Heart of darkness

HEART OF DARKNESS

THEMES:

GOOD VERSUS EVIL

From the minute you wake up in the morning, life is a moral struggle: hit the snooze

button, or get up and go for that run you promised yourself you’d take? Put your

dishes in the dishwasher, or leave them in the skin for your mom to clean up?

Now, imagine that you’re sailing up the Congo in a steamboat, and those daily moral

struggles take on a whole new gravity. In Heart of Darkness, Marlow’s desire to be

good and do good becomes increasingly futile as he’s plunged into a world where no

absolute goodness exists and the best he can do is choose between a selection of

nightmares. Eventually, we see that the characters become unable to distinguish

between good and evil – or between the River Thames and the Congo, or between

black and white –until finally we’re left wondering if there’s really any difference at all.

For Conrad, good and evil aren’t as different as they might seem. Conrad often uses

light not as a symbol for goodness or enlightenment, but as a foil to a darkness that it

eventually collapses into. Bed- but human nature is the same whether it’s shouting

“brava” after an operatic aria or chanting along with war drums.

In Heart of Darkness, natural forces have a will of their own: they are hostile to the

white “pilgrims”, but accepting toward the black “savages.”

Conrad suggests that there’s no real difference between the natural world and human

nature.

MAN AND THE NATURAL WORLD

More over, Mother Nature: there’s a new wilderness in town. In Heart of Darkness the

natural world isn’t a place of comfort or pleasure or even mild neutrality: it’s dark,

frightening, and it will basically eat your face off if you so much as look at it cross-

eyed. But is civilization really that much better? Sure, you might get to sleep in

RACE

Conrad does not exactly want to buy the world a Coke, but he does seem to have

some unconventional for the late 19 century. In Heart of Darkness, he seems to be

suggesting that there really isn’t so much difference between black and white – except

that this vision of racial harmony becomes more complicated when you consider that

he seems to be suggesting that black people are just less evolved versions of white

people. Maybe. We’re like 50% sure on that one. As with most issues in Heart of

Darkness, the differences between black and white are so confusing as to be almost

meaningless. And, in fact, maybe that’s just Conrad’s point.

Despite white Europe’s good intentions towards the Africans and their desire to

“civilize” the black man, imperialism proves to be a brutal and callous victimization of

the native Africans for the sole purpose of maximizing profits.

Despite Kurtz’s brutality, he treats the Africans more civilly and more as equals than

the majority of the other white European characters (like the accountant, the

manager, and even Marlow). This is why Marlow sees him as the lesser of two evils.

IDENTITY

By the end of his journey into the Congo, Marlow is so mixed up that he might as well

be singing, “ I Am the Walrus”. Although he starts off with a pretty clear sense of who

he is (white, successful, explorer), the jungle and the wilderness pretty quickly get him

al mixed up.

Men may go into the interior whole and unscathed, but the hostile wilderness quickly

drains them of their humanity. The wilderness only exposes the essential emptiness in

every man’s heart.

POWER

Everyone wants to be powerful. And the people in Heart of Darkness are willing to do

some pretty nasty things to get their way: blow up steamships, behead Africans, and

wish untimely and unpleasant illness on their coworkers. The Europeans all see nature,

and the Africans, as something to be dominated – but in the end, we can’t help feeling

that the real power is still locked up tight in the African interior. In fact, we suspect

that Kurtz’s warrior mistress just might be the most powerful one of all.

Kurtz’s power comes from being able to understand and control the native Africans.

With access to a large stash of ivory, he wins leverage within the Company.

Kurtz’s lack of self-restraint eventually undermines any position of power he manages

to hold.

WOMEN AND FEMININITY

Sorry, ladies: there's basically nothing for you here. Seriously. Conrad is all about the

gentlemen. For Marlow—and presumably for Conrad, too, although we could argue

about that—women exist in a totally separate world. Part of the reason the world in

Heart of Darkness is so grim for the dudes is that they have to protect women's

idealism. Of course, you could also suggest that the Intended stands in for all of

Western civilization, which would mean that Marlow's lie about Kurtz lets us all go on

pretending that foreign workers aren't suffering to produce our smartphones and $5 t-

shirts, men and women alike.

Questions About Women and Femininity

What is Marlow's opinion of women's position in society? Does Conrad seem to agree

with this? Which characters demonstrate Marlow's claim and which dispute it?

