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Heart of Darkness

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 Heart of Darkness (1899)

Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad was British -Polish novelist and a short story writer who is

recognized as an early modernist writer or as a literary impressionist. Józef Teodor

Konrad Korzeniowski was born on December 3rd 1857 at Berdychiv in Ukraine

(which was then under the rule of Russian Empire). He was born as the only child

of Apollo Korzeniowski, and Ewa Bobrowska..Apollo was a writer and political

activist who took part in the Polish resistance to Russian rule. Conrad's mother,

Ewa, died of tuberculosis in 1865. Apollo raised his son as a single father and

introduced him to the works of French novelist Victor Hugo and the plays

of William Shakespeare. Suffering from tuberculosis like his wife, Apollo died in

1869 leaving his son an orphan at age eleven. Conrad moved in with his maternal

uncle. He was raised to pursue a career as a sailor.

The characters in Joseph Conrad's writing are mostly drawn from his

experiences at sea. Three years of association with a Belgian trading company as

captain of a ship on the Congo River led directly to the novella Heart of Darkness

(1899.) He published his first novel Almayer's Folly in 1895. An Outcast of the

Islands was his second novel. The novel Lord Jim was published in 1900
and Nostromo in 1904. Conrad experienced a commercial breakthrough with the

publication of his novel Chance . He was granted British nationality in 1886 but

always considered himself, a Pole. Though he did not speak English fluently until

his twenties (and always with a marked accent), he was a master prose stylist

who brought a distinctly non-English sensibility into English literature.

Conrad often examined the corruption that lied just beneath the surface of

otherwise admirable characters. Conrad focused on fidelity as a crucial theme.

Conrad's powerful narrative style and the use of anti-heroes as main characters

have influenced a wide range of great writers of the 20th century, from William

Faulkner to George Orwell and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He paved the way for the

development of modernist fiction. Many films have been adapted from, or inspired

by, Conrad's works. One of the most famous adaptations of his work is Apocalypse

Now (1979), by Francis Ford Coppola. It was adapted from Heart of Darkness.

Joseph Conrad suffered from a range of physical maladies, most of them

due to exposure during his years in the merchant marine. He also struggled

occasionally with depression. In 1896, while in the early years of his writing

career, Conrad married Jessie George, an Englishwoman. She gave birth to two

sons, Borys and John. Conrad counted many other prominent writers as friends.

Among the closest were future Nobel laureate John Galsworthy, American Henry

James, Rudyard Kipling etc. Writing in the heyday of the British Empire, Conrad
drew on his native Poland's national experiences and on his personal experiences

in the French and British merchant navies to create short stories and novels that

reflect aspects of a European-dominated world including colonialism and

imperialism, while profoundly exploring human psychology. Though he was part

of 19 th and 20 th centuries modernist approach along with realistic elements

makes his work peculiar. Appreciated early on by literary critics, his fiction and

nonfiction have since been seen as almost prophetic, in the light of subsequent

national and international disasters of the 20th and 21st centuries Conrad died on

August 3rd, 1924.

Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness is a novella published in1899. It was first published as a

three-part serial story in Blackwood's Magazine. It tells the story of Charles

Marlow, a sailor who takes on an assignment from a Belgian trading company as

a ferry-boat captain in the African interior. The novella's setting provides

the frame for Marlow's story of his obsession with the successful ivory trader

Kurtz. Conrad offers parallels between London ("the greatest town on earth")

and Africa as places of darkness. Central to Conrad's work is the idea that there

is little difference between "civilised people" and "savages." Heart of Darkness

implicitly comments on imperialism and racism.

Summary

Heart of Darkness begins on the deck of the Nellie, a British ship anchored

on the coast of the Thames. There is a captain, an anonymous narrator, a lawyer,

an accountant, and Marlow in that ship. Marlow begins telling the four men about

a time he journeyed in a steamboat up the Congo River. For the rest of the novel

(with only minor interruptions), Marlow narrates his tale. Marlow tells his friends

the story of how he became captain of a river steamboat for an ivory

trading company. As a child, Marlow was fascinated by "the blank spaces" on

maps, particularly Africa. The image of a river on the map particularly fascinated

Marlow, especially the snake like coiled Congo river. With the help of his well-

connected aunt, Marlow gets a job as pilot on a steamship on the Congo River in

Africa for a European business outfit called the Company. First he travels to the

European city he describes as a "whited sepulcher" to visit the Company

headquarters, and then to Africa and up the Congo to assume command of his ship.

