Heart of Darkness
Published Serially in 1899
“The White Man’s Burden”
Rudyard Kipling, 1899
Take up the White Man's burden-Send forth the best ye breed-Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild-Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Take up the White Man's burden-In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain
To seek another's profit,
And work another's gain.
• Take up the White Man's burden-The savage wars of peace-Fill full the mouth of Famine
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch sloth and heathen Folly
Bring all your hopes to nought.
• Take up the White Man's burden-No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of serf and sweeper-The tale of common things.
The ports ye shall not enter,
The roads ye shall not tread,
Go mark them with your living,
And mark them with your dead.
Take up the White Man's burden-And reap his old reward:
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard-The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:-"Why brought he us from bondage,
Our loved Egyptian night?"
Take up the White Man's burden-Ye dare not stoop to less-Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloke your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your gods and you.
Take up the White Man's burden-Have done with childish days-The lightly proferred laurel,
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search your manhood
Through all the thankless years
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of your peers!
Frame Narrative
• Look at the diction and imagery of the first two pages.
What tone does Conrad establish in setting the scene
for the telling of the story?
Marlow sat cross-legged right aft, leaning against the
mizzenmast. He had sunken cheeks, a yellow
complexion, a straight back, and ascetic aspect, and,
with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards,
resembled an idol. … We felt meditative, and fit for
nothing but placid staring. The day was ending in a
serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The water
shone pacifically (4).
Imagery
• Consider the title of the novel. What are the
associations and connotations of “darkness”?
Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had
gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and
often the torch, messengers of the might within the
land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. (5)
• Be on the lookout for light and dark imagery as you
read the text, beginning with the first words Marlow
speaks.
The Novel as a Metaphor for
Imperialism
• What is Imperialism?
• How is it idealized?
• What are its effects?
– On the Imperialists?
– On the natives?
Colonization of Africa
They were no colonists;
their administration was
merely a squeeze, and
nothing more, I suspect.
They were conquerors,
and for that you want
only brute force –
nothing to boast of,
when you have it, since
your strength is just an
accident arising from the
weakness of others. (7)
Map of Imperial Africa, as described on page 11.
They grabbed what they could get for the sake of
what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence,
aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at
it blind – as is very proper for those who tackle a
darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly
means the taking it away from those who have a
different complexion or slightly flatter noses than
ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it
too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea
at the back of it; not a sentimental pretense but an
idea; an unselfish belief in the idea – something you
can set up, and bow down before, and offer a
sacrifice to…” (7)
How is Imperialism Idealized?
Something like an emissary of light, something
like a lower sort of apostle…Weaning those
ignorant millions of their horrid ways… I
ventured to hint that the company was run for
profit. (14)
The Fresleven Narrative:
The Effects of Imperialism
“Fresleven…went ashore and started to
hammer the chief of the village with a stick …
the chief’s son, - in desperation at hearing the
old chap yell, made a tentative jab with a
spear at the white man – and of course it went
quite easy between the shoulder-blades.
Then the whole population cleared into the
forest, expecting all kinds of calamities to
happen. (10)
Effects of Imperialism?
…the grass growing through his ribs was tall
enough to hide his bones. They were all
there. The supernatural being had not
been touched after he fell. And the village
was deserted, the huts gaped black, rotting,
all askew within the fallen enclosures. A
calamity had come to it, sure enough. The
people had vanished. Mad terror had
scattered them …the cause of progress got
them, anyhow. (24)
Pathetic Fallacy
In and out of rivers, streams of death in life,
whose banks were rotting into mud, whose
waters, thickening into slime, invaded the
contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at
us in the extremity of an impotent despair. (17)
Progress?
Pages 18 through top of 19
- Juxtaposition of images;
- Reappearance of an earlier image, but
invested with a complex simile.
- Effects of Imperialism?
- Verbal Irony?
Narrative Voice of Marlow
“Yet to understand the effect it had on me you
ought to know how I got out there, what I saw,
how I went up that river to the place where I first
met the poor chap. It was the farthest point of
navigation and the culminating point of my
experience. It seemed somehow to throw a kind
of light on everything about me – and into my
thoughts. It was somber enough too – and pitiful
– not extraordinary in any way – not very clear
either. No, not very clear. And yet it seemed to
throw a kind of light.” (21)
Conrad’s Experience
• 1889
• Particularly traumatic
• Severe illness
• Insight into human nature
Tone?
A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in
vanishing flatness. The air was dark above the
Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed
into a mournful gloom, brooding, motionless over the
biggest, the greatest, town on earth. (15)
We exchanged a few words lazily. Afterwards there
was a silence on board the yacht…We felt meditative,
and fit for nothing but placid staring. The day was
ending in a serenity of still and exquisite brilliance. The
water shone pacifically…Only the gloom to the west,
brooding over the upper reaches, became more
sombre every minute, as if angered by the approach of
the sun.
Africa
Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like
thinking about an enigma. There it is before you
– smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid,
or savage, and always mute with an air of
whispering, Come and find out. (29)
Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war
anchored off the coast. There wasn’t even a
shred there, and she was shelling the bush…In
the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water,
there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a
continent. (30)
Synecdoche
• Starred passage on 52-3.
Language and Idealization
• Starred passage on 58.
Possession
“My ivory, my intended, my station, my river,
my” – everything belonged to him. It made me
hold my breath in expectation of hearing the
wilderness burst into a prodigious peal of
laughter that would shake the fixed stars in their
places. Everything belonged to him – but that
was a trifle. The think was to know what he
belonged to, how many powers of darkness
claimed him for their own. (60)
Allegory
All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz …
Nerves went wrong, and caused him to preside at
certain midnight dances ending with unspeakable
rites … offered up to him… we whites “must
necessarily appear to them [savages] in the
nature of supernatural beings – we approach
them with the might as of a deity … By the simple
exercise of our will we can exert a power for good
practically unbounded” …This was the
unbounded power of eloquence – of words – of
burning noble words (83).
Group Work
• According to the novel, what is Imperialism?
Consider Kurtz as a metaphor.
• Discuss and interpret Marlowe’s actions upon his
return from Africa (his conversation with Kurtz’s
fiance, his care for Kurtz’s papers, etc.)
• What is the impact of Imperialism on the natives? On
the Europeans?
• What is Conrad’s statement on the idealization of the
Imperial project?
Impressionism Technique
These round knobs were not ornamental but
symbolic; they were expressive and puzzling,
striking and disturbing … They would have
been even more impressive , those heads on
the stakes, if their faces had not been turned
to the house. Only one, the first I had made
out, was facing my way. (71)
It was as though an animated image of death
carved out of old ivory had been shaking its
hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of
men made of dark and glittering bronze. I saw
him open his mouth wide – it gave him a
weirdly voracious aspect, as though he had
wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all
the men before him. (74)