Heart of Darkness
By
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad
• Born Dec. 3, 1857
• Parents political activists,
father also artist/writer
• Experiences in the Merchant
Marines, especially his ten
years in the British MM
shaped most of his stories
• Died of a heart attack in
1924
• Buried in Canterbury
Cathedral
Heart of Darkness
• First published as a serial in
London’s Blackwood Magazine in
1899
• First unified publication – 1902
• Considered by many to be the
finest short novel ever written in
English
• Bridges the Victorian and
Modern literary periods
• Modern criticism sharply
divided over merit due to
racist/imperialist themes
Factual/Historical Viewpoint
– The Congo River was discovered
by Europeans in 1482
• No one traveled more than
200 miles upstream until
1877
• Is 1,600 miles long and only
impassable to water traffic
between two places, creating
a two-hundred mile overland
trip
– Matadi (the Company
Station)
– Kinshasa (the Central
Station)
History of the Congo
• 1878 – King Leopold II of Belgium asked explorer
Henry Morton Stanley to set up a Belgian colony in
the Congo
– Wanted to “end slavery and civilize the natives”
– Actually interested in more material benefits
• 1885 – Congress of Berlin forms Congo Free State
– This was ruled by Leopold II alone
– The Congress of Berlin is referred to in the book as “the
International Society for the Suppression of Savage
Customs.”
– Leopold never even visited the Congo. He set up “the
Company” to run it for him.
Colonial Africa, circa 1892
Ivory and “the white man’s burden”
• Most Europeans in the 1890s felt
that the African peoples needed
exposure to European culture
and technology to become more
evolved.
• This responsibility was known as
“the white man’s burden” and the
fervor to bring Christianity and
commerce to Africa grew.
• In return for these “benefits,” the
Europeans extracted HUGE
amounts of ivory.
Ivory, cont.
• Uses of ivory in the 1890s
– Jewelry and other decorative items
– Piano keys
– Billiard balls
• From 1888 to 1892, the amount of ivory exported
from the Congo rose from 13,000 pounds to more
than a quarter million pounds.
• 1892 – Leopold declares all natural resources in the
Congo are his sole property
– This gave the Belgians free reign to take whatever they
wanted however they wished.
– Trade expands, new stations are established farther and
farther away
The Results of Ivory Fever
• Documented atrocities committed by the
Belgian ivory traders include the severing of
hands and heads.
• Reports of this, combined with Conrad’s
portrayal of the system in Heart of Darkness,
led to an international protest movement
against Belgium’s presence in Africa
• Leopold outlawed these practices, but his
decree had little effect
• Belgian parliament finally took control away
from the king
• Belgium did not grant independence to the
Congo until 1960
Criticism – Early and Modern
• Early
– Hailed as a portrayal of
the demoralizing effect
life in the African
wilderness supposedly
had on European men
– Praised as a study of the
collapse of the white
man’s morality when he is
released from the
restraints of European
law and order
• Modern
– Criticized for the
blatantly racist attitudes
it portrays
• Some believe Conrad was
simply reflecting the
attitudes held common at
the time
• Others believe he may
have been holding the
ideas up for scorn and
ridicule
Victorian and Modern Literature
• Victorian (1837 – 1901)
– Because it’s a 60 year
span, it’s usually divided
into early (pre 1870) and
late (post 1870)
– Deals with issues of the
day, including
• Social, economic, religious,
and intellectual issues
• Industrial Revolution
• Class tensions, early feminist
movement, pressures for
social and political reform
