Heart of Darkness
Joseph Conrad, 1902
Joseph
Conrad,
1857 – 1924
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Born in Poland (Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski) to an impoverished noble family;
father was a playwright and literary translator
Orphaned at age 11 in Krakow; began a career as a seaman at age 16
Did not master English until he was in his twenties
Led an adventurous life, inspiring the content of many of his books
– His experiences as a young man included gunrunning, political conspiracy, voyages on
various continents, shipwrecks, exotic diseases, disastrous love affairs, and duels.
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In 1886, acquired British citizenship, and changed his name to Joseph Conrad
In 1889, became captain of a Congo steamboat; witnessed atrocities in Central Africa
that inspired Heart of Darkness and Conrad’s general view of human nature
Considered “a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English tragic
sensibility into English literature,” and an early modernist
Conrad’s prose: literary impressionism
• Conrad stated in the preface of one
of his novels that he wished, "by the
power of the written word to make
you hear, to make you feel... before
all, to make you see. That — and no
more, and it is everything. If I
succeed, you shall find there
according to your deserts:
encouragement, consolation, fear,
charm — all you demand — and,
perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for
which you have forgotten to ask.“
He is frequently called a “prose poet,” owing to the
subjectivity or “literary impressionism” of his prose.
His subject matter earned him the reputation of “a romantic
teller of exotic tales” – this frustrated him throughout his
career. He is also known for his antiheroic protagonists.
What makes Heart of Darkness a
modernist text?
Conrad refuses to hand a neatly packaged meaning or truth to his readers. To
him, and many other modernist authors, the ambiguity, confusion, and
madness of human experience is far more fascinating and authentic than the
more digestible ideas of some of the literary movements that preceded
theirs. He seeks to communicate the lush complexity of perception in its
most genuine – and thus, most unrefined and muddled – form. The
multiplicity of ideas and possible interpretations is a major feature of this
text, and different schools of literary criticism have made widely divergent
assertions regarding its meaning. However, it is widely accepted that Conrad
sought to impart to his readers the experience of “heart of darkness,”
without necessarily shedding the light of reason upon it.
Modernist writers are often fascinated by dark psychology, and the idea that
human civilization is founded up on man’s original primitive and savage
condition. These motifs, as well as the frequent use of ambiguity and irony,
are modernist inclinations that all inform Heart of Darkness.
Africa in the late 19th / early 20th century
Between 1886 and 1914 (the
“New Imperialism” period),
the “Scramble for Africa” led
European powers to divide
up the entire continent,
exploiting the natural
resources and inhabitants of
their colonies to offset the
recession that was sweeping
the European economy.
Although some African
groups attempted to resist,
the Industrial Revolution had
provided Europeans with
superior technology
(machine guns, for instance).
This exploitation entailed
atrocious treatment of
African natives.
Heart of Darkness
The novel traces the journey and changing impressions of Charles
Marlow, an Englishman who comes to the Belgian-controlled Congo
wilderness as an ivory trader. In reality, his more pressing assignment
is to extract Kurtz, a rogue ivory trader employed by the same
company, who has installed himself as a sort of demigod among
African natives, deep in the Congo jungle. The subject of the novel,
ostensibly, is the dark side of the European colonization of Africa. The
narrative is structured as a story within a story, relayed in 3 chapters.
Three levels of darkness:
1. The literal
darkness of the
Congo
wilderness
Three levels of darkness:
2. The darkness of
the Europeans’
treatment of the
natives
Three levels of darkness:
3. The horrifying
darkness within every
human being, enabling him
or her to commit acts of
unspeakable evil
“Apocalypse Now” – 1979
Francis Ford Coppola’s
epic film transposes
Conrad’s Heart of Darkness from Africa to
Vietnam during the Vietnam (or, as it’s known
in Vietnam, American) War. Captain Benjamin
Willard (aka Marlow, played by Martin Sheen)
is sent deep into the wilderness on the Vietnam-Cambodia border to
extract the rogue Colonel Kurtz
(played by Marlon Brando), who is
presumed to be insane. The film is
based loosely on the novella, but
preserves several of its central
themes.
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