The Company headquarters is strangely ominous, and on his voyage to Africa he

witnesses waste, incompetence, negligence, and brutality so extreme that it would

be absurd if it weren't so awful. In particular, he sees a French warship firing into a

forest for no discernible reason and comes upon a grove where exploited black

laborers wander off to die. While at the Company's Outer Station, Marlow meets
the Company's Chief Accountant. He mentions a remarkable man named Kurtz,

who runs the Company's Inner Station deep in the jungle.

Marlow hikes from the Outer Station to the Central Station, where he

discovers that the steamship he's supposed to pilot recently sank in an accident. In

the three months it takes Marlow to repair the ship, he learns that Kurtz is a man of

impressive abilities and enlightened morals, and is marked for rapid advancement

in the Company. He learns also that the General Manager who runs Central Station

and his crony the Brickmaker fear Kurtz as a threat to their positions. Marlow finds

himself almost obsessed with meeting Kurtz, who is also rumored to be sick.

Marlow finally gets the ship fixed and sets off upriver with the General Manager

and a number of company agents, Marlow calls Pilgrims, because the staffs

resemble religious pilgrims. The trip is long and difficult: native drums beat

through the night and snags in the river and blinding fogs delay them. Just before

they reach Inner Station the steamship is attacked by natives. Marlow's helmsman,

a native trained to steer the ship, is killed by a spear.

At Inner Station, a Russian trader meets them on the shore. He tells them that

Kurtz is alive but ill. As the General Manager goes to get Kurtz, Marlow talks to the

Russian trader and realizes that Kurtz has made himself into a brutal and vicious god

to the natives. When the General Manager and his men bring Kurtz out from the

station house on a stretcher, the natives, including a woman who seems to

be Kurtz's mistress, appear ready to riot. But Kurtz calms them and they melt

back into the forest.

The Russian sees that the General Manager has it in for him, and slips off

into the jungle, but not before telling Marlow that Kurtz ordered the attack on the

steamship. That night, Marlow discovers Kurtz crawling toward the native camp.

Marlow persuades Kurtz to return to the ship by telling him he will be “utterly

lost" if he causes the natives to attack. The steamer sets off the next day. But

Kurtz is too ill to survive the journey, and gives his papers to Marlow for

safekeeping. His dying words are: "The horror! The horror!" Marlow believes

Kurtz is judging himself and the world.

Marlow also falls ill, but survives. He returns to the sepulchral city in

Europe and gives Kurtz's papers to the relevant people. The last person he visits

is Kurtz's Intended (his fiancé). She believes Kurtz is a great man, both talented

and moral, and asks Marlow to tell her Kurtz's last words. Marlow can't find it in

himself to destroy her beautiful delusions: he says Kurtz's last words were her

name.

On the ship in the Thames, Marlow falls silent, and as the Narrator stares out

from the ship it seems to him that the Thames leads “into the heart of an immense

darkness."
Significance of the Title Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad's most read novella Heart of Darkness has double meaning in its

title. One dictionary meaning is that the title refers to the interior of the Africa

called Congo. Another hidden meaning is, the title stands for the darkness or the

primitiveness that every person possesses in his or her mind and heart.

The etymological meaning of the phrase Heart of Darkness is the innermost region

of the territory which is yet to be explored, where people led the nomadic and

primitive way of living. The setting time of the novel Heart of Darkness dates back

to those periods when the continent of Africa was not fully explored. So the

continent was called the heart of darkness. The major and significant events of the

novel take place in the Dark Continent, though the first and the end of the story

takes place outside the continent. The central character, Kurtz, comes under the

influence of the savages and becomes one of them in the same dark place called

Congo. The savages and Kurtz, in fact, belong to the heart of darkness.