• Impact of Darwin’s theories
on evolution
• Modern (post WWI –
WWII)
– Authors experiment with
subject matter, form, and
style
– Sprang from the horrors
of WWI
• Massive loss of life, loss of
faith
– Expanding technology
and science
– Also encompassed/is
related to Postmodernism
Heart of Darkness, the bridge between
• Conrad presents themes of
moral ambiguity, but never
takes a side himself
– The nature of truth, evil, and
morality are never fully
defined
• The reader is forced to
decide for him/herself
Circle of Influence
•
•
•
•
•
Thomas Pynchon
T.S. Eliot
Hemingway
Fitzgerald
Faulkner
– Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, Mario Vargas
Llosa
•
•
•
•
•
•
Jorge Luis Borges
Carlos Fuentes
George Orwell
Saul Bellow
Eugene O’Neill
Graham Greene
Democratic Republic of the Congo
• 1908 Belgian Congo
• 1960 Independence
• 1964 People’s Republic
of the Congo
• 1971 Republic of Zaire
• 1997 Democratic
Republic of the Congo
HEART OF DARKNESS
• Conrad’s Experience • NARRATIVE FRAME
• Narrative Construction • LEVELS
OF INTERPRETATION
• IMAGERY &
SYMBOLISM
[Conrad as “Hyphenated white man”
cf. M.L. Pratt]
HEART OF DARKNESS
•
•
•
•
Marlow’s tale
Search for Kurtz
The idea of an empire
The journey
Quest
Blankness - Darkness
• Blank space = Space of darkness
• Emptiness/ Primitivism
• DISORDER
The Imperial Map
• “A passion for maps”
• “A large shining map, marked by all the colours
of the rainbow”
• RED (cf. use colors)
• RAINBOW (cf. harlequin)
The Imperial Map cont’d.
Harlequin
• Paul as Harlequin
• Painted by Pablo
Picasso
• www.artchive.com
Places
• White City/Sepulchral
City (Brussels, Belgium)
• Outer Station (Company
Station – Matadi)
• Central Station (General
Manager – Kinshasa)
• A hut of reeds – Bumba?
• Inner Stations (Stanley
Falls-Kisangani;
The African Landscape
•
•
•
•
•
MYSTERY – ENIGMA
WILDERNESS personified
COAST (“formless”)
RIVER = SNAKE (serpent? Evil? Devil?)
FOREST (“impenetrable”)
The African Landscape cont’d.
•
•
•
•
Inferno
Primeval MUD
“Wall of vegetation”
Unknown PLANET
DARKNESS Imagery
•
•
•
•
River Thames – Congo River
Jungle = dark, foreboding
Night – Death
SUNLESS HOLE (abyss):
– “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.”
Mental – Physical Illness
• Mental changes that individuals undergo in the
wilderness (cf. the doctor, “the changes happen
on the inside”)
• Various illnesses, fever, delirium, death
• Kurtz’s weakness of mind (“his nerves went
wrong”) and body
• Corruption, degradation
OTHERNESS
• The people of Africa and the land they live on
remain inscrutably alien, other
• Idea of intrusion (impenetrable and
treacherous nature)
• “Inhumanity” of natives : “This suspicion of their
not being inhuman” [emphasis Ms. HooperJones]
• Language
Silence (cf. sounds)
The African Woman
• THE BODY OF AFRICA
• Cf. female characters
– “They – the women – are out of it – should be out
of it”
– Cf. the Intended
– Cf. the aunt, the two women knitting black wool
CHARACTERS
• COLONIZERS – COLONIZED
• “Pilgrims” (Eldorado Exploring Expedition – “to
tear treasure out of the bowels of the land”)
• EUROPEANS – AFRICANS
• WHITE – BLACK
MAIN ISSUES
• EXPLOITATION
• EVIL
• MISCEGENATION: marriage or cohabitation
between the races (mixing of races)
• “Going” NATIVE
• Civilization vs. Savagery
AMBIGUITY
Works Cited
• Brazzelli, Nicoletta. “The Heart of Darkness.” The
Imperial Otherness.” 05 Nov. 2000.
www.alex.unimi.it/~culture/Heart%20of%20Darkness
.ppt 10 May 2009.
• Picasso, Pablo. Paul as Harlequin. www.artchive.com
11 May 2009.
• Steele, Kathie. Heart of Darkness.
www.asdk12.org.staff/steele_kathie/HOMEWORK/1
05669_Heart_of_Darkness.ppt 11 May 200.
• Waters, Shauna Rynn. Heart of Darkness.
www.ladyrynn13.googlepages.com/HeartofDarkness.
ppt 10 May 2009.