Heart of Darkness

1. Heart of Darkness An Brief Look at Conrad’s Life and Works, Themes, and Motifs in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now

2. Joseph Conrad’s Life • Born Josef Teodore Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski, in Podolia, Ukraine, in 1857. • Conrad's father had studied law and languages at St Petersburg University and wrote radical poems and plays. • His father and mother, Apollo and Ewa, were political activists. They were imprisoned 7 months and eventually deported to Vologda • Conrad’s mother died of pneumonia in 1865.

3. Joseph Conrad’s Life • Apollo tried to educate his son himself; he introduced him to the work of Dickens, James Fennimore Cooper, and Captain Marryat in either Polish or French translations. • His father died of tuberculosis, and his funeral was attended by a thousand admirers. • Conrad was raised by his uncle. • Conrad was disobedient student. • In 1874, Conrad went to Marseilles France and joined the Merchant Navy. • Gun running for the Spanish and a love affair led to a suicide attempt.

4. Joseph Conrad’s Life • Conrad eventually became a British merchant sailor and eventually a master mariner and citizen in 1886. • He traveled widely in the east. • He took on a stint as a steamer captain (1890) in the Congo, but became ill within three months and had to leave. • In 1896, he married Jessie George a typist from Peckham. • Conrad retired from sailing and took up writing full time. • Writing took a physical and emotional toll on Conrad. The experience was draining

5. Joseph Conrad’s Works • Amayer’s Folly (1895) • Lord Jim (1900) • Heart of Darkness (1902) • Nostromo (1904) • Under Western Eyes (1910) • Chance (1914)

6. Heart of Darkness Background • After a long stint in the east ended, Conrad had trouble finding a new position. • With the help of a relative in Brussels, he was hired as captain of a steamer for a Belgian trading company. • Conrad had always dreamed of sailing the Congo. • Conrad had to leave early for the job because the previous captain was killed in a trivial quarrel.

7. Heart of Darkness Background • 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. • Dysentery was rampant as was malaria; Conrad had to terminate his contract due to illness and never fully recovered.

8. Heart of Darkness is Conrad’s most widely read novel. One reason is that it lends itself to wide range of interpretations. It can be read as….. 1. autobiography: The account of a journey up the Congo river that Conrad undertook in the early 1890’s. 2. anticolonialism: An exposition of the brutality of Belgian colonial rule. 3. myth: An ( Arthurian) quest 4. classical or Norse mythology 5. psychology or psychoanalysis: A journey into the Self. (and as a picture of the American involvement in the Vietnam War)

9. Autobiography • Conrad did, in fact, go up the Congo River in 1890. • Like Marlow in the novel, he got the job to go to the Congo through his aunt. • Like Marlow, he did not get along with the manager. • Like Marlow, he was sent to pick up an agent. • Like Marlow, he fell ill and nearly died.

10. Anticolonialism Conrad aboutcolonialism: • “The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the • taking it away from those who have a different • complexion or lightly flatter noses than ourselves, is • not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.” • In an essay, Conrad calls the colonial exploitation of the Congo, “the vilest scramble for loot that ever • disfigured the history of human conscience…”

11. Myth • In the King Arthur myths, a knight in shining armor • goes on a quest. Typically a quest for the holy grail. • The quest usually involves a number of trials. Some of • those are physical, but the toughest tests are usually • spiritual, a test of moral fibre or personal integrity. • The trials do not necessarily lead to wealth and fame, • but equally often to insight and humility.

12. Mythology: Classical and Norse • There are a number of references to Greek and Norse Mythology and to the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid: • The women in the Brussels office => Fates or Nornes • The Sepuchral city => Descent into the underworld • (Odyssey and Aeneid) • The river => Styx, Lethe (Rivers in the underworld) • The dying Negroes => The lifeless shadows in the • underworld • The journey itself => the journeys of Odysseus and • Aeneas

13. Christian Mythology • The novel has repeatedly been compared to Dante’sDivine Comedy. • Dante also undertakes a journey to the underworld, to the Christian Hell. • Other parallels: • The river = snake = temptation • The dying Negroes = souls in limbo • The Inner Station = the inner sanctum of Hell, Inferno

14. Psychology and Psychoanalysis More than 20 years before Freud published his tripartite division of the mind into Superego, Ego, and Id, Conrad seems to use similar ideas: superego ‘the policeman’ (p. 85) ‘your own innate strength’ (p.85)‘..he was hollow at the core’ (97) ‘powers of darkness’ (p. 85) ‘But the wilderness had found him out early… and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating’ (p. 97) ego id

15. Heart of Darkness Narrative Structure • Framed Narrative • Narrator begins • Marlow takes over • Narrator breaks in occasionally • Marlow is Conrad’s alter-ego; he shows up in some of Conrad’s other works including “Youth: A Narrative” and Lord Jim. • 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.

16. Varied Interpretations • Many different interpretations of this books exist. • 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 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.

17. Heart of Darkness Themes & Motifs • Darkness • Primitive Impulses (Kurtz, previous captain, etc.) • Cruelty of Man (Kurtz and Company) • Immorality/Amorality (Kurtz) • Lies/Hypocrisy (Marlow chooses Kurtz’s evil versus Company’s hypocritical evil) • Imperialization/Colonization (Belgian Company) • Cruelty of Man • Greed • Exploitation of People

18. Heart of Darkness Themes & Motifs • Role of Women • Civilization exploitive of women • Civilization as a binding and self-perpetuating force • Physical connected to Psychological • Barriers (fog, thick forest, etc.) • Rivers (connection to past, parallels time and journey)

19. Review of Criticism • Paul O’Prey: "It is an irony that the 'failures' of Marlow and Kurtz are paralleled by a corresponding failure of Conrad's technique--brilliant though it is--as the vast abstract darkness he imagines exceeds his capacity to analyze and dramatize it, and the very inability to portray the story's central subject, the 'unimaginable', the 'impenetratable' (evil, emptiness, mystery or whatever) becomes a central theme." • James Guetti complains that Marlow "never gets below the surface" and is "denied the final self-knowledge that Kurtz had."

