The Darkness Within All of Our Hearts
Having just finished Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novella, The Heart of Darkness, I am struck by the adroit insight that Conrad provides his readers into the inner soul of man – where the “heart of darkness” lies. Perhaps this is why many literary critics acclaim The Heart of Darkness as the best short novel written in English.
The story tells of an Englishman, Charlie Marlow, who takes on a foreign assignment given to him by a Belgian trading company to fill a deceased captain’s spot aboard the ship Thames Estuary. His assignment is to sail up what is assumed to be the Congo River, part of the Belgian Congo, to retrieve sought after Ivory and also to retrieve a Belgian colonial agent, named Kurtz, who has evidently lost his wits.
Africa, as it was known to the Victorian aged people, was considered the “Continent of Darkness.” Conrad plays on this motif by his referral to the African continent, and specifically the Congo, as the “Heart of Darkness.” The darkness epigraph used by Conrad has a two-fold meaning. The first describes the perception of the unchartered African continent, specifically the Congo, and the undomesticated, savage cannibals who inhabit the Congo.
The second, and much profound, meaning is Conrad’s metaphorical representation of Marlow’s travels into the depths of the human soul, where one can find the “heart of darkness.” The humanist motifs of truth, evil, and morality are stirred about but not explicitly defined. The writing style employed by Conrad leaves the reader to deduce the truth about the human soul as one travels into the heart of darkness. As Conrad takes Marlow throughout the heat of the African Congo, the purest form of civilization is made clear: the brute nature of life and the inner darkness of the human soul. The primordial Congo represents the essence of the soul.
Marlow is being sent to collect an agent who has deviated from the plan – presumably exploitation of the land and the people. The life of the rouge agent Kurtz represents the fight to “suppress the savage customs,” of both the aboriginal people and, more importantly, the human soul. The agent Kurtz, in Conrad’s story, lost the battle with the inner darkness. As Kurtz is quoted saying near his death, “Live rightly, die, die . . .”
Perhaps the essence of the inner battle with the soul is represented by this quote:
“It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of somber pride, or ruthless power, of craven terror — of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he [Kurtz] 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!’”
Kurtz had been overcome by the inner darkness of the soul. However, Marlow chooses not to succumb to the darkness of the inner forces.
“I did not go in join Kurtz there and then. I did not. I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end, and to show my loyalty to Kurtz once more. Destiny. My Destiny!”
It is Marlow’s destiny to show the fortitude of one man who faced death and the inner darkness of the soul and had something to say about it — a man who attempted to live rightly, but was overcome by the inner darkness and the horror of the darkness. Marlow’s comment on death beckons the reader to consider what he has to say about death and the meaning of the life – what is it that you have said or done?
“I have wrestled with death . . . If such is the form of ultimate wisdom, then life is a greater riddle that some of us think it to be. I was within a hair’s-breadth of the last opportunity for pronouncement, and I found with humiliation that probably I would have nothing to say. This is the reason why I affirm that Kurtz was a remarkable man. He had something to say. He said it.”
What is the riddle of life? Are our moral structures and civilized societies mere social facades hiding the answer to the riddle — the “sepulchral” city, as described by Conrad? Does all of this serve to coat the inherent brute — the inner heart of darkness? Is life, in essence, Hobbesian in nature: “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short” — an animal kingdom?
The inevitable death . . . the darkness within all of our hearts?
What did you make of Marlow’s lie to Kurtz’s fiancee at the end of the story? (For those of you who haven’t read Heart of Darkness, Marlow visits Kurtz’s fiancee and she asks if his last words were about her. Kurtz’s last words were, in fact, “The horror! The horror!” But Marlow lies and says that Kurtz’s last words were her name.)
I thought his lie was merciful and showed his humanity. The grieving fiancee did not need to live the rest of her life knowing the truth about Kurtz’s dark deeds in the middle of the Congo under severe circumstances. Marlow does not betray his moral highground by keeping that information to himself. I guess what I’m trying to say is, yes, our moral structure and civility sometimes hide the nastier, more brutish aspects of life, but that’s not always a bad thing. Sometimes if we stay true to ideals instead of reality, that will serve us better in the long run. The people with the most realistic vision of the world are usually the most depressed, right? This is not to say that we should stick our heads in the sand. But maybe it’s okay to protect each other from the darkness a little bit. I’m really glad Marlow lied. After all, according to Conrad, if he had told her, it would have been “too dark altogether…”
What did you make of Marlow’s lie to Kurtz’s fiancee at the end of the story?
It was Marlow saving face for humanity — for love? I agree that is was merciful and showed his humanity. However, it was a lie, nonetheless; a cover-up for the real truth — that life is horrible. Sort of a depressing ending to me.