The description of the scenery by Marlow adds something vital meaning to the title

of the novel. The wild scene, thick and impenetrable jungle, the pictures of the

natives hiding in the dense jungle, the silence and the dangerous stillness of the

river Congo, the thick fog, all these features are suggestive to the title Heart of
Darkness. The outer physical setting intensifies the horror and the fear among the

readers. The reading about the description of the natives and their way of

appearing in the novel bring the terrific effect in the mind of the reader.

On one occasion, Marlow is attacked by the natives in his steamer. In that attack

the helmsman is killed. The natives attack the steamer of Marlow not knowing why

he is there, but in the ignorance. The ignorance and backwardness of the savages,

the purposeless attack creates the feeling like being in the midst of the heart of

darkness. The attack to the steamer is planned by Kurtz, who has become one

savage living with the natives. He becomes more barbaric than the inhabitants. The

essence of savagery, brutality and cruelty sums up in the existence of Kurtz.

Kurtz's mission was to civilize the natives, to educate them, to improve their way

of living and the important one is to bring the light into their lives and into that

dark territory. But he ends in converting himself into the savages, and the most

striking thing is that he has set himself like a god in that Dark Continent. He starts

following their unspeakable rites. He does any brutal raids for the sake of

collection of ivory. According to Marlow, Kurtz has become a devil being failure

to control his moral restraint. He lets his inner self, the primitive self, dance freely

in the lap of darkness and becomes the representatives of the darkness. His

superstition and evil has become the embodiment of darkness. Psychologically,

Kurtz is the symbol of everyman's darkness which is veiled under the curtain of

civilization. Kurtz is the heart of darkness.

The term heart of darkness stands for another meaning too. The journey of Kurtz

and Marlow to explore the interior of the Dark Continent called Congo is not only

the physical search of some the territory, but it is an exploration of the innermost

part of the human mind and the human heart. The geographical search is

comparatively easier than the search of one's self, one's Dark Continent. Both

Kurtz and Marlow are in an implied sense in the journey to find their dark region

of mind and heart. In case of Kurtz, he cannot hold the mystical and attractive

power of his savagery self, his suppressed primitive self and gives in. He fails to

control his moral restraint. He submits to the dark side of his personality and

becomes one savage. He reaches to the heart of darkness, but cannot resist its

power upon him and he cannot come back from his subconscious state of mind.

But in the case of Marlow, he too travels to the heart of darkness, the

subconscious. He reaches there and witnesses the heavy influence of primitive self

on Kurtz. He notices that he has become totally a devil, deviating from his main

aim to civilize the savages. Marlow, despite the truth that Kurtz has been

transformed into the barbaric self, praises him and is attracted towards him. He has

fallen a near prey to the primitiveness. But, amazingly, he does not submit himself

to the savagery self of his subconscious. He reaches to the heart of darkness,

witnesses the transformation of Kurtz, and gets to know the irresistible power of

barbaric hidden self, praises it and again comes back to the light of civilization. He

is so able to control his morality and spirituality. His journey to Africa is,
symbolically, exploration of the dark side of human life, either psychologically, or

morally and or spiritually.

A critic commenting upon the title of the novel, Heart of Darkness, states that the

darkness here is many things: it is the unknown, it is the subconscious, it is the

moral darkness, it is the evil which swallows up Kurtz, and it is the spiritual

emptiness, which he sees at the center of the existence, but above all it is a mystery

itself, the mysteriousness of man's spiritual life.

THEMES

Colonialism

Marlow's story in Heart of Darkness takes place in the Belgian Congo, the

most notorious European colony in Africa because of the Belgian colonizers'

immense greed and brutal treatment of the native people. In its depiction of the

monstrous wastefulness and casual cruelty of the colonial agents toward the

African natives, Heart of Darkness reveals the utter hypocrisy of the entire

colonial effort. In Europe, colonization of Africa was justified on the grounds that

not only would it bring wealth to Europe, it would also civilize and educate the

"savage" African natives. Heart of Darkness shows that in practice the European

colonizers used the high ideals of colonization as a cover to allow them to

viciously rip whatever wealth they could from Africa.