What characteristics does Marlow associate with women?

Compare and contrast the wild warrior woman to the Intended. Both are potential love

interests for Kurtz. If the Intended is an embodiment of purity and idealism, what does

the warrior woman represent? How do these characteristics reflect on Kurtz?

Although men make up the majority of the authority figures in the book, powerful

women are not utterly absent. Name at least two powerful women and state how they

exercise their power.

Chew on This

Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.

Despite Marlow's disparaging comments about women, a number of women display or

exercise a substantial amount of power in Heart of Darkness.

All the women within Heart of Darkness reflect the values of their society and are

viewed as nothing more than trophies for men. Even the women who seem at first to

have power are in fact powerless upon closer inspection.

EXPLORATION

The Company's continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life

and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before. And … to brutalize

and abuse the native Africans and lands in order to make huge profits off of ivory. Hm,

it doesn't sound so noble when you put it like that, does it? Marlow and others like him

might start off as starry-eyed idealists wanting to fill in the map, but, once that map

gets filled in, their goals change: now it's not so much about finding new places as

about making that last drop of profit from those new places that they can. Heart of

Darkness puts a grim spin on the mythology of exploration—one that J. J. Abrams is

probably not going to direct. (Although, that sounds truly awesome.)

Questions About Exploration

What captures Marlow's curiosity about Africa? About Kurtz? What is similar about

these two obsessions?

Why does Marlow insist at first that he's not interested in Kurtz? Is he telling the truth

at the time? Does he only get interested later?

How does Marlow's curiosity compromise his integrity and bring about dire

consequences? Or is his curiosity actually harmless?

How does Marlow explore Kurtz? Is the human mind a legitimate path for exploration?

How does this make his sense of right and wrong more flexible?

Chew on This

Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.

Marlow's journey up the Congo River parallels his exploration of the human psyche: as

he plunges deeper into the African interior, he goes deeper into the nature of good

and evil.

In Heart of Darkness, Conrad suggests that exploration is a negative force.

MADNESS

There's method in this madness: Kurtz has gone from noble conqueror to deranged

slaver because his power and greed have been totally unchecked. Ergo, if you want to

stay sane, don't swoop into an African village and start passing yourself off as a god.

Point taken. But that's where things start to get hazy. Is madness is just another name

for imperialism—the idea that white men can swoop into Africa and claim it for

themselves? Or is madness what happens when civilization tries to conquer the

wilderness?

Questions About Madness

How does Conrad define madness? How is Kurtz the ultimate embodiment of

madness?

What symptoms accompany the onset of madness in Heart of Darkness? What human

faculties begin to break down? Does Marlow become a little crazy himself?

Is madness caused by the trip up the Congo River and into the interior? Or is it

something that is born into man, regardless of his environment? In other words, is

madness caused by inherent nature or environment and experience?

Can the harlequin be seen as a bridge between madness and sanity? How do his words

make sense yet seem like folly to Marlow? How does Marlow relate to the harlequin?

What does this say about Marlow's state of sanity?

Chew on This

Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s advocate.

Isolation and life in the wilderness cause Kurtz's madness; in other words, there is

something inherently madness-inducing about the African interior.

One of Conrad's main messages is that madness is not caused specifically by living in

the wilderness, but that the seeds of madness—ambition, obsession, and greed—are

always present.

LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION

For someone who wrote a lot of big words, Conrad seems to have some serious doubts

about the power of language. In Heart of Darkness, words are always trying and failing

to live up to their big, impressive goal: ensuring that two people can understand each

other. For Kurtz, language is a way to justify white man's superiority over the Africans.

For Marlow, language represents a way out of madness by establishing a connection

with other humans. For the Africans—well, who knows? To Marlow, their words aren't

even language. We might say the same about you, Mr. Conrad.

Questions About Language and Communication

What is significant about the manager's and the brickmaker's characteristic

blabbering? What does it say about their characters?

How does Marlow receive information about Kurtz? Are these sources reliable? What

expectations does Marlow form about Kurtz based on this hearsay?

What is Kurtz's relationship to language? How does his troubled psyche manifest itself

in his words? What is Marlow's opinion of all this and how does it affect his own

relationship to language? Does he see it as a cure for madness?

What is Marlow's style of narration? Does the fact that he is telling the story

compromise our belief in its validity? Is he a reliable narrator? What might be his goal

in relating the story to his fellow passengers?

Chew on