Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad (1857−1924)

 B. Teodor Korzeniowski in Poland
 Family opposed Russian occupation of Poland
 Teodor took to the sea
 1890s turned to literature
 experiences at sea - Lord Jim, Nostromo, Youth, The Shadow Line, Heart of Darkness
 English – 3rd language

Personal Experience
 In 1890 arrived in Africa and travelled up the Congo river, looking for Antoine Klein, an agent of the
company

Artist’s Quest
 “art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the
visible universe, by bringing to light the truth … to find … what is enduring and essential….”
 “the artist descends within himself, and in that lonely region of stress and strife, if he be deserving and
fortunate, he finds the terms of his appeal.”

Multiple Quests in HoD

 Historical – The Thames
 Economic – Brussels
 Anthropological
 Personal

The Setting
 The Thames
 Conrad never states that the rest of the story is set in Africa

Congo Free State 1885-1908

 76 times larger than Belgium; personal property of Léopold II (1865-1909)
 “Our only program, I am anxious to repeat, is the work of moral and material regeneration, and we
must do this among a population whose degeneration in its inherited conditions it is difficult to
measure. The many horrors and atrocities which disgrace humanity give way little by little before our
intervention.”

Congo Free State

 ruthless “company”; maximum profit at minimum costs
 ivory, rubber; rubber more important
 unrealistic rubber quotas, painful way of collecting rubber
 Force Publique; white officers, black soldiers
 1 bullet = 1 hand

Congo Free State, 1885-1908

 international intervention
 Arthur Conan Doyle, Crime of the Congo
 Mark Twain, King Leopold's Soliloquy
 Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
 Belgian Congo, 1908-1960
  death toll:
estimated 3,000,000 - 15,000,000 dead (M.T.)
(first census 1924)

Critique of Colonialism
th
 British colonial empire was at its height at the end of the 19 century
 British colonies around the world included India, Malaya, Hong Kong, and much of Africa
 Britain controlled the Suez Canal and the coast of Africa

th
Images of Africa in the 19 Century
 Africa – a place of physical darkness
 The place of paganism
 Diseases
 Insanity
 African savages
 Cannibals

Empire & Imperialism

th th
 Commonwealth – 19 /early 20
 WWII + - vastly disappeared
 2 common attitudes:
 Kipling’s “white man’s burden”
 Indictment: Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

How do we know things?

 “But Marlow was not typical, and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but
outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of
one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.”

The Frame Narrative

 Unknown narrator – setting: Thames, Nellie
 Marlow’s story – setting: London, Brussels, Congo
Why does Conrad use this technique?
The Narrator
 British Values
 Thames - "venerable stream … after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its
banks."
 Glory and pride:
▪ assured in his knowledge that "knight-errants" of the sea have brought "sparks from
the sacred fire" of civilization to the most remote corners of the earth
▪ "knights" may have resorted to the "sword," but also passed the "torch”

Narrator 2 - Protagonist: Marlow

 32; sailor/adventurer
 “blank places” on maps
 Curious / sceptical
 “detests the lie”, yet ends up lying
 (or does he?)
His journey/quest
 Learns about the “heart of darkness” in all men
 Reintegration into society difficult:
 sees the lie beneath the surface
▪ Civilisation institution to hide desire for power
 Also:
 Impossibility of language to convey experience

Kurtz – the Enigma

 Accountant: best agent
 Manager: trying to take his place
 “As to me, I seemed to see Kurtz for the first time. It was a distinct glimpse: the dugout, four
paddling savages, and the lone white man turning his back suddenly on the headquarters, on
relief, on thoughts of home--perhaps; setting his face towards the depths of the wilderness,
towards his empty and desolate station.”
 “International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs”
 “Exterminate all the brutes!”
 “[…] the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness – that seemed to draw him to its pitiless breast
by the awakening of forgotten and brutal instincts, by the memory of gratified and monstrous
passions.”
 “... his intelligence was perfectly clear ... But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness,
it had looked within itself, and, by heavens! I tell you, it had gone mad.”
 “The horror! The horror!”

The Real Kurtz (?)

