Dave's Book Blog: "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad

This classic short novel was rated by Robert McCrum 32nd in The Guardian's 100 best novels of all time.

In the darkest days of colonial Africa, a sailor travels down a river to collect a bring back to civilisation from the heart of the heart-shaped continent, an ivory trader who has gone 'native'. This is a classic tale of warped human values and the savagery that lurks within each human's soul.

Heart of Darkness is a frame narrative, that is to say, it is a story told by an (unnamed) narrator about a story told by a (named) narrator. This device adds a layer of distance between the reader and the story (in the case of HoD this distance intensified by the fact that there are only two named characters: Marlow, the narrator protagonist, and Kurtz, the object of the quest).

Perhaps more importantly, the framing device allows the narrator Marlow to comment on the story as he is telling it, almost as if he were an editor adding footnotes. In particular he compares the location in the Thames estuary of the narrator and his listeners with the story’s setting on the (unnamed) African river, a comparison driven home from Marlow’s very first line: “And this also ... has been one of the dark places of the earth.” Marlow is telling his listeners that the difference between their cosy complacent ‘civilised’ world and the savage wilderness of the story is only on the surface: that the heart of darkness is inside each one of us, waiting for its opportunity to escape.

The plot of the novel corresponds fairly closely to a voyage made by the author about seven years before up the Congo river in what was then the Belgian Congo, a vast tract of Central Africa which was the personal fiefdom of King Leopold II of the Belgians in which the indigenous population was ruthlessly and often viciously exploited by quasi-private commercial concerns to extract the key resources of ivory and rubber. Conrad was horrified by what he observed on this journey and the novel can in some ways be thought of as a cathartic memoir. Marlow the narrator is also the narrator in two other Conrad novels (Lord Jim, written the year after HoD, and Chance) and a short story (Youth).

Seen through modern eyes, HoD contains a great deal of racism: Conrad repeatedly uses the word ‘nigger’, he repeatedly describes the Africans encountered as primitive, and he suggests that the life of a black man killed on the expedition to rescue Kurtz is not necessarily equal to that of Kurtz (“I am not prepared to affirm the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him ... a savage who was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara"; Ch 2). Furthermore, he does not condemn colonialism but makes a distinction between the practices he observes in the Congo (“robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale”; Ch 1) and colonialism (“They were no colonists”; Ch 1); he explicitly says that the idea of colonialism can redeem the practice: “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.” (Ch 1)

However, at the time, the book was a trail-blazing challenge to contemporary attitudes, and it can be seen as a catalyst in the campaign to end the worst aspects of the treatment of the native population which, following the Casement Report by the British government, led to the Belgian government taking (official) responsibility for the colony.

And it is a wonderfully written book.

Echoes of Jesus?

Officially Kurtz, which means ‘short’ in German, although Conrad states “All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz” (Ch 3), was based on a real man named Klein (which means ‘little’). However, I am intrigued by the similarity between ‘Kurtz’ and ‘Christ’. My thesis is that Kurtz is meant to represent a Christ-like figure, although one with possibly satanic overtones.

Here is my evidence:

Marlow describes the city where he receives his commission, the city (of Brussels) which is involved in the exploitation of the Congo, as a "whited sepulchre" (Ch 1), a phrase used by Jesus (Matthew 23.27) when he is calling the Pharisees hypocrites.
There are several moments in the early part of the story when we catch - often contrary - glimpses of Kurtz through the eyes of other people: “Kurtz whom at the time I did not see—you understand. He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything?” (Ch 1) It is as if Conrad is saying that there are many interpretations of God ... and no-one has the full truth. In the end, Marlow, who claims to know Kurtz as well as anyone could, himself realises that it is impossible to articulate a single, unified, coherent description of Kurtz. This description of what cannot be described uses the technique of ambiguity which Conrad’s friend Henry James had just used to great effect in The Turn of the Screw, another frame narrative, published just the year before HoD.
Kurtz inspires religious-like devotion in his followers, not least the apostle-like Russian. He says that Kurtz talked of “love” and when Marlow, assuming, presumably, he means sexual love, says dismissively “Ah, he talked to you of love!” the manager replies “It isn’t what you think. ... He made me see things.” He says the tribesmen “adored” Kurtz.
The people coming to take Kurtz back with them are described as ‘pilgrims’, an ironic appellation. They are presumably the pharisees and “the manager” is the High Priest Caiaphas.
Marlow realises that the Africans travelling on the boat are cannibals. Is this an echo of holy communion in which Christians eat the body (bread) and drink the blood (wine) of Christ?
When Kurtz is told he must leave he promises “I will return. I’ll show you what can be done. ... I will return.” (Ch 3)
The episode in which Marlow, acting perhaps as Judas, ‘captures’ Kurtz has echoes of the arrest of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. There are many ambiguities in this scene: does Marlow carry Kurtz to the boat or persuade him? And in this scene Marlow repeatedly mixes the physical with the spiritual. He says that Kurtz had “kicked himself loose of the earth.” He says “if anyone had ever struggled with a soul, I am the man.” He uses the phrase “for my sins, I suppose” when saying that he had to look within his soul.
The paragraph before Kurtz says his last words (“The horror! The horror!”) begins “It was as though a veil had been rent.” In the Gospel of Matthew, during the final moments of Jesus on the cross, he shouts out “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” and then dies; “At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two”.
And Conrad repeatedly compares Africa with England two thousand years ago, at the time of Christ or thereabouts, as if to suggest that Kurtz is a Messiah for the Africans.
When, back in Europe, Marlow goes to see Kurtz’s girlfriend, they talk about Kurtz ... and she rewrites the story. She says it is impossible not to love him. She says “It is impossible that all this should be lost—that such a life should be sacrificed to leave nothing—but sorrow. You know what vast plans he had. I knew of them, too—I could not perhaps understand—but others knew of them. Something must remain. His words, at least, have not died.” She even says “his goodness shone in every act” and Marlow finds himself agreeing with her. And she says: “I cannot believe that I shall never see him again, that nobody will see him again, never, never, never.” Marlow comments “I saw him clearly enough then. I shall see this eloquent phantom as long as I live.”

