Heart of Darkness

For other uses, see Heart of Darkness (disambiguation).

Heart of Darkness

Author	Joseph Conrad
Language	English
Genre	Frame story, Novella
Publisher	Blackwood's Magazine
Publication date	1899
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print (serial)
ISBN	N/A
OCLC	16100396

Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad. Before its 1902 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in Blackwood's Magazine. It is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the Western canon.

The story tells of Charles Marlow, an Englishman who took a foreign assignment from a Belgian trading company as a ferry-boat captain in Africa. Although Conrad does not give the name of the river, at the time, Congo Free State, the location of the large and important Congo River was a private colony of Belgium's King Leopold II. Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver. However, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz, another ivory trader, to civilization, in a cover-up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region.

This symbolic story is a story within a story or frame narrative. It follows Marlow as he recounts from dusk through to late night, to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary his Congolese adventure. The passage of time and the darkening sky during the fictitious narrative-within-the-narrative parallel the atmosphere of the story.

Background

Eight and a half years before writing the book, Conrad had gone to serve as the captain of a Congo steamer. On arriving in the Congo, he found his steamer damaged and under repair. He became ill and returned to Europe before serving as captain. Some of Conrad's experiences in the Congo and the story's historic background, including possible models for Kurtz are recounted in Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost.

The story-within-a-story device (called framed narrative by literary critics) that Conrad chose for Heart of Darkness — one in which the Charles Marlow relates to other characters his account of his journey — has many literary precedents. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein used a similar device but the best known examples are Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, The Arabian Nights and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Plot summary

The story opens with an unnamed narrator describing five men, apparently colleagues, on a boat anchored on the Thames near London and the surroundings as dusk settles in and they await the turning of the tide. The narrator cites a passenger known as Marlow: the only one of the men that "still followed the sea." Marlow makes an obtuse comment about London having been "too, one of the dark places on earth"; thus begins the story of Marlow and a job he took as captain of a steamship in Africa.

He begins by ruminating on how Britain's image among Ancient Roman officials must have been similar to Africa's image among 19th century British officials. He describes how his "dear aunt" used many of her contacts to secure the job for him. When he arrives at the job, he encounters many men he dislikes as they strike him as untrustworthy. They speak often of a man named Kurtz, who has quite a reputation in many areas of expertise. He is somewhat of a rogue ivory collector, "essentially a great musician," a journalist, a skilled painter and "a universal genius".

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. Kurtz is rumored to be ill, making the delays in repairing the ship all the more costly. Marlow eventually gets the parts and he and the manager set out with a few agents 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 voyagers 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, killing one of the crew. When they later reach Kurtz' station, they are met by a Russian trader who assures them that everything is fine and informs them that he is the one who left the wood and the note. They find that Kurtz has established himself as a god with the natives and has gone on brutal raids in the surrounding territory in search of ivory.

Marlow and his crew take the ailing Kurtz aboard their ship and depart. Kurtz is lodged in Marlow's pilothouse and Marlow begins to see that Kurtz is every bit as grandiose as previously described. During this time, Kurtz gives Marlow a collection of papers and a photograph for safekeeping; both had witnessed the manager going through Kurtz's belongings. The photograph is of a beautiful woman whom Marlow assumes is Kurtz's love interest, or, as Marlow calls her, "his [Kurtz's] intended."

One night Marlow happens upon Kurtz, obviously near death. As Marlow comes closer with a candle, Kurtz seems to experience a moment of clarity and speaks his last words: "The horror! The horror!" Marlow believes this to be Kurtz's reflection on the events of his life. Marlow does not inform the manager or any of the other voyagers of Kurtz's death; the news is instead broken by the manager's child-servant.

Marlow later returns to his home city and is confronted by many people seeking things and ideas of Kurtz. Marlow eventually sees Kurtz's fiancée about a year later; she is still in mourning. She asks Marlow about Kurtz's death and Marlow informs her that his last words were her name—rather than, as really happened, "The horror! The horror!"