 Company representative: believes all papers belong to them
 Kurtz’s cousin: great musician, “universal genius”
 Journalist: charismatic, potential political leader (Harlequin: “he enlarged my mind”)
 Intended: “knew him best”

Kurtz – the White God

 Achieves god-like status: "He came to them with thunder and lightning“
 "You can't judge Kurtz as you would an ordinary man.“
 "an animated image of death carved out of old ivory.“
 Kurtz "had kicked himself loose of the earth"

Descent into Darkness

 Dismisses the very idea of morality
 Gives in to his desires and lusts
 Journey into the unknown parts of the soul
 “The horror! The horror!”
 "supreme moment of complete knowledge"
 ambiguous

Kurtz - the Symbol

 “The original Kurtz had been educated partly in England, and – as he was good enough to say himself –
his sympathies were in the right place. His mother was half English, his father was half-French. All
Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz”
 Symbolic of intellectual Europe descending into savagery
Women
 Out of it…
 Aunt: connections
 Kurtz’s Intended v. Kurtz’s mistress

Civilisation and Restraint

 Cannibals – restraint
 Pilgrims – faithless – greed
 Company – maintaining facade
 Kurtz – “unsound method” – no restraint

Themes
 European imperialism in Africa
 hypocrisy and deception
 absurdity of colonial rule
 alienation, isolation and loneliness
 physical and mental illness
 darkness and wilderness
 dream and surreality
 racism; civilised vs. savage
 physical and mental journey
 ambiguity

Imperialism
 Thames - “one of the dark places of the earth”
 "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." (1)
 "She [the aunt] talked about 'weaning those ignorant millions from their horrid ways,' till,
upon my word, she made me quite uncomfortable. I ventured to hint that the Company was
run for profit." Part 1
 "by the simple exercise of [the colonists'] will [they] can exert a power for good practically
unbounded.“ (Kurtz)

Hypocrisy and Deception

 “whited sepulchre”: Biblical phrase - hypocrite or person who employs a façade of goodness to mask
true malignancy.
 “It was as unreal as everything else—as the philanthropic pretense of the whole concern, as
their talk, as their government, as their show of work. The only real feeling was a desire to get
appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages.”
 Marlow’s deception to the Intended – his last words were “your name”.

Absurdity
 French man-of-war: “touch of insanity”
 Blasting rock
 Machinery, parts scattered everywhere
 Fetching water in pail with hole in it
 Chief Accountant
 Rivets
 Brickmaker
  “enemies”

Alienation, Isolation and Loneliness

 Novella starts and ends in silence
 Captain Fresleven: “the gentlest, quietest creature that ever walked on two legs”
 Marlow’s journey
 “No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s
existence,—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is
impossible. We live, as we dream—alone…”

Physical and Mental Illness

 doctor
 “I remembered the old doctor,— ‘It would be interesting for science to watch the mental
changes of individuals, on the spot.’ I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting.”
 Swede
 “The sun too much for him, or the country perhaps.”
 slaves
 Manager - greed

Wilderness
 Roman conquest of Britain
 Prehistoric / primeval
 Decaying
 Impressive
 Mesmerising

Racism (?)
 niggers, savages, criminals, cannibals, “an improved specimen”
 “It was unearthly, and the men were - No, they were not inhuman. Well, you know, that was
the worst of it - the suspicion of their not being inhuman. […] what thrilled you was just the
thought of their humanity - like yours - the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and
passionate uproar. Ugly. Yes, it was ugly enough.”

Darkness
 sunset, dark clouds
 two women in Brussels
 “guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing,
introducing continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces
with unconcerned old eyes. Ave! Old knitter of black wool. Morituri te salutant. Not many of
those she looked at ever saw her again—not half, by a long way.”
 jungle
 Man’s potential for brutality
 Fog - ambiguity
 Nightmarish scenes
 Marlow’s fever and illness

Critical Reception
1. indictment of Belgian colonialism
2. indictment of imperialism in general
3. 1975 – Chinua Achebe: “bloody racist”
  dehumanization & depersonalization of Africans
 Eurocentrism (meaning of the story)
 appropriate in the canon?
4. ambiguity; reevaluating one’s own beliefs