College in the Schools: Introduction to Modern Fiction
1. Heart of Darkness is considered not only a literary classic but a
powerful indictment of the evils of imperialism. It reflects the savage
repressions carried out in the Congo by the Belgians in one of the
largest genocidal acts committed up to that time. Identify three
quotes not used elsewhere in this packet where this position is
supported in the text.
2. Having read Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and experienced
the Ibo civilization in Nigeria, you may have noticed the Africans are
depicted as innately irrational and violent, and Africa itself is
reduced to a metaphor for what white Europeans fear within
themselves. The people of Africa and the land they live in remain
inscrutably alien, other. The title implies that Africa is the “heart of
darkness,” where whites who “go native” and risk releasing the
“savage” within themselves. How might Achebe’s view be read into
the text? Defenders of Conrad sometimes argue that the narrator
does not speak in Conrad’s own voice, and that a layer of irony
conceals his true views. What evidence in the text supports
Conrad’s possible irony?
3. “Carlyle says that, ‘to subdue mutiny, discord, widespread despair
by manfulness, justice, mercy and wisdom, to let light on chaos, and
make it instead a green flowery world, is beyond all other
greatness, work for a God!’ Who can doubt that God chose the King
for his instrument to redeem this vast slave park… King Leopold
found the Congo…cursed by cannibalism, savagery, and despair;
and he has been trying with a patience, which I can never
sufficiently admire, to relieve it of its horrors, rescue it from its
oppressors, and save it from perdition.” H. M. Stanley, 1898.
(Norton Critical ed. Heart of Darkness). What imperialist notions
drive this view of the world, and how is it made evident in the text
and in the larger world throughout history?
4. Progress leaves its dead by the way, for progress is only a great
adventure as its leaders and chiefs know well in their hearts. It is a
march into an undiscovered country; and in such an enterprise the
victims do not count. (Notes on Life and Letters, page 118). Discuss
this in relation to the novel. Identify quotes to frame and elaborate
on this quote.
5. For Conrad, the ultimate atrocity is not some form of tribal
savagery; it is Kurtz’s regression…But Kurtz does something worse
– he betrays the ideals of civilization that he is supposedly importing
from Europe. Conrad does not debunk the myth of the Dark
Continent: Africa is the location of his hell on earth. But at the
center of that hell is Kurtz, the would be civilizer, the embodiment of
Europe’s highest and noblest values, radiating darkness. (Critical
Inquiry 12, Autumn 1985). What has Kurtz become in the Congo?
Why? What barbarity and savagery does he reveal? What is its
source?
6. What does Conrad’s treatment of ‘the Intended’ and Marlowe’s lie to
her reveal about Victorian women? What is this about and how
does it echo elsewhere in history? How would it be a different tale
told by women?
7. Marlowe defines civilization as the digging of “unostentatious holes
to bury and stuff dead hippo meat in,” and calls Brussels a “whited
sepulcher”, apparently a civilized place. Can you accept his
definition of civilization? What do you think civilization should be?
8. Identify a theme or message conveyed through Conrad’s use of
imagery related to water, nature, voice, religion, or civilization in
the novel.
9. Form a working hypothesis as to the message of the novel.
10.How do you think this novel should be taught? How can one avoid
perpetuating imperialist stereotypes of Africa to those who still see
it as a ‘dark continent’?