these on the shore. He must meet that truth with his own free stuff – with his own
inborn strength. Principles won’t do. Acquisitions, clothes, pretty rags – rags that would
fly off at the first good shake. No; you want a deliberate belief. (Ibidem: 73)

The deliberate belief that Marlow talks about is represented by the raw and strong
essence of the imperious mind that does not succumb to petty obstacles such as ethics,
morality, and personal principles, in a world where such things are inherently incompatible
with the natural course of life. Good and evil become devoid of meaning. There is only one
thing to be considered – survival, the furthering of one’s aims, whatever the costs. The
nihility of such a conclusion is evident, though necessarily imposed if we take notice of the
causal relationship that is established between the aporetic primitivism and the Manichean
demythisation.
Another aspect that is worth approaching is whether Kurtz ever possessed the free-
will to decide his own choices, or if it was all a preordained conclusion that stems from the
unconscious. As the neuroscientist David Eagleman proposes in his book “Incognito,” man’s
decisions are taken unconsciously before the actual conscious realization. They are a result of
the coalescence between all the traits that man’s personality, character, social upbringing,
thoughts, imagination, and experience all bring forth. Whatever one wants to do is merely the
direct consequence of one’s lifestyle, education, and influences that have been brought
together to build the individual that he is, mind and will. One simply cannot change who he is
or what he wants, resulting in the simple truth that man’s choices are predetermined. Indeed,
they are entirely contingent on how the individual thinks, and how he thinks results from a
multitude of factors that seem to be immutable. Theoretically, man cannot think in a different
way because he cannot change the immutable truths of his own self, his past experiences, his
already formed process of thinking, system of values and reasoning.
A vague concept such as destiny cannot hold sway here, not because of the
pseudoscientific underlying aspect, but because of the incomplete Moirae allusion in the
beginning of “Heart of Darkness” – “Two women, one fat and the other slim, sat on straw-
bottomed chairs, knitting black wool.” (Conrad, 2002: 16). Conventionally, as the Greek
pantheon dictates, there were three goddesses of destiny (Philip, 2007: 30): Clotho, Lachesis,
and Atropos, who would control the life-thread of any man and god at birth. One would spin,
one would measure it, and the last one would cut it short when man’s life came to an end. In
this case, the lack of a third Moirae could only mean one thing – destiny itself becomes
meaningless and powerless where Marlow is going, into a world turned upside down, where

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everything is up to the individual, life or death hanging in balance, and the slightest mistake
could lead to perdition.
As such, since destiny would not explain the lack of choice in Kurtz’s existential
pathway, then, if we take David Eagleman’s discoveries as factual, free-will is just an
illusion, one instilled into the consciousness by the unconsciousness, by the brain, in an
attempt to prevent ambiguity and cognitive dissonance from setting in

You gleefully say, “I just thought of something!”, when in fact your brain performed an
enormous amount of work before your moment of genius struck. When an idea is served
up from behind the scenes, your neural circuitry has been working on it for hours or days
or years, consolidating information and trying out new combinations. But you take credit
without further wonderment at the vast, hidden machinery behind the scenes. […] The
brain works its machinations in secret, conjuring ideas like tremendous magic. It does not
allow its colossal operating system to be probed by conscious cognition. (Eagleman,
2011: 14)

This opinion is not only shared by the neuroscientist though. Many years before him,
G.W. Leibniz seems to have thought of the exact same thing when he wrote his “New Essays
on Human Understanding”, in an attempt to debates on David Hume’s ideas. The German
philosopher says that “ideas and truths are innate in us – as inclinations, dispositions,
tendencies, or natural potentialities, and not as actual thinkings, though these potentialities
are always accompanied by certain actual thinkings, often insensible ones, which correspond
to them” and that “we aren’t always aware of dispositions that we do nevertheless have”
(Leibniz, 1996: 52). During his pages-long monologue, Marlow speaks about Kurtz’s
metamorphosis, how the primitivism got to him, how he was immutably deformed without
any say in the matter

The wilderness had patted him on the head, and, behold, it was like a ball – an ivory ball;
it had caressed him, and – Io! – he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced
him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the
inconceivable ceremonies or some devilish initiation. He was its spoiled and pampered
favourite. […] Thus he could see and enjoy as long as he could see, because the
appreciation of this favour had remained with him to the last. (Conrad, 2002, 99)

