British Literature after 1900 2021/22 © Piotr Matczak

HEART OF DARKNESS (1902)

JOSEPH CONRAD (JÓZEF KORZENIOWSKI) (1857-1924)

• a Polish-British writer, one of the greatest novelists to write in the English

language
• granted British nationality (1886), but always considered himself a Pole
• did not speak English fluently until he was in his 20s, and always
with a marked (Polish) accent
• born in Berdichiv, Ukraine, in 1857 as a child of Polish noble class members
(his father conspired against the Russians)
• at the age of 16, he left Poland and traveled to Marseilles where he began
his career as a mariner
• traveled to the West Indies, South America, India, Singapore, Australia, Africa – experiences that he would
later reinterpret in his fiction
• wrote his first novel in 1895 (Almayer’s Folly), and later he published Lord Jim (1900) and Heart
of Darkness (1902)
• died on August 3, 1924 in Bishopsbourne, Kent, England (shortly after politely rejecting the nobility title
from Labour Party Minister Ramsay MacDonald)
• a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English sensibility into English literature
• wrote mostly stories and novels with a nautical setting; they depict trials of the human spirit in the
midst of an impassive, inscrutable universe
• considered an early modernist, though his works still contain elements of nineteenth-century realism
• based his writing on his native Poland’s national experiences and personal experiences in the French
and British merchant navies to reflect aspects of a European-dominated world while profoundly
exploring human psychology

SYNOPSIS

Heart of Darkness centers around Marlow, an introspective

sailor, and his journey up the Congo River to meet Kurtz,
reputed to be an idealistic man of great abilities. Marlow takes
a job as a riverboat captain with the Company, a Belgian
concern organized to trade in the Congo. As he travels to Africa
and then up the Congo, Marlow encounters widespread
inefficiency and brutality in the Company’s stations.
The native inhabitants of the region have been forced
into the Company’s service, and they suffer terribly
from overwork and ill treatment at the hands
British Literature after 1900 2021/22 © Piotr Matczak

of the Company’s agents. The cruelty and squalor of imperial enterprise contrasts sharply with the impassive
and majestic jungle that surrounds the white man’s settlements, making them appear to be tiny islands amidst a
vast darkness.

Marlow arrives at the Central Station, run by the general manager, an unwholesome, conspiratorial character.
He finds that his steamship has been sunk and spends several months waiting for parts to repair it. His interest
in Kurtz grows during this period. The manager and his favorite, the brickmaker, seem to fear Kurtz as a threat
to their position. Kurtz is rumored to be ill, making the delays in repairing the ship all the more costly. Marlow
eventually gets the parts he needs to repair his ship, and he and the manager set out with a few agents
(whom Marlow calls pilgrims because of their strange habit of carrying long, wooden staves wherever they go)
and a crew of cannibals on a long, difficult voyage up the river. The dense jungle and the oppressive silence make
everyone aboard a little jumpy, and the occasional glimpse of a native village or the sound of drums works
the pilgrims into a frenzy.

Marlow and his crew come across a hut with stacked firewood, together with a note saying that the wood
is for them but that they should approach cautiously. Shortly after the steamer has taken on the firewood,
it is surrounded by a dense fog. When the fog clears, the ship is attacked by an unseen band of natives, who fire
arrows from the safety of the forest. The African helmsman is killed before Marlow frightens the natives away
with the ship’s steam whistle. Not long after, Marlow and his companions arrive at Kurtz’s Inner Station,
expecting to find him dead, but a half-crazed Russian trader, who meets them as they come ashore, assures
them that everything is fine and informs them that he is the one who left the wood. The Russian claims that Kurtz
has enlarged his mind and cannot be subjected to the same moral judgments as normal people. Apparently, Kurtz
has established himself as a god with the natives and has gone on brutal raids in the surrounding territory
in search of ivory. The collection of severed heads adorning the fence posts around the station attests
to his methods. The pilgrims bring Kurtz out of the station-house on a stretcher, and a large group of native
warriors pours out of the forest and surrounds them. Kurtz speaks to them, and the natives disappear
into the woods.

