Heart of Darkness

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Heart of Darkness
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GRAHAM GREENE, Journey without Maps (1936)Liberia

• I thought for some reason even then of Africa,
  not a particular place, but a shape, a
  strangeness, a wanting to know. The unconscious
  mind is often sentimental I have written a
  shape, and the shape, of course, is roughly that
  of the human heart.
• Africa will always be the Africa of the Victorian
  atlas, the blank unexplored continent the shape
  of the human heart.

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Factual/Historical Viewpoint

• The Congo River was discovered by Europeans in
  1482
• No one traveled more than 200 miles upstream
  until1877
• Is 1,600 miles long and only impassable to water
  traffic between two places, creating a
  two-hundred mile overland trip
• Matadi (the CompanyStation)
• Kinshasa (the Central Station)

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History of the Congo

• 1878 King Leopold II of Belgium asked explorer
  Henry Morton Stanley to set up a Belgian colony
  in the Congo
• Wanted to end slavery and civilize the natives
• Actually interested in more material benefits
• 1885 Congress of Berlin forms Congo Free State
• This was ruled by Leopold II alone
• The Congress of Berlin is referred to in the book
  as the International Society for the Suppression
  of Savage Customs.
• Leopold never even visited the Congo. He set up
  the Company to run it for him.

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CONGO FREE STATE (1885)
1879-1885 Henry Morton Stanley explores the
region for Leopold II of Belgium 1890 Conrads
expedition to the Congo (Before the Congo I was
a mere animal)
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Colonial Africa, circa 1892
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Democratic Republic of the Congo (1997)
The name of this African nation derives from a
people known as the BaKongo, first rendered as
Congo in Portuguese chronicles of exploration
in 1482. In their language, the 2,900-mile-long
Congo River is called nzadi, the river that
swallows all rivers.
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King Leopold II (reigned 1865 1909)
Belgian exploitation of the Congo initially
focused on the rubber industry.
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King Leopold and the Congo

• Belgium, as a small country, did not possess
  numerous overseas colonies, unlike its
  neighbours, Holland, France, Germany, and Great
  Britain, but shared their imperial ambitions.
  Leopold persuaded other European powers at the
  Berlin Conference of 1884-85 to give him personal
  possession of the Congo.
• In 1876 he organized an international association
  as a front for his private plan to develop
  central Africa.
• Leopold used the Congo as a huge money-making
  resource, committing human rights violations in
  the process, as he built public works projects in
  Belgium with the money he accrued.

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Belgiums Stranglehold on the Congo
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5-8 Million Victims (50 of Population)
It is blood-curdling to see them (the soldiers)
returning with the hands of the slain, and to
find the hands of young children amongst the
bigger ones evidencing their bravery...The rubber
from this district has cost hundreds of lives,
and the scenes I have witnessed, while unable to
help the oppressed, have been almost enough to
make me wish I were dead... This rubber traffic
is steeped in blood, and if the natives were to
rise and sweep every white person on the Upper
Congo into eternity, there would still be left a
fearful balance to their credit. -- Belgian
Official
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White King, Red Rubber, Black Death

• Countries such as France, the Netherlands, and
  Great Britain that acquired large empires
  exploited both land and people. However
• Some measures to protect the rights of overseas
  subjects were introduced.
• Rights of women and men to vote.
• Protection against industrial exploitation was
  making child labour illegal and improving
  employment conditions.
• Some of these rights were followed in the African
  colonies..but NOT BY LEOPOLD II
• Leopold had to give up the Congo to Belgium in
  1908 as a result of the international campaign
  exposing Leopolds activities in the Congo.

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King Leopolds Ghost

• Novel by Adam Hochschild written in 1998
• Tells the horrific story of King Leopolds
  colonial rule over a country and its native
  peoples.
• Based on the true story of the colonial
  activities.
• King Leopold II, never set foot in the Congo, but
  managed to ruin a countryhis ghost remains today
  in memories of the Congolese.