The story concludes as the scene returns to the trip on the Thames and mentions how it seems as though the boat is drifting into the heart of the darkness.

Motifs

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!"

— Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

T. S. Eliot's use of a quotation from The Heart of Darkness—"Mistah Kurtz, he dead"—as an epigraph to the original manuscript of his poem, The Hollow Men, contrasted its dark horror with the presumed "light of civilization," and suggested the ambiguity of both the dark motives of civilization and the freedom of barbarism, as well as the "spiritual darkness" of several characters in Heart of Darkness. This sense of darkness also lends itself to a related theme of obscurity—again, in various senses, reflecting the ambiguities in the work. Morality is ambiguous, that which is traditionally placed on the side of "light" is in darkness and vice versa.

Africa was known as "The Dark Continent" in the Victorian Era with all the negative connotations attributed to Africans by many of the British. One of the possible influences for the Kurtz character was Henry Morton Stanley of "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" fame, as he was a principal explorer of "The Dark Heart of Africa", particularly the Congo. Stanley was supposedly infamous for his violence against his porters while in Africa, although records indicate this was perhaps an exaggeration and he was later honoured with a knighthood. An agent Conrad met when travelling in the Congo, Georges-Antoine Klein (klein means "small" in German, as Kurtz alludes to kurz, "short"), could have served as a model for Kurtz. Klein died aboard Conrad's steamer and was interred along the Congo, much like Kurtz in the novel. Among the people Conrad may have encountered on his journey was a trader called Leon Rom, who was later named chief of the Stanley Falls Station. In 1895 a British traveller reported that Rom had decorated his flower-bed with the skulls of some twenty-one victims of his displeasure (including women and children) resembling the posts of Kurtz's Station.

Duality of Human Nature

But theory is one thing, practice is another. Idealism, which has a Utopian quality, is inappropriate in a world where corrupt interests abound and where there are many who go on all fours. The last sentence in the report, an added footnote--"Exterminate all the brutes"--refers us to the dark other side of his personality, "the soul satiated with primitive emotions"; it shows a descent and that his "civilizer's" concern for the distressed savages has turned to hatred. Of particular relevance is the significance of the portrait he has painted, the blindfolded torchbearer against the black background which could suggest (among other things) the simplicity of the ideal and the complexity of reality, the illusion of light and the truth of darkness. The monstrous prevails and the human and artistic potential miscarries. There is a downward tug in Kurtz's involvement with the wilderness and he descends into a brute existence. He is reduced to madness and his aggressive impulses take control of him.

To emphasize the theme of darkness within mankind, Marlow's narration takes place on a yawl in the Thames tidal estuary. Early in the novella, Marlow recounts how London, the largest, most populous and wealthiest city in the world, was a dark place in Roman times. The idea that the Romans conquered the savage Britons parallels Conrad's tale of the Belgians conquering the savage Africans. The theme of darkness lurking beneath the surface of even "civilized" persons appears prominently and is explored in the character of Kurtz and through Marlow's passing sense of understanding with the Africans.

Kurtz embodies all forms of an urge to be more or less than human. He employs his faculties for aims in the opposite to the idealism announced in his self-deconstructing report as a civilizer. His writings show in Marlow's view an "exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence" and they appeal to "every altruistic sentiment." His predisposition for benevolence is clear in the statement "We whites...must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings....By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded". The Central Station manager quotes Kurtz, the exemplar: "Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a centre for trade of course, but also for humanizing, improving, instructing". Kurtz's inexperienced, scientific self in the fiery report is alive with the possibility of the cultivation and conversion of the savages. He would have subscribed to Moreau's proposition that "a pig may be educated".

Themes developed in the novella's later scenes include the naïveté of Europeans (particularly women) regarding the various forms of darkness in the Congo; the British traders and Belgian colonialists' abuse of the natives and man's potential for duplicity. The symbolism in the book expands on these as a struggle between good and evil (light and darkness), not so much between people as in every major character's soul.

