McKinney / Allen / Plano Fiction Book Club
Discussion Questions – April 2014
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
1
2
The Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe has claimed that Heart
of Darkness is an "offensive and deplorable book" that
"set[s] Africa up as an uncultured foil to civilized and
graceful Europe. In his private life, Conrad doubted
democracy’s efficacy compared to the boundless
opportunities it offered to demagogues and charlatans.
Did you find the portrayal of humanity – both white and
black – in the book deplorable?
Generally, irony might be defined as a reversal of
expectation and in Heart of Darkness, Conrad employs
several different types of irony such as:
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
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Verbal irony -- saying one thing and meaning another.
Situational irony – portraying an event or reaction
that seems contrary to what is expected to occur.
Dramatic irony – a technique wherein the reader (or a
character) has an understanding that the other
characters in the story do not.
Did any of these stand out to you as you were reading the novel?
3
Given the overall context of the 1886-1914 Scramble for Africa, and the later capture of Conrad’s beloved Poland in
World War I, are Conrad’s dark views on humanity – its aggression/ imperialism vs. his low hopes for democracy
understandable? Who in the novel are the most savage – the civilized resource-grabbing whites practicing
“civilization through elimination” or the cannibalistic, arrow-firing natives?
4
Conrad was motivated to -- and did -- travel extensively in his youth. After nearly four years in France and on French
ships, he joined the British merchant marine and for the next fifteen years served under the Red Ensign. Conrad
worked as crew member, third, second and first mate, and eventually achieved captain's rank. His adventures
included a three-year appointment with a Belgian trading company that included service as captain of a steamer on
the Congo River—which in turn inspired the novella. Which do you think motivated Conrad more in the drafting of
the novel: biography (his personal journey), technical craft and technique (e.g., deployment of irony), or social
critique?
5
As part of the employment process, Marlow visits an old doctor who works for the company who measures his head.
What is going on here? How does the meeting affect Marlow?
6
Conrad uses repeated "doubling" patterns of opposition and contrast in Heart of Darkness: light and dark, white and
black, "savagery" and "civilization," outer and inner? What does Conrad accomplish by this contrast, especially of
light and dark? How is the theme of darkness used throughout the text? Is its meaning constant or does it change?
7
Marlow constantly uses vague and often redundant phrases like "unspeakable secrets" and "inconceivable mystery."
At other times, however, he is capable of powerful imagery and considerable eloquence. Why does Marlow use
vague and "inconclusive" language so frequently?
McKinney / Allen / Plano Fiction Book Club
Discussion Questions – April 2014
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
8
Why does Heart of Darkness have two competing heroes? Who is the
true "hero" of the book and how would you define "hero" in this
world? Why doesn't Marlow kill Kurtz?
9
After Kurtz’s death, Marlow falls deathly ill. As he compares his neardeath experience with Kurtz’s, Marlow recognizes a key difference—in
his opinion, what makes him inferior to Kurtz?
10 A framing story structures Heart of Darkness. Why is it important to
narrate Marlow in the act of telling his story? Why is the framing
narrator unnamed?
11 How would you interpret Kurtz's dying words ("The horror! The
horror!"). What do they mean? What are the possible "horrors" to
which he is referring? Why is Marlow the recipient of Kurtz's last
words?
12 Conrad was a proponent of and wrote a number of essays supporting
women’s suffrage. His choice of a wife – effectively a shopclerk –
mystified his family (although she proved to be a stabilizing
force in his life without whom much of his writings would not
"To open to civilization the only part of our globe
which it has not yet penetrated, to pierce the
have been possible). What might the three women represent
darkness which hangs over entire peoples, is, I dare
in Heart of Darkness -- Kurtz's Intended, Marlow's aunt, and the
say, a crusade worthy of this century of progress,"–
African woman at Kurtz's station? Consider, for example, the
1867, Leopold II, King of Belgium, private colonizer of
contrast between Kurtz's African mistress and his Intended. Are
the Congo, responsible for the deaths of Five to 15
million Congolese.
these negative portrayals of women? What does Marlow mean
early in Part 1 when he suggests that women are "out of touch with truth" and live in a beautiful world of their own?
13 Conrad suffered throughout life from ill health, physical and mental. In 1878 Conrad attempted suicide by shooting
himself in the chest. A newspaper review of a Conrad biography suggested the book could have been subtitled
"Thirty Years of Debt, Gout, Depression and Angst.” Conrad fled London in 1903 explaining to a friend “Too much!
So many people – I see their personalities jumping out at me like tigers.” Is there an interrelationship between
physical illness and madness? How does one's environment relate to one's mental state in Heart of Darkness?
14 Why does Marlow lie to Kurtz's fiancée about Kurtz's last words? Why not tell her the truth, or tell her that Kurtz had
no last words, rather than affirming her sentimental and mundane ideas?
15 Arguably Conrad’s most influential work is 1899’s Heart of Darkness, to which many have been introduced by Francis
Ford Coppola's film, Apocalypse Now (1979), which was inspired by Conrad's novel but set during the Vietnam War.
The novel's depiction of a journey into the darkness of the human psyche continues to resonate with modern
readers. Have you seen Apocalypse Now and were you aware of the connection between the two works? If you
were, like Francis Ford Coppola, to retell Heart of Darkness in another setting, where and when would you set it?