20. Review of Criticism • Conrad, writing in 1922, responds to similar criticism: "Explicitness, my dear fellow, is fatal to the glamour of all artistic work, robbing it of all suggestiveness, destroying all illusion. You seem to believe in literalness and explicitness, in facts and in expression. Yet nothing is more clear than the utter insignificance of explicit statement and also its power to call attention away from things that matter in the region of art." • 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 . . ."

21. Review of Criticism • Marxist: You can see Heart of Darkness as a depiction of, and an attack upon, colonialism in general, and, more specifically, the particularly brutal form colonialism took in the Belgian Congo. • 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 importance of ivory to the economics of the system

22. Review of Criticism • Sociological/Cultural: Conrad was also apparently interested in a more general sociological investigation of those who conquer and those who are conquered and the complicated interplay between them. • Marlow's invocation of the Roman conquest of Britain • cultural ambiguity of those Africans who have taken on some of the ways of the Europeans • the ways in which the wilderness tends to strip away the civility of the Europeans and brutalize them • Conrad is not impartial and scientifically detached from these things, and he even has a bit of fun with such impartiality in his depiction of the doctor who tells Marlow that people who go out to Africa become "scientifically interesting."

23. Review of Criticism • Psychological/Psychoanalytical: Conrad goes out of his way to suggest that in some sense Marlow's journey is like a dream or a return to our primitive past--an exploration of the dark recesses of the human mind. • Apparent similarities to the psychological theories of Sigmund Freud in its suggestion that dreams are a clue to hidden areas of the mind • We are all primitive brutes and savages, capable of the most appalling wishes and the most horrifying impulses (the Id). • We can make sense of the urge Marlow feels to leave his boat and join the natives for a savage whoop and holler. • Notice that Marlow keeps insisting that Kurtz is a voice--a voice who seems to speak to him out of the heart of the immense darkness.

24. Review of Criticism • Religious: Heart of Darkness as an examination of various aspects of religion and religious practices • examine the way Conrad plays with the concept of pilgrims and pilgrimages • the role of Christian missionary concepts in the justifications of the colonialists • the dark way in which Kurtz fulfills his own messianic ambitions by setting himself up as one of the local gods

25. Review of Criticism • Moral-Philosophical: Heart of Darkness is preoccupied with general questions about the nature of good and evil, or civilization and savagery • What saves Marlow from becoming evil? • Is Kurtz more or less evil than the pilgrims? • Why does Marlow associate lies with mortality?

26. Review of Criticism • Formulist: • Threes: There are three parts to the story, three breaks in the story (1 in pt. 1 and 2 in pt. 2), and three central characters: the outside narrator, Marlow, and Kurtz • Contrasting images (dark and light, open and closed) • Center to periphery: Kurtz->Marlow->Outside Narrator->the reader • Are the answers to be found in the center or on the periphery?

27. Modernism • Heart of Darkness was published in the Late Victorian-Early Modern Era but exhibits mostly modern traits: • a distrust of abstractions as a way of delineating truth • an interest in an exploration of the psychological • a belief in art as a separate and somewhat privileged kind of human experience • a desire for transcendence mingled with a feeling that transcendence cannot be achieved • an awareness of primitiveness and savagery as the condition upon which civilization is built, and therefore an interest in the experience and expressions of non-European peoples • a skepticism that emerges from the notion that human ideas about the world seldom fit the complexity of the world itself, and thus a sense that multiplicity, ambiguity, and irony--in life and in art--are the necessary responses of the intelligent mind to the human condition.

28. Modernism • Heart of Darkness was published in the Late Victorian-Early Modern Era but exhibits mostly modern traits: • a distrust of abstractions as a way of delineating truth • an interest in an exploration of the psychological • a belief in art as a separate and somewhat privileged kind of human experience • a desire for transcendence mingled with a feeling that transcendence cannot be achieved • an awareness of primitiveness and savagery as the condition upon which civilization is built, and therefore an interest in the experience and expressions of non-European peoples • a skepticism that emerges from the notion that human ideas about the world seldom fit the complexity of the world itself, and thus a sense that multiplicity, ambiguity, and irony--in life and in art--are the necessary responses of the intelligent mind to the human condition.

29. Apocalypse Now Apocalypse Now • Apocalypse Now is a film that was directed by Francis Ford Coppola starring Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, and Marlon Brando • This film was 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.

30. Apocalypse Now • Apocalypse Now is only loosely based on Heart of Darkness. • However,the main plot and quite a few individual lines have been lifted directly from the novel. • Like the novel, it is a delving into the darkness of man’s heart. • Like the novel, the film wants to penetrate all the way to the reptile brain. • Where the novel may be called anticolonialist, the film may be seen as anti-war. • There is the same basic conflict of a technologically advanced culture attempting to impose its will on a less developed people. • If the novel questions ‘the white man’s burden’, the film questions the right of one country to impose its political system on another.

31. Other parallels between Apocalypse Now and Heart of Darkness • Same basic plot: An man goes up a river in order to get another man who, in the process, takes on an ominous significance. • AND • The helmsman is killed by a spear. • Kurtz’ camp is, in both versions, a vision of hell (in the • novel some of the natives wear horns - in the film we • see them.) • Both Kurtzes are in opposition to their superiors. • Both Kurtzes are extremely gifted. • Kurtz’s voice plays a major role in both works. • Film: ”His voice really put the hook in me.” • Novel: ”The man presented himself as a voice”.