Readings

Conrad's novel is called an archetypal modern text for a number of reasons, one being its many interpretations. These readings include:

Symbolic

A symbolic reading of the text may note that contrasts between light and dark have been part of life since the origins of humanity. Light equaling good, dark equaling evil plays an important part in the novel. Symbolic comparisons are also made between the River Thames and the Congo river, between the City of London seen at the start of the novel and the African settlement where Marlow lives for a time during his journey. Marlow is symbolically compared to the maverick Kurtz and Kurtz can also be seen as a symbol of the imperial, ignorant and callous European mind.

Mythical

A mythical reading has ideas of the primitive, the nature of primitive existence and the role of a vague but powerful idea has upon humanity, as well as embodying a return to the origins of existence and a confrontation with darkness. The myth of the Seer or apparent "All-seeing Wise Man" is included, is embodied by Kurtz. Although this idea is not fulfilled as we learn Kurtz is not the God-like figure described by colonists and natives alike, Marlow still learns from Kurtz, even at a point where the idea of Empire is in decline.

Psychological

This reading Conrad's tale has been a common form of interpretation and the most obvious and introspective reading of the novella is as a journey into Marlow's inner self. It is an exploration of identity on how the outside world may alter and disrupt the inner ideals and morals of even the most incorruptible person.

Political

Since the late 1960s, political readings of Heart of Darkness have increased, exploring and commenting on the ideology of imperialism. Marlow's reference at the start of the novel to the actions of the Romans is a comparison to the actions of those exploring the Africa in the novel's context, particularly the Congo river. Through a political reading much of the text can be interpreted as a satire of the greed and ignorance of Europe. Marlow indicates that the British colonial effort is superior to that of any other country, particularly Belgians' colonial activities, "There was a vast amount of red [British colonies] -good to see at any time, because one knows that some real work is done in there". Marlow experiences something of a revelation as we see him change his opinions during the story.

Realist

Many readers view Conrad as a realist and a documenter of the events he saw in the Congo. Readers of this approach argue that Heart of Darkness is a document of Conrad's visit to the Congo and should be read as a judgment of Belgian colonialism rather than a psychological analysis.

Historical context

The Roi des Belges, the ship Conrad used to travel up the Congo

The novel is partly autobiographical, based on Joseph Conrad's six-month journey up the Congo River where he took command of a steamboat in 1890 after the death of its captain. At the time the river was called the Congo and the country was the Congo Free State. The area Conrad refers to as the Company Station was a place called Matadi, two hundred miles up river. The Central Station was called Kinshasa and these places marked a stretch of river impassable by steamboat on which Marlow takes a "two-hundred mile tramp".

Conrad met Roger Casement at Matadi on 13 June 1890, writing "Made the acquaintance of Mr Roger Casement, which I should consider as a great pleasure under any circumstances and now it becomes a positive piece of luck. Thinks, speaks well, most intelligent and very sympathetic." The two were to share a room for several weeks, barring a period when Casement went down river to Boma escorting "a large lot of ivory".

The Company was the "Anglo-Belgian India-Rubber Company" formed by King Leopold II of Belgium. The Congo Free State was voted into existence by the Berlin Conference (1884), which Conrad refers to sarcastically in his novella as "the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs".

Leopold II declared the Congo Free State his property in 1892, legally permitting the Belgians to take what rubber they wished from the area without having to trade with Africans. This caused more atrocities by the Belgian traders.

The Congo Free State ceased to be the property of the king and became a colony of Belgium called Belgian Congo, in 1908 after the extent of the atrocities committed there became known in the West, in part through Conrad's novella but mainly through Casement's exposé.

Reception

In a post-colonial reading, the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe famously criticized Heart of Darkness in his 1975 lecture An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness", saying the novella de-humanized Africans, denied them language and culture and reduced them to a metaphorical extension of the dark and dangerous jungle into which the Europeans venture. Achebe's lecture prompted a lively debate, reactions at the time ranged from dismay and outrage—Achebe recounted a Professor Emeritus from the University of Massachusetts saying to Achebe after the lecture, "How dare you upset everything we have taught, everything we teach? Heart of Darkness is the most widely taught text in the university in this country. So how dare you say it’s different?"—to support for Achebe's view—"I now realize that I had never really read Heart of Darkness although I have taught it for years," one professor told Achebe. Other critiques include Hugh Curtler's Achebe on Conrad: Racism and Greatness in Heart of Darkness (1997).