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 Kurtz might have once been driven by moral and superior desires of enlightening and
civilizing the wild lands, but his descent into the madman that we hear so much about from
Marlow’s perspective seems to have been unavoidable. His character, his experiences, all the
traits that he had accumulated thus far had too great an influence over him when he arrived
on the river Congo. All that he could do was listen to what his inner self commanded. Faced
with the events and experiences that he had to confront, he could only have chosen one path
alone – that which we see unfolding in “Heart of Darkness” Therefore, given that specific set
of circumstances and chain of events, Kurtz acted and behaved in the one way that he could –
the one embedded deep into his psyche by the total sum of character traits and experiences
that made him who he was. However, this would mean that he cannot be fully blamed for his
actions or for his conviction to exterminate all the natives, because he did not have the free
will to make those choices. He acted in the one way that he could act. Of course, by setting
this precedent and making these assumptions that man does not, in fact, possess the free will
to make his own choices unrestricted by past experiences, it would mean that one cannot be
punished for any misdeed. This is because, theoretically, he would not be totally in control of
those decisions. This perspective is indeed nihilistic at its core, since it would lead to a
complete devaluation of society, morality, ethics, of personal responsibility and
accountability, a dystopian conclusion through and through.

2.3. On the Verges of Human Sanity – A Psychoanalytic Insight on

Kurtz’ Character

In this sub-chapter, we will be talking about, on the one hand, Conrad’s “Heart of
Darkness” as seen from a Freudian insight, more precisely by observing how the Austrian
psychoanalyst’s personality theory can be applied on Kurtz’s character. On the other hand,
we will take a closer look into Kurtz’s motivations and transformation by drilling into his
subconscious using Jacques Lacan’s concept of sublimation, a psychological process in close
connection with the das Ding. These psychoanalytic insights will serve to better explain the
hows and whys of the Conradian anti-hero’s descent into darkness, his grim metamorphosis,
and his visible abandonment of humanity.
In The Ego and the Id, Sigmund Freud first laid the principles of his personality
theory, one which splits the psyche into three distinct parts: The id, the ego, and the superego.
All three of them join together to determine a man’s behaviour, decisions in life, way of

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being, his existential pathway in other words. By applying these Freudian concepts to Kurtz,
we will be able to come up with a much clearer understanding of his happenings, what
exactly led to the events that transpire in the book. By id, we understand the instinctual aspect
of a human’s being, the atavistic reflexes that come from the deepest recesses of his being.
The pleasure principle is primordial at this level. The id has no concern for anything other
than its wellbeing and immediate gratification. It is passionate, impulsive, reckless, and it
does not care in any way about the reasonable and conventional rules of society, about the
necessary steps to social acceptance and integration. The ego, on the other hand, is based
around the reality principle, and its main goal is to adapt the id’s primary desires to socially-
acceptable forms. Freud explains that “the ego seeks to bring the influence of the external
world to bear upon the id and its tendencies, and endeavours to substitute the reality principle
for the pleasure principle which reigns unrestricted in the id” (Freud, 1989: 19). The well-
known horse analogy that Sigmund Freud makes in his book best explains the relationship
between id and ego

Thus in its relation to the Id it is like a man on horseback, who has to hold in check the
superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his
own strength while the ego uses borrowed forces. The analogy may be carried a bit
further. Often a rider, if he is not to be parted by his horse, is obliged to guide it where it
wants to go; so in the same way the ego is in the habit of transforming the id’s will into
action as if it were its own. (Idem)

However, the ego is not entirely separate from the id. Instead, it is a part of it, one
modified by the influence of the outside world, one moulded by the perceptual system. They
are one and the same entity, only that a part of it has evolved beyond the grasps of its
instinctual nature. On the other hand, the superego or the ego ideal, as Freud names it, is the
one that “answers to everything that is expected of the higher nature of man” (Ibidem: 33). It
is represented by the principles, the moral system, the more elevated and nobler convictions
and goals of a human being. It is the guiding system towards what one ought to become, a
tool for self-perfection, offering feelings of pride and personal wellbeing when its demands
are met, but also humility, embarrassment, and a sense of failure when the ego fails to
perform.
In “Heart of Darkness”, the relations between these three elements are scrambled and
man is brought to his heels, metaphorically speaking, by their conflicts and transformations.