Unlike most novels that focus on the evils of colonialism, Heart of Darkness

pays more attention to the damage that colonization does to the souls of white

colonizers than it does to the physical death and devastation unleashed on the black

natives. Though this focus on the white colonizers makes the novella somewhat

unbalanced, it does allow Heart of Darkness to extend its criticism of colonialism

all the way back to its corrupt source, the "civilization" of Europe.
Hollowness of civilization
 Heart of Darkness portrays a European civilization that is hopelessly

and blindly corrupt. The novella depicts European society as hollow at the

core: Marlow describes the white men he meets in Africa, from the General

Manager to Kurtz, as empty, and refers to the unnamed European city as the

"sepulchral city" (a sepulcher is a hollow tomb). Throughout the novella, Marlow

argues that what Europeans call "civilization" is superficial, a mask created by

fear of the law and public shame that hides a dark heart, just as a beautiful white

sepulcher hides the decaying dead inside.

Marlow, and Heart of Darkness, argue that in the African jungle—"utter

solitude without a policeman"—the civilized man is plunged into a world without

superficial restrictions, and the mad desire for power comes to dominate him. Inner

strength could allow a man to push off the temptation to dominate, but civilization

actually saps this inner strength by making men think it's unnecessary. The

civilized man believes he's civilized through and through. So when a man like

Kurtz suddenly finds himself in the solitude of the jungle and hears the

whisperings of his dark impulses, he is unable to combat them and becomes a

monster.

Lack of truth
 Heart of Darkness plays with the genre of quest literature. In a quest, a hero

passes through a series of difficult tests to find an object or person of importance,

and in the process comes to a realization about the true nature of the world or

human soul. Marlow seems to be on just such a quest, making his way past absurd

and horrendous "stations" on his way up the Congo to find Kurtz, the shining

beacon of European civilization and morality in the midst of the dark jungle and

the "flabby rapacious folly" of the other Belgian Company agents.

But Marlow's quest is a failure: Kurtz turns out to be the biggest monster of

all. And with that failure Marlow learns that at the heart of everything there lies

only darkness. In other words, you can't know other people, and you can't even

really know yourself. There is no fundamental truth.

Work

In a world where truth is unknowable and men's hearts are filled with either

greed or a primitive darkness that threatens to overwhelm them, Marlow seems to

find comfort only in work. Marlow notes that he escaped the jungle's influence not

because he had principles or high ideals, but because he had a job to do that kept

him busy.

Work is perhaps the only thing in Heart of Darkness that Marlow views in

an entirely positive light. In fact, more than once Marlow will refer to work or
items that are associated with work (like rivets) as "real," while the rest of the

jungle and the men in it are "unreal." Work is like a religion to him, a source of

support to which he can cling in order to keep his humanity. This explains why he

is so horrified when he sees laziness, poor work, or machines left out to rust. When

other men cease to do honest work, Marlow knows they have sunk either into the

heart of darkness or the hollow greed of civilization.

Racism

Some argue that the book depicts Europeans as superior to Africans, while

others believe the novel attacks colonialism and therefore is not racist. There is

the evidence in the book that supports both sides of the argument, which is

another way of saying that the book's actual stance on the relationship between

blacks and whites is not itself black and white.

Heart of Darkness attacks colonialism as a deeply flawed enterprise run by

corrupt and hollow white men who perpetrate mass destruction on the native

population of Africa, and the novel seems to equate darkness with truth

and whiteness with hollow trickery and lies. So Heart of Darkness argues that the

Africans are less corrupt and in that sense superior to white people, but its

argument for the superiority of Africans is based on a foundation of

racism. Marlow, and Heart of Darkness, take the rather patronizing view that

the black natives are primitive and therefore innocent while the white colonizers

are sophisticated and therefore corrupt. This take on colonization is certainly not

"politically correct," and can be legitimately called racist because it treats the

natives like objects rather than as thinking people.

Characters

Marlow

One of the five men on the ship in the Thames. Heart of Darkness is mostly

made up of his story about his journey into the Belgian Congo. Marlow is a

seaman through and through, and has seen the world many times over. Perhaps

because of his journeys, perhaps because of the temperament he was born with, he

is philosophical, passionate, and insightful. But Marlow is also extremely

skeptical of both mankind and civilization, and, to him, nothing is simple. As

the Narrator describes him: "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." The one thing Marlow does seem to believe in as a source of simple

moral worth is hard work.