In King Leopold's Ghost (1998), Adam Hochschild argues that literary scholars have made too much of the psychological aspects of Heart of Darkness while scanting the horror of Conrad's accurate recounting of the methods and effects of colonialism. He quotes Conrad as saying, "Heart of Darkness is experience ... pushed a little (and only very little) beyond the actual facts of the case."

Adaptations

Orson Welles adapted and narrated the novel for his Mercury Theater radio show. When Welles signed his contract with RKO Radio Pictures in 1940, he considered making films based on Heart of Darkness and on the C. Day Lewis novel The Smiler With a Knife (1939) before deciding on Citizen Kane (1941).

The CBS television anthology Playhouse 90 aired a loose adaptation in 1958. This version, written by Stewart Stern, uses the encounter between Marlow (Roddy McDowall) and Kurtz (Boris Karloff) as its final act, and adds a backstory in which Marlow had been Kurtz's adopted son. The cast includes Inga Swenson and Eartha Kitt.

The most famous adaptation of Heart of Darkness is Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 movie Apocalypse Now, which moves the story from the Congo to Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam War. In Apocalypse Now, Martin Sheen plays Captain Benjamin L. Willard, a US Army officer charged with "terminating" the command of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (who was also based on Green Beret Colonel Robert B. Rheault of Project GAMMA). Marlon Brando played Kurtz, and it remains one of his most famous roles.

Dennis Hopper's brief role in Apocalypse Now as the photojournalist is based in part on the Russian trader character, whom Marlow describes at first as looking like a "harlequin" (his clothing is a mass of patchwork colors), and many of Hopper's lines allude to those spoken by the Russian trader: the man [Kurtz] has enlarged his mind; you don't talk to him, you listen; you [Marlow] are not to judge him. Sheen's Willard's meditation in the film on how he detests "the stench of lies" mirrors Marlow's comments on lying to Kurtz's "intended."

A production documentary of the film was titled, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, which exposed some of the major difficulties director Coppola faced in seeing the movie through to completion. Ironically, the difficulties Coppola and his crew faced often mirrored some of the themes of the book.

On March 13, 1993, TNT aired a new version of the story directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring Tim Roth as Marlow and John Malkovich as Kurtz.

In 1989, British poet Matthew Francis published Demonland, a short story strongly influenced by Heart of Darkness, mixed with elements from his experience as a worker in the computer industry. Swiss author Christian Kracht's 2008 novel Ich werde hier sein im Sonnenschein und im Schatten also draws heavily upon basic story elements of Heart of Darkness, but transposes them into a fictitious, post-apocalyptic Switzerland. One could also cite Werner Herzog's Aguirre: Wrath of God, a film chronicling a group of conquistadors' journey down the Amazon River attempting to find El Dorado, but only finding the silent, defensive malice of the Amerindians and madness.

References

• Conrad, Joseph (1998-01-05). Heart of Darkness & Other Stories. Wordsworth Editions Ltd. ISBN 1853262404.
• Hochschild, Adam (October 1999). "Chapter 9: Meeting Mr. Kutrz". King Leopold's Ghost. Mariner Books. pp. 140–149. ISBN 0618001905.
• Murfin, Ross C. (ed.) (1989). Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness. A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312007612. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
• Sherry, Norman (1980-06-30). Conrad's Western World. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521298083.

External links

• Heart of Darkness at Project Gutenberg
• Template:Ria
• Downloadable audio book of Heart of Darkness by LoudLit.org
• 'Heart of Darkness' and late-Victorian fascination with the primitive and the double - novel by Joseph Conrad
• Heart of Darkness: a study guide - plot, characters, videos, study resources, further reading