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Having already seen the aporetic and corrosive influences of the primitivism in Africa, and
having talked about the Manichean demythization, it has become clear that the main catalyst
of the Europeans’ descent into darkness is the suspension of the superego. The isolation and
enclosure of moral principles and ethical guidelines alone can explain how Kurtz ends up
donning the grotesque persona that Marlow discovers during his journey down the river
Congo. In the game of cat and mouse that the two characters play, the id reigns supreme, with
the ego acting as mere translator and intermediary connector to the outside world. The
imperialist agents and Kurtz, all of them suffer an inner rupture because of the change in
scenery. From the populated and conventional environments of London to the savage and
unrestricted shrubberies of Africa, where there are no norms and regulations to ensure the
well development of social interactions, the superego steadily loses ground. In the end, it
becomes dormant, entering a state of suspension, as the id is free to do as it pleases.
The same happens with Fresleven, a Company captain that dies in Africa, and for
whom Marlow comes as a substitute, who was known to all as “the gentlest, quietest creature
that ever walked on two legs” (Conrad, 2002: 14), but after spending years enraptured by the
mystical wild songs of Africa, he lost his nerves and finally got himself killed by the natives.
If the past him would have never acted in such conflicting and impulsive ways, the present
him, lacking in the ego’s and superego’s restraints, will not hesitate to do anything. Kurtz
himself, a “universal genius” who “had the making of an immense success” (Conrad, 2002:
150-151), will reach for the “high seat among the devils of the land” (Ibidem: 100). The
definitive marker of his fall from the graces of the ego and the superego, into the grasping
tentacles of the id is given by the conclusion at the end of his report – “Exterminate all the
brutes!” He distances himself from “every altruistic sentiment, […] the unbounded power of
eloquence – of words – of burning noble words […] a notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by
an august Benevolence” (Ibidem: 103) unknowingly, while heading to the heart of darkness,
to the abyss of humanity, to atavism.
After the transformation is complete and the id takes complete control over his
decision-making, he becomes unrecognizable to his past self, putting on the façade of
someone lost, eternally damned to wander about, never knowing rest. Marlow observes his
countenance on his death-bed, saying that “His was an impenetrable darkness. I looked at him
as you peer down at a man who is lying at the bottom of a precipice where the sun never
shines” (Ibidem: 144). Only in his final moments does he seem to regain the countenance and
character of his past self, of the man that he was at the beginning of his journey, before he
succumbed to the enticing offers of the id. With fascination, Marlow notices the change

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 Oh, I wasn’t touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that
ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror – of an
intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire,
temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried
in a whisper at some image, at some vision – he cried out twice, a cry that was no more
than a breath:
“The horror! The horror!” (Ibidem: 145)

In all probability, the vision that prompts him to utter the enigmatic last words is the
image of himself, changed and deformed, a pale shadow of his former self, nothing more than
a vestige. His dark transformation that took hold of him becomes even more terrifying
because it had internal causes. Indeed, the malevolent influence of Africa contributed greatly
to it, but it was his own moral downfall, the frailty of his willpower and volition that
ultimately led to the id taking the reins. Freud wrote that “The tension between the demands
of conscience and the actual performance of the ego is experienced as a sense of guilt”
(Freud, 1989: 33), and Kurtz’s feeling of guilt seems to turn into a sense of abhorrent terror
upon the realization of what he has become. In that singular moment, the axes were inversed
yet again as the ego and the superego regained their authority and the vilification of the id for
its wanton behaviour took place in an instant. However, he could not face the grim truth
anymore, which is why his final exclamation signifies the conflict between his ideal self’s
noble aspirations, and the grotesque actions that the id made him undertake. His broken
psyche cannot fully sustain the cognitive dissonance, not one of this level that takes place at
the deepest layers of his being, one that results from a rupture between his expectations, his
former beliefs, his very humanity.
A second psychoanalytic perspective that is worth pondering over is that of Jacques
Lacan. In his seminary, The Ethics of Psychoanalysis 1959-1960, he talks about the theory of
sublimation and what he calls Das Ding. He explains what both of these concepts are –
“Thus, the most general formula that I can give you of sublimation is the following: it raises
an object – and I don’t mind the suggestion of a play on words in the term I use – to the
dignity of the Thing.” (Lacan, 1997: 112). In other words, the strongest desire of a human
being, upon reaching an unachievable stage, is rendered insoluble and replaced by the so-
called Das Ding, another object or aim in the physical world that gains the same importance

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in the eyes of a person. Moreover, he agrees that his concepts can be applied to literature as
well

The problem of sublimation is there, of sublimation insofar as it creates certain number of

forms among which art is not alone – and we will concentrate on one art in particular,
literary art, which is so close to the domain of ethics. It is after all as a function of the
problem of ethics that we have to judge sublimation; it creates socially recognized values.
(Idem, 1997: 107)