Perhaps the age-old axiom that “ignorance is bliss” is particularly appropriate in the context of the “Heart of Darkness.” Because reality is a nightmare, as Marlow puts it in the context of Kurtz’s death. Life is full of pride, power, and terror — that is the reality, according to Conrad.
So… “The people with the most realistic vision of the world are usually the most depressed, right?”
Seems that way, doesn’t it? I don’t buy into it completely. I, for one, think that there’s a higher order to life. That in some way the human race is advancing and not simply covering up the truth.
Just curious, have you read Adam Hochschild’s book, King Leopold’s Ghost? It’s an extraordinary history of the Belgian Congo that anyone interested in African history (or Joseph Conrad’s literature) should read because it puts things in a very deep context. By the time Conrad sailed up the Congo on a riverboat (in the voyage that inspired him to write Heart of Darkness) the Belgians had already been pitting tribes against each for profit for decades or even centuries. Much of the brutality seen in the Congo basin (and continuing to this day) arguably has its root in the disruption of these societies and the pitting of them against each other in wholly new scales of brutality.
I haven’t, but there’s is a critical excerpt in the book I’ve got (the one I read Heart of Darkness from).
I’m also going to look at Achebe’s critique and other “critics” — It’s all part of the book.
Reading this from a more postcolonial slant, Marlow’s lie to Kurtz becomes terribly fun. Perhaps Marlow has no choice but to lie. The motherland is not ready for the horrors of the periphery.
The last time I read the novella was in ENG 351 at Harding and I certainly didn’t apply a postcolonial theory to it but I’ve been so immersed in it (I’m currently taking a 19th C Empire, Sex, and Gender Victorian Lit class and a 20th C Postcolonial Brit Lit class) that I can think of little else. In fact, I am putting off finishing a paper proposal about postcolonialism by reading your blog.
Ever read Hanif Kureishi?
No Hanif, but I am reading LeCarre’s A Constant Gardner.
Has anyone ever applied Nietzsche, Dawkins (Darwinian), or some form of Existentialism?
I can see Nietzsche’s Will to Power theory — and no moral law or universal norm. I too can see an application in Dawkins-Darwinian theory of evolution (and eugenics?). Existentialism would be interesting — since it could stem from different branches of existentialist thought about being and direction.
This is my second favorite book. Lord Jim really works well with this work. Think, the eternal soul of advanced white European society was that of darkness….They were the evil ones, though if you do not read carefully one might assum the Africans were — after all they did practice cannibalism in the work.
S.C Denny: What did you make of Marlow’s lie to Kurtz’s fiancee at the end of the story?
I have debated this for years with many of my far more knowlegable English colleagues. I saw it as an attempt to hide the evil of European imperalist.
“What did you make of Marlow’s lie to Kurtz’s fiancee at the end of the story?”
This is how I answered it above:
“It was Marlow saving face for humanity — for love? I agree that is was merciful and showed his humanity. However, it was a lie, nonetheless; a cover-up for the real truth — that life is horrible. Sort of a depressing ending to me.”
After reading Achebe’s critique I see this a bit differently, now. Although in Conrad’s mind (Marlow’s) he was saving face for humanity — for the love of the fiancee. I think the implication is that Africa was just too horrible to reveal to the pristine white woman of Europe. Contrast this to the African women who Conrad describes as a sort of servile mistress to Kurtz — a used good by the European.
Could that be argued as racism and void of African sentiment? Sure. However, I think it’s important to remember this is a European’s perspective of an undeveloped region — why wouldn’t he perceive it as commensurate to the beginning of civilization? Especially when compared to the highly developed, industrialized, and cosmopolitan England.
BTW: Good to see you back Eddie! I am glad everything has gone well thus far.
Also, have you read Chinua Achebe’s critique of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness?
It is graet to be back. I am feeling stronger each and every day. I heard him speak at Princeton a month or so ago. I have not read his critique, but I did hear him speak about it. He would agree with you.
My struggle over the years has dealt with the extent to which Europeans knew about what whites were doing in Africa. Pro-Imperalist leagues that shared popular literature about the plight and condition of Africans were in circulation. After the Berlin Conference of 1884/85, many Western Europeans accepted the Social Darwin concept ofwhite supremacy. Thus, I fully agree with your last paragraph.
Hey, were you upset in Kurtz? Asking the question who is kurtz is what made it hard to put the book down.
You will like this article I read out of the Chronicle of Higher Education:
http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=wwnsjpymmr1tl2jn03ghjn0t0x6s5sg2