Kurtz
 The fiancé of his Intended, and a man of great intellect, talent, and ambition

who is warped by his time in the Congo. Kurtz is the embodiment of all that's

noble about European civilization, from his talent in the arts to his ambitious goals

of "civilizing" and helping the natives of Africa, and can be seen as a symbol of

that civilization. But in his time in Africa Kurtz is transformed from a man of

moral principles to a monster who makes himself a god among the natives, even

going so far as to perform "terrible rites." His transformation proves that for all of

his talent, ambition, and moral ideas, he was hollow at the core.

General Manager

The head of the Company's Central Station on the river. Untalented and

unexceptional, the General Manager has reached his position of power in the

Company because of his ability to cause vague uneasiness in others coupled

with an ability to withstand the terrible jungle diseases year after year. The

General Manager has no lofty moral ambitions, and cares only about his own

power and position and making money.

Russian trader

A wanderer and trader who wears a multi-colored patched jacket that makes

him look like a harlequin (a jester). Through some miraculous stroke of luck, he has

ended up alone in the jungle along the Congo and survived. He is naïve and
innocent and believes Kurtz is a great man beyond any conventional morality. He

even nursed Kurtz back to health on a number of occasions though Kurtz once

threatened to shoot him. Of all the white men in the Congo, only the Russian

refrains from trying to assert control over the jungle.

Narrator

One of the five men on the ship in the Thames, he is the one who relays to

the reader Marlow's story about Kurtz and the Congo. He is insightful, and seems

to understand Marlow quite well, but otherwise has little personality. He does

seem to be affected by Marlow's story.

Brickmaker

The General Manager's most trusted agent. A sly, lazy, power-hungry fellow

who despite his title seems to have never made a brick, the Brickmaker cares only

about his own advancement and therefore sees Kurtz as a threat. He also thinks that

Marlow and Kurtz are somehow allied within the company. Marlow describes the

Brickmaker as a "papier-mâché Mephistopheles."

Symbols

Women
 Marlow believes that women exist in a world of beautiful illusions that have

nothing to do with truth or the real world. In this way, women come to symbolize

civilization's ability to hide its hypocrisy and darkness behind pretty ideas.

White sepulchral city

The sepulchral city symbolizes all of European civilization. The beautiful

white outside evokes the lofty ideas and justifications that Europeans use to justify

colonization, while the hidden hollow inside the sepulcher hides the hypocrisy and

desire for power and wealth that truly motivate the colonial powers.

Dark and White

Darkness is everywhere in Heart of Darkness. But the novella tweaks the

conventional idea of white as good and dark as evil. Evil and good don't really

apply to Heart of Darkness, because everyone in the novella is somehow

complicit in the atrocities taking place in Africa. Rather, whiteness, especially in

the form of the white fog that surrounds the steamship, symbolizes blindness. The

dark is symbolized by the huge and inscrutable African jungle, and is associated

with the unknowable and primitive heart of all men.

Chinua Achebe on Heart of Darkness

Chinua Achebe accuses Joseph Conrad a racist as well as anti-African due to

his most prominent novel “Heart of Darkness”. In his essay/lecture “An Image of
Africa ”he expresses his opinions that Joseph Conrad considers Africans inferior

to white-men. Achebe thinks that Joseph Conrad has problems with “niggers”. It

is, therefore, he has humiliated them while describing their condition. Although it

seems to the readers that the novel is in African’s favour yet in hidden meanings,

Joseph Conrad degrades them. Chinua Achebe raised objection even on the

description of Congo river, provided in “Heart of Darkness”. He says that the

writer glorifies the Thames River but when he comes to Congo River, he

negatively intensifies it. However he does not raise any objection on colonialism.

Only thing which Chinua Achebe finds offensive in “Heart of Darkness” is

negative demonstration of “niggers”.

Following are some allegations due to which Chinua Achebe charges Joseph

Conrad as “a thoroughgoing racist”: Conrad deprives Africans of language.No

human expression on behalf of Africans. Conrad calls Africa antitheses to Europe.