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The Explorer Stanleys Role

• H. M. Stanley, a journalist who explored the
  Congo on an expedition financed by King Leopold
  of Belgium.
• Stanley greatly aided his backer in gaining a
  firm foothold in what was to become the Belgian
  Congo (later Zaire), now the Democratic Republic
  of Congo.

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The White Mans Burden

• King Leopold found the Congocursed by
  cannibalism, savagery, and despair and he has
  been trying with patience, which I can never
  sufficiently admire, to relieve it of its
  horrors, rescue it from its oppressors, and save
  it from perdition. --H.M. Stanley

The idea that Europeans must carry the burden of
civilizing Africa.
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Different Motives of Imperialism

• Some Westerners felt it was their duty to
  civilize the savage inhabitant of colonial
  lands in order to make them more modern and
  European. The English writer Rudyard Kipling
  displayed such an attitude in 1899 with a poem
  entitle The White Mans Burden.

Take up the White Mans burden-- Send forth the
best ye breed-- Go bind your sons to exile To
serve your captives need To wait in heavy
harness, On fluttered folk and wild-- Your
new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and
half-child.
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Ivory and the White Mans Burden

• Most Europeans in the 1890s felt that the African
  peoples needed exposure to European culture and
  technology to become more evolved.
• This responsibility was known as the white mans
  burden and the fervor to bring Christianity and
  commerce to Africa grew.
• In return for these benefits, the Europeans
  extracted HUGE amounts of ivory.

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Ivory, cont.

• Uses of ivory in the 1890s
• Jewelry and other decorative items
• Piano keys
• Billiard balls
• From 1888 to 1892, the amount of ivory exported
  from the Congo rose from 13,000 pounds to more
  than a quarter million pounds.
• 1892 Leopold declares all natural resources in
  the Congo are his sole property
• This gave the Belgians free reign to take
  whatever they wanted however they wished.
• Trade expands, new stations are established
  farther and farther away

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The Results of Ivory Fever

• Documented atrocities committed by the Belgian
  ivory traders include the severing of hands and
  heads.
• Reports of this, combined with Conrads portrayal
  of the system in Heart of Darkness, led to an
  international protest movement against Belgiums
  presence in Africa
• Leopold outlawed these practices, but his decree
  had little effect
• Belgian parliament finally took control away from
  the king
• Belgium did not grant independence to the Congo
  until 1960

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Joseph Conrads Life

• Born Josef Teodore Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski,
  inPodolia, Ukraine, 3 December1857.
• Conrads father and mother,Apollo and Ewa, were
  politicalactivists. They were imprisoned 7
  months and eventually deported to Vologda.
• Apollo introduced his son to the work of Dickens,
  Fenimore Cooper and Captain Marryat in Polish and
  French translations.

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Joseph Conrads Life

• His father died of tuberculosis and his funeral
  was attended by a thousand admirers
• Conrad was raised by his uncle attended school
  (he was disobedient)
• Uncle was an aristocrat
• Cultural background was Western was taught
  primarily in French
• In 1874, Conrad went to Marseilles, France, and
  joined the Merchant Navy.
• Smuggling guns for the Spanish and a love affair
  led to a suicide attempt.
• Conrad became a British merchant sailor (switched
  from the French navy) and eventually a master
  mariner and citizen in 1886. His ten years in the
  British Merchant Marine shaped most of his
  stories.

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Joseph Conrads Life

• Wrote in a language that was not native to him
• English was his fourth language
• Taught himself

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Joseph Conrads Life

• Conrad traveled widely in the east.
• After 15-20 years, Conrad rose from the lowest
  rank of to become captain
• He took on a stint as a steamer captain (1890) in
  the Congo, but became ill within three months and
  had to leave.
• Conrad retired from sailing and took up writing
  full time.
• Died of a heart attack in 1924.
• Buried in Canterbury Cathedral.