The manager brings Kurtz, who is quite ill, aboard the steamer. A beautiful native woman, apparently Kurtz’s
mistress, appears on the shore and stares out at the ship. The Russian implies that she is somehow involved
with Kurtz and has caused trouble before through her influence over him. The Russian reveals to Marlow,
after swearing him to secrecy, that Kurtz had ordered the attack on the steamer to make them believe
he was dead in order that they might turn back and leave him to his plans. The Russian then leaves by canoe,
fearing the displeasure of the manager. Kurtz disappears in the night, and Marlow goes out in search of him,
finding him crawling on all fours toward the native camp. Marlow stops him and convinces him to return
to the ship. They set off down the river the next morning, but Kurtz’s health is failing fast.

Marlow listens to Kurtz talk while he pilots the ship, and Kurtz entrusts Marlow with a packet of personal
documents, including an eloquent pamphlet on civilizing the savages which ends with a scrawled message
that says, Exterminate all the brutes! The steamer breaks down, and they have to stop for repairs. Kurtz dies,
uttering his last words – The horror! The horror! – in the presence of the confused Marlow. Marlow falls ill soon
after and barely survives. Eventually he returns to Europe and goes to see Kurtz’s Intended (his fiancée).
British Literature after 1900 2021/22 © Piotr Matczak

She is still in mourning, even though it has been over a year since Kurtz’s death, and she praises him as a paragon
of virtue and achievement. She asks what his last words were, but Marlow cannot bring himself to shatter
her illusions with the truth. Instead, he tells her that Kurtz’s last word was her name.

MODERNISM

• in essence, modernism is based on the rejection of previous cultural and literary canons
and the replacement of them by new currents and techniques; in Heart of Darkness the most crucial
modernist feature is the focus on feelings and inner reality rather than on the outside
• mimetic realism questioned – descriptive representation of the real world replaced with recreating
inner reality: feelings and emotions; mimesis is the imitation of the real, and the realist novel copies
the reality by incorporating plenty of details and lengthy descriptions of the photographic copy of reality
• psychological introspection: introspective literature
• epistemological doubt (discussed in detail later on)
• innovative narration – not omniscient, and emphasis is put on subjectivity; individual conclusions
based in tales of hearsay – Marlow’s perspective is not objective – instead of the external reality, there
are inner reactions and emotions
• symbolic imagery – no more transparent and direct language, vaguer and more symbolic; not all
the answers are given explicitly to the reader
• non-finite text – the reader has to come to their own conclusions, there is an open ending
which is not clear, providing doubts and questions

NARRATIVE EXPERIMENT

• Heart of Darkness has two narrators: the first one is one of the passengers on the Nelly ship
who introduces the initial context and then gives the floor for Marlow’s retrospective story; the second
one is Marlow himself who tells the story of the journey to Congo from the first-person point of view
• what is important here is that the narration is set in first-person and it is very subjective: the reader
can discover Marlow’s feelings and thoughts, and well as emotions and descriptive psychological states;
it is an innovation in context of the realist novel of the 19th century, and that is the predominant reason
why Heart of Darkness is classified as early modernist novel
British Literature after 1900 2021/22 © Piotr Matczak

EPISTEMOLOGY

• the philosophical study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge
• like most people, epistemologists often begin their speculations with the assumption that they have
a great deal of knowledge
• as their reflect upon what they presumably know, however, they discover that it is much less secure
than they realized, and indeed they come to think that many of what had been their firmest beliefs
are dubious or even false
• such doubts arise from certain anomalies in people’s experience of the world
• human knowledge has its own limits (presumably know) – the idea of certainty is absent
• in context of Heart of Darkness: during Marlow’s expedition into the jungle he is gradually realizing
that his firm beliefs and what he thought was knowledge are getting vaguer and weaker; nothing seems
to be black and white again, and the reader also struggles to decide with certainty what to think about him
and Kurtz; Kurtz himself is the symbol of ambiguity, vagueness – he is a person stuck in the jungle, far
away from civilization, who no longer can be classified and judged by the European standards and frames

