Heart of Darkness

Conrad’s Life and Works, Themes and Motifs in Heart

of Darkness

Joseph Conrad’s Life

Josef Teodore Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski

Born in Podolia, Ukraine, 1857 Father studied law and languages

at St Petersburg University Wrote radical poems and plays Parents were political activists Imprisoned 7 months and

eventually deported to Vologda Mother died of pneumonia in 1865

Joseph Conrad’s Works

Amayer’s Folly (1895)

Lord Jim (1900) Heart of Darkness

(1902) Nostromo (1904) Under Western

Eyes (1910) Chance (1914)

Conrad’s Parallel Experience

With the help of a relative in Brussels he got the position as captain of a steamer for a Belgian trading company.

Conrad had always dreamed of sailing the Congo

Had to leave early for the job, the previous captain was killed in a trivial quarrel

Conrad’s Parallel Experience

While traveling from Boma (at the mouth) to the company station at Matadi he met Roger Casement who told Conrad stories of the harsh treatment of Africans

Conrad saw some of the most shocking and depraved examples of human corruption he’d ever witnessed. He was disgusted by the ill treatment of the natives, the scrabble for loot, the terrible heat and the lack of water.

He saw human skeletons of bodies left to rot - many were bodies of men from the chain gangs building the railroads.

He found his ship was damaged. Dysentary was rampant as was malaria;

Conrad had to terminate his contract due to illness and never fully recovered

Narrative Situation Framed Narrative

Narrator begins Marlow takes over Narrator breaks in occasionally

Marlow (his protagonist) is Conrad’s alter-ego, he shows up in some of Conrad’s other works

Marlow recounts his tale while he is on a small vessel on the Thames with some drinking buddies who are ex-merchant seamen.

As he recounts his story the group sits in an all-encompassing darkness and pass around the bottle.

Varied InterpretationsMany different interpretations: Some see it as an attack on colonialism and a

criticism of racial exploitation Some see Kurtz as the embodiment of all the evil

and horror of the capitalist society. Others view it as a portrayal of one man’s

journey into the primitive unconscious where the only means of escaping the blandness of everyday life is by self degradation.

Themes & Motifs Darkness

Primitive Impulses (Kurtz, previous captain, etc.)

Cruelty of Man (Kurtz and Company)

Immorality/Amorality (Kurtz) Lies/Hypocrisy (Marlow chooses

Kurtz evil versus Company’s hypocritical evil)

Imperialization/Colonization (Belgian Company) Cruelty of Man Greed Exploitation of People

Themes & Motifs

Role of Women Civilization

exploitive of women The Physical

connected to Psychological

Barriers (fog, thick forest, etc.)

Rivers (connection to past, parallels time and journey)

Voice of Conrad Through Marlowe

Marlowe, the narrator, describes how difficult conveying a story is: "Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible, which is the very essence of dream . . .No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning-- its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone . . ."

Heart of Darkness is seen as a depiction of and an attack upon colonialism in general and, more specifically, the particularly brutal form colonialism in the Belgian Congo as seen through the mistreatment of the Africans the greed of the so-called "pilgrims" the broken idealism of Kurtz the French man-of-war lobbing shells

into the jungle the grove of death which Marlow

stumbles upon the little note that Kurtz appends to his

noble-minded essay on The Suppression of Savage Customs— “The Horror, The Horror”

the importance of ivory to the economics of the system.

Conrad was interested in a sociological investigation of those who conquer and those who are conquered and the complicated interplay between them as in:Marlow's reference to the Roman conquest of Britain

cultural ambiguity --Africans who have taken on some of the ways of their Europeans

the way the wilderness tends to strip away the civility of the Europeans and brutalizes them

Conrad suggest that Marlow's journey is like a dream or a return to our primitive past--an exploration of the dark recesses of the human mind. References to psychological theories of

Freud by his suggestion that dreams are a clue to hidden areas of the mind

Man is nothing more than a primitive brute and savage, capable of the most appalling wishes and the most horrifying impulses (the Id) as seen in Marlow’s desire to leave his boat and join the natives for a savage whoop and holler

Marlow insists that Kurtz is a voice--a voice who calls out to him out of the heart of the immense darkness. (hence . . . Heart of Darkness)

Heart of Darkness as an examination of various aspects of religion and religious practices.Conrad plays with the concept of pilgrims and pilgrimages

Christian missionaries provide justification for the colonialists—saving the heathens OR annexing the natural resources & citizens for economic gain

Kurtz fulfills his own dark messianic (delusion of being a messiah) ambitions by setting himself up as a local god

Heart of Darkness is preoccupied with general questions about the nature of good and evil through the dichotomy of civilization vs. savagery What saves Marlow from becoming evil?

Is Kurtz more or less evil than the pilgrims?

Why does Marlow associate lies with mortality?

Based on the information you know so far about this novel and your knowledge of symbolism, what might this picture signify?

Contemporary Interpretation Heart of Darkness: Apocalypse

Now Apocalypse Now is an R

rated film directed by Francis Ford Coppola starring Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall and Marlon Brando (This is not a recommendation.)

It is based on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.

Coppola takes the story to Vietnam. Captain Willard (Marlow) is sent on a mission to kill Colonel Kurtz who has gone renegade.