He also says that Africa is the other world.Africans have no civilization. Indeed,

certain elements are there that mimic anti-Africans attitude of the writer. Chinua

Achebe thinks that Joseph Conrad has not given Africans respect that they

deserve. He quotes some examples from the novel and proves that Joseph Conrad

deliberately uses offensive words against them. For instance, he uses soft words in

demonstration of white-woman. He describes her nature and power through

flowery language. But when it comes to Africans, he directly calls Kurt’z

mistress a savage because she was an African.

There is no denying the fact that Chinua Achebe is speaking on behalf of

Africans. His grief is the grief of every African living around the globe. It is also

relevant to mention here that Chinua Achebe does not differentiate Marlow from

Joseph Conrad. He observes that although Joseph Conrad has created a fictional

character called Marlow, who narrates the story to his fellowmen, yet he is

mouthpiece of Joseph Conrad. Hence, it is true that Joseph Conrad in the guise of

Marlow narrates his whole experiences. It is true that Joseph Conrad has ignored

the honor of Africans. He describes them mere slaves in the novel. Moreover, he

has not given them tongue to speak. We hardly find any dialogue uttered from the

mouth of any African. Besides, none of the Africans expresses his emotions in the

whole novel. What we observe is their miserable condition. Joseph Conrad has

written this novel against imperialism but he has not given mouth to Africans so

that they can defend themselves. Somehow, he considers Africans inferior and

white-men superior. He focuses mainly on colonialism and ignores that “niggers”

are no more slaves but under colonial forces. It is true that Joseph Conrad has

ignored the honor of Africans. He describes them mere slaves in the novel.

Moreover, he has not given them tongue to speak. We hardly find any dialogue

uttered from the mouth of any African. Besides, none of the Africans expresses his
emotions in the whole novel. What we observe is their miserable condition. Joseph

Conrad has written this novel against imperialism but he has not given mouth to

Africans so that they can defend themselves. Somehow, he considers Africans

inferior and white-men superior. He focuses mainly on colonialism and ignores that

“niggers” are no more slaves but under colonial forces. Chinua Achebe has rightly

raised voice against the racism that he observes in “Heart of Darkness”.

If “Things Fall Apart” is compared to “Heart of Darkness” then we find real

difference between the opinions of both the writers. “Things Falls Apart” is about

rights and values of Africans whereas “Heart of Darkness” has nothing to do with

African culture. It gives a message that third world countries especially Africans

has no norms and values at all. In addition, it portrays an image that Africans are

uncivilized.

It is acceptable that “Heart of Darkness” shows brutality of white-men but at

the same time it is contemptuous. As a result, people rightly defend Chinua Achebe

because to some extent we discover racism in “Heart of Darkness”.

In defense of Joseph Conrad, numbers of writers and critics have written

essays, in which they tries to discharge the allegations. Joseph Conrad is not

African. He does not know as much about Africa as much Chinua Achebe knows.
 There is difference between experiences and knowledge. Chinua Achebe is

well aware with Nigerians culture but Joseph Conrad is among white-men,

therefore, he is not aware with their norms. Moreover, Chinua Achebe should

understand that primary purpose of “Heart of Darkness” was not to show decay of

culture in Africa. Its purpose was to reveal the greed of white-men during the

period of colonialism. As far as the offensive words are concerned, may be they

are misinterpreted by Chinua Achebe. Words are symbols, used to indicate

something. It depends on the reader, how he interpret those words. He may

construe their positive or negative meanings. It always depends on his knowledge

and experience.

Joseph Conrad although has offended the Africans including Chinua Achebe

by choosing the offensive words in “Heart of Darkness” yet the novel is not anti-

African. Indeed, it has been written for the welfare of Africans as well as for the

people who are under colonialism. Many of us do not consider him a racist nor

anti-African. He is a true artist. May be he has offended the Africans but it does

not seem a deliberate action

 Works cited

• Florman, Ben. "Heart of Darkness Symbols: Dark and

White." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 22 Jul 2013. Web. 3 Mar 2022.

• https://www.litcharts.com/lit/heart-of-darkness

• https://www.myenglishpages.com/english/reading-joseph-

conrad-biography.php

• https://www.thoughtco.com/joseph-conrad-4588429

• https://askliterature.com/novel/joseph-conrad/heart-of-

darkness/chinua-achebe-on-heart-of-darkness/