THE HORROR, THE TRUTH & RESTRAINTS

• true, he had made that last stride, he had stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back
my hesitating foot. And perhaps in this is the whole difference; perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all
sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold
of the invisible
• the real truth is hidden – but everyone can step over the threshold to discover it
• the real truth is also horrifying – Kurtz once stepped beyond the firm line and knows what it is about,
and now he is a broken man who doesn’t care about moral values anymore
• Conrad wants to visualize to the reader that the inner truth is something disgusting, something
so immoral that people prefer to wear masks and live in framed societies; he also shows that under
given circumstances people are able (and will) expose their inner selves, those who no longer
observe social rules and pursue their deepest, immoral desires (Kurtz, as the emperor in the jungle,
uncontrolled, created his own empire and maltreated the native African people, because there was
nobody to stop him)
• restraints that the civilization and the society impose on people make them behave in organized,
controlled way; however, when they disappear, humans no longer feel obliged to observe constructs such
as morality, so they begin to reveal their true selves
• a very similar situation is shown in Squid Game between the second and third game: when one
of the characters kills another one in the common area where they sleep and discovers that he doesn’t
get punished, all the players suddenly realize that nothing will now stop them from killing one another
(and every person dead makes the potential money prize bigger) – the players do not have to hide their
inner instincts and what happens next is slaughterhouse
British Literature after 1900 2021/22 © Piotr Matczak

SYMBOLS

• light = civilization, enlightenment, progress (ivory, white people) light is familiar and then you cross
the line of the invisible and discover the darkness
• darkness – lack of light (black people, lack of civilization, savages), inner state of humans; jungle
• voyage / journey – discovering your inner truth, the further Marlow goes, the darker Kurtz
and humanity becomes
• the river – the meandering of one’s mind
• ivory – corruption by wealth

QUEST NOVEL

• original quest for Marlow is to find Kurtz and to attempt to understand Africa; through his attempts
to do these things, he gains deeper understanding of himself and of human nature, but personal
insights were incidental to his original goals
Campbell’s Mythic Journey: This is the point where one actually crosses into the field of adventure, leaving
the known limits of his or her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm
• the journey – and the quest – is not into Africa, but into the self, from the control of the cultivated
superego to the barbarism of the id, or from the surface of civilization down into the classical
underworld
• Freudian view: superego was the controlled, civilized part of consciousness that allowed people
to function in the society and observe moral codes; id was the wild, uncivilized part of subconsciousness,
full of primitive lust and inner desires that should never be revealed to other people
• the journey is both psychological (as mentioned above) and physical (don’t forget about it) – Marlow
travels along the Congo River deeper and deeper in the jungle and it correlates with his inner state
of discovering the truth about human beings

OBJECTIVE CORRELATIVE

• the only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an objective correlative; in other words,
a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such
that when the external facts are given, the emotion is immediately evoked
• the horror – the idea that darkness is an innate part of the reality; the author uses uncertainty,
circumlocutions and elusiveness to evoke the state of anxiety in the reader
• the reader by the end of the story knows that it was about the darkness; they are made to think
British Literature after 1900 2021/22 © Piotr Matczak

RACISM, COLONIALISM AND IMPERIALISM

• colonialism symbolically started when Columbus discovered America in 1492; in Conrad’s time,
the European countries had already conquered the vast territories in America, Africa and Asia – colonies
were pervasive and there were phenomena such as slavery and maltreating happening
• Heart of Darkness is the criticism of imperialism and colonization – it shows the problems that native
people of these lands encounter (hard work for the imperialists, hunger, maltreating) and the blind
colonists whose main purpose is to gain profits from the conquered lands; the apogee of colonialism
is Kurtz’s camp where he is treated as some kind of god, at the same time killing the indigenous people
and punishing them for disobedience
• despite explicit criticism on colonialism itself, Conrad manages to dig deeper, to the roots
of such phenomena: it is connected to the idea of disgusting inner truth that can be revealed when
there are no restraints; Conrad suggests that colonialism happened because the European powers
were simply strong enough to conquer the lands with an excuse of civilizing the savages; if there had
been something to stop them, they would have never colonized new lands; this situation, as Conrad hints,
proves his thoughts on human mind and nature
• CHINUA ACHEBE – it was a work of a bloody racist
The White Man’s Burden (British Court) – it was white people’s responsibility to civilize the savages
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 –
Conrad