But this isn’t the gentle Christ of the Anglican church. Kurtz has surrounded his hut with the heads of ‘rebels'; he is described as “very terrible”. I think Conrad is imagining a Christ who comes not to bring peace, but a sword.

For even more evidence, I suggest that in Conrad's short novel 'The Secret Agent', Mr Verloc is meant to be God. See my blog review here.

Selected quotes:

“And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth.” (Ch 1)
“to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.” (Ch 1)
“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. 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.” (Ch 1)
“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 pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea—something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to....” (Ch 1)
“I have a lot of relations living on the Continent, because it’s cheap and not so nasty as it looks, they say.” (Ch 1)
“They were dying slowly—it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now—nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. These moribund shapes were free as air—and nearly as thin.” (Ch 1)
“Day after day, with the stamp and shuffle of sixty pair of bare feet behind me, each pair under a 60-lb. load. Camp, cook, sleep, strike camp, march. Now and then a carrier dead in harness, at rest in the long grass near the path, with an empty water-gourd and his long staff lying by his side. A great silence around and above.” (Ch 1)
“there was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy—a smile—not a smile—I remember it, but I can’t explain. It was unconscious, this smile was, though just after he had said something it got intensified for an instant. It came at the end of his speeches like a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable.” (Ch 1)
“The word ‘ivory’ rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse.” (Ch 1)
“And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion.” (Ch 1)
“Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. The background was sombre—almost black. The movement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister.” (Ch 1)
“You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appalls me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies” (Ch 1) Marlow proclaiming himself to be a reliable narrator ... much as Nick Carraway does in The Great Gatsby.
“Kurtz whom at the time I did not see—you understand. He was just a word for me. I did not see the man in the name any more than you do. Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything?” (Ch 1)
“‘Of course in this you fellows see more than I could then. You see me, whom you know....’ It had become so pitch dark that we listeners could hardly see one another.” (Ch 1) A nice contradiction. Marlow is talking about himself as a reliable narrator and about the difficulty of seeing Kurtz; he says that the others can see him ... but they can’t.
“I saw him extend his short flipper of an arm for a gesture that took in the forest, the creek, the mud, the river—seemed to beckon with a dishonouring flourish before the sunlit face of the land a treacherous appeal to the lurking death, to the hidden evil, to the profound darkness of its heart.” (Ch 2)
“I had to keep guessing at the channel; I had to discern, mostly by inspiration, the signs of hidden banks; I watched for sunken stones;” (Ch 2)
“We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet. We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of profound anguish and of excessive toil.” (Ch 2)
“The mind of man is capable of anything—because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future.” (Ch 2)
“No; I can’t forget him, though I am not prepared to affirm the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him. I missed my late helmsman awfully—I missed him even while his body was still lying in the pilot-house. Perhaps you will think it passing strange this regret for a savage who was no more account than a grain of sand in a black Sahara. Well, don’t you see, he had done something, he had steered; for months I had him at my back—a help—an instrument. It was a kind of partnership. He steered for me—I had to look after him” (Ch 2)
“They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house.” (Ch 3)
“The knitting old woman with the cat obtruded herself upon my memory as a most improper person to be sitting at the other end of such an affair.” (Ch 3)
“But his soul was mad. Being alone in the wilderness, it had looked within itself, and, by heavens! I tell you, it had gone mad.” (Ch 3)
“The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress; and Kurtz’s life was running swiftly, too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time.” (Ch 3)
“The shade of the original Kurtz frequented the bedside of the hollow sham, whose fate it was to be buried presently in the mould of primeval earth. But both the diabolic love and the unearthly hate of the mysteries it had penetrated fought for the possession of that soul satiated with primitive emotions, avid of lying fame, of sham distinction, of all the appearances of success and power.” (Ch 3)
“It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror—of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision—he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath: ‘The horror! The horror!’” (Ch 3)
“There was a lamp in there—light, don’t you know—and outside it was so beastly, beastly dark.” (Ch 3)
“I went no more near the remarkable man who had pronounced a judgment upon the adventures of his soul on this earth. The voice was gone. What else had been there?” (Ch 3)
“perhaps all the wisdom, and all truth, and all sincerity, are just compressed into that inappreciable moment of time in which we step over the threshold of the invisible.” (Ch 3)
“I had a vision of him on the stretcher, opening his mouth voraciously, as if to devour all the earth with all its mankind. He lived then before me; he lived as much as he had ever lived—a shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities; a shadow darker than the shadow of the night, and draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed to enter the house with me—the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart—the heart of a conquering darkness.” (Ch 3)
“The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.” (Ch 3)