The initial desire might take any form, in this case Kurtz’s benevolent and purely
scientific aims of delivering a report on the savages of Africa. Just like Fresleven, he had
started on this path as a reasonable, “eloquent” person, calm and quiet, but after a few years
spend at the heart of darkness, he changes for the worst, something that Marlow notices

It was eloquent, vibrating with eloquence, but too high-strung, I think. [...] But this must
have been before his – let us say – nerves, went wrong, and caused him to preside at
certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable rites, which – as far as I reluctantly
gathered from what I heard at various times – were offered up to him – do you
understand? – to Mr. Kurtz himself. (Conrad, 2002: 102)

The main idea here is that the absence of civilization leads to one thing –
conventionalism and reasonableness are forcefully extracted from Kurtz. The void of these
elements essential to his being leads to the unconscious resurfacing of an autonomous
psychological defence mechanism – sublimation. Kurtz sublimates this existential
nothingness with a specific object or idea, in this case the furthering of the imperialist agenda
and the hunt for ivory. If he cannot survive and thrive on the Congo river by appealing to the
better part of humanity, he will alter this ideal, change its form so that it suits his situation
and context. By way of sublimation, he is no longer pressured by cognitive dissonance, free
to pursue his goals that he now identifies with. The whole thing happens at the level of the
imagination, of the superego/ideal self that Freud theorizes

At the level of sublimation the object is inseparable from imaginary and especially
cultural elaborations. It is not just that the collectivity recognizes in them useful objects; it
finds rather a space of relaxation where it may in a way delude itself on the subject of das

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 Ding, colonize the field of das Ding with imaginary schemes. That is how collective,
socially accepted sublimations operate. (Lacan, 1997: 99)

For Kurtz, nothing else matters other than the satisfaction of the das Ding, the newly
created drive, of his freshly-woven persona. His mind focuses solely on the furthering of this
idea. In some way, he becomes irredeemably fixated on the ways of the savage as an escape
route from the psychological pressure that the lack of civilization would impose on him. At
this point, he gains “the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated
witch-dance in his honour” (Conrad, 2002: 104). Despite the temporary restoration of his
reasonableness and rationality when he tells Marlow to take his report back home, his final
desperate exclamations are suggestive enough – nothing can change what has happened. He
could not turn back from what he had done, nor reverse the sublimation process that had set
him on his path. The das Ding was ever-present in his consciousness, and it was fuelled by
the drives, as Lacan himself says

What one finds at the level of das Ding once it is revealed is the place of the Triebe, the
drives. And I mean by that the drives that, as Freud showed, have nothing at all to do with
something that may be satisfied by moderation - that moderation which soberly regulates
a human being's relations with his fellow man at the different hierarchical levels of
society in a harmonious order, from the couple to the State with a capital S. (Lacan, 1987:
119)

Besides encapsulating the very essence of the das Ding, we are given another truth
that applies to “Heart of Darkness”, to Kurtz more specifically. It seems that sublimation only
appears in extreme circumstances when a person suffers an existential rupture, when he is no
longer functioning at the same level as the rest of us. Moderation, as Jacques Lacan shows, is
the terminus point from whence sublimation starts affecting the individual. Immoderation and
extremism, psychological fervour and even obsessiveness are the elements included in this
process. Kurtz proves that he is no longer capable of interaction with his fellow humans, or
that he prefers the company and reverence of the lower souls of the savages. Societal
harmony and order cannot possibly sustain the newly-conceived das Ding because it was
born out of the irregularities and unfathomableness of the jungle. Africa is the very opposite
of England – aporetic primitivism versus evolving civilization, and the two mind-sets that

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they impose are not complementary. In truth, to further one would mean the abandonment of
the other since they both negate each other. Kurtz becomes the slave of his own drives, the
sublimation being absolute

This ideal makes room for itself alone; within the subject it gives form to something
which is preferred and to which it will henceforth submit. The problem of identification is
linked to this psychological splitting, which places the subject in a state of dependence
relative to an idealized, forced image of itself – something that Freud will emphasize
subsequently. (Lacan, 1997: 98)

Marlow himself is afraid and a bit unwilling to peer into Kurtz’s madness in the real
meaning of the word. For a civilized mind as his, it is truly unfathomable and impossible to
understand the deep metamorphosis that Kurtz undergoes. He notices his demeanour while
the moment of his demise approaches, saying that

Everything belonged to him – but that was a trifle. The thing was to know what he
belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the
reflection that made you creep all over. It was impossible – it was not good for one either
– trying to imagine (Conrad, 2002: 100)

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Chapter 3 – Solipsistic Imagination and the God Complex

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