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• Joseph Conrad in response to the rumor that he
  hesitated between French and English when he
  started writing
• English was for me neither a matter of choice
  nor adoptionthere was adoption but it was I who
  was adopted by the genius of the languageits
  very idiomshad a direct action on my temperament
  and fashioned my still plastic characters.
  (Conrad)

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Heart of Darkness

• First published as a serial in Londons Blackwood
  Magazine in 1899
• First unified publication in1902
• Considered by many to be the finest short novel
  ever written in English
• Bridges the Victorian and Modern literary periods
• Modern criticism sharply divided over merit due
  to racist/imperialist themes

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Victorian and Modern Literature

• Victorian (1837 1901)
• Traditional subject matter, form, and style
• Deals with issues of the day, including
• Social, economic, religious, and intellectual
  issues
• Industrial Revolution
• Class tensions, early feminist movement,
  pressures for social and political reform
• Impact of Darwins theories on evolution

• Modern (post WWI WWII)
• Authors experiment with subject matter, form, and
  style
• Deals with issues of the day, including
• Horrors of WWI
• Massive loss of life
• Loss of faith
• Expanding technology and science
• Also encompassed/is related to Postmodernism

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Heart of Darkness Background

• After a long stint in the east had come to an
  end, Conrad was having trouble finding a new
  position.
• 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
• He had to leave early for the job, as the
  previous captain was killed in a trivial quarrel

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Heart of Darkness Background

• Conrad saw some of the most shocking and depraved
  examples of human corruption hed 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 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

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Conrads View

• For Conrad, the world as we experience it is not
  a sort of place that can be reduced to a set of
  clear, explicit truths.
• Its truthsthe truths of the psyche, of the human
  mind and soulare messy, vague, irrational,
  suggestive, and dark.

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Conrads View

• Conrads intention? to lead his readers to an
  experience of the heart of darkness,not to shed
  the light of reason on itbut to recreate his
  experience of darkness in our feelings, our
  sensibilities, our own dark and mysterious hearts.

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About the Novel

• Since its publication, Heart of Darkness has
  fascinated readers and critics, almost all of
  whom regard the novel as significant because of
  its use of ambiguity and (in Conrad's own words)
  "foggishness" to dramatize Marlow's perceptions
  of the horrors he encounters.

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Key Facts

• Full Title  Heart of Darkness
• Author Joseph Conrad
• Type of Work Novella (between a novel and a
  short story in length and scope)
• Genre Symbolism, colonial literature, adventure
  tale, frame story, almost a romance in its
  insistence on heroism and the supernatural and
  its preference for the symbolic over the realistic

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Key Facts

• Time and Place Written England, 18981899
  inspired by Conrads journey to the Congo in
  1890.
• Date of First Publication Published in 1902 in
  the volume Youth A Narrative and Two Other
  Stories.
• Narrator There are two narrators an anonymous
  passenger on a pleasure ship, who listens to
  Marlows story, and Marlow himself, a middle-aged
  ships captain.

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Key Facts

• Point of View The first narrator speaks in the
  first-person plural, on behalf of four other
  passengers who listen to Marlows tale. Marlow
  narrates his story in the first person,
  describing only what he witnesses and
  experiences, and provides his own commentary on
  the story.
• Tone Ambivalent Marlow is disgusted at the
  brutality of the Company and horrified by Kurtzs
  degeneration, but he claims that any thinking man
  would be tempted into similar behavior.

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Key Facts

• Setting (time) Latter part of the nineteenth
  century, probably sometime between 1876 and 1892.
• Setting (place) Opens on the Thames River
  outside London, where Marlow is telling the story
  that makes up Heart of Darkness. Events of the
  story take place in Brussels, at the Companys
  offices, and in the Congo, then a Belgian
  territory.
• Protagonist Charlie Marlow.

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Key Facts

• Major Conflict Both Marlow and Kurtz confront a
  conflict between their images of themselves as
  civilized Europeans and the temptation to
  abandon morality completely once they leave the
  context of European society.
• Rising Action The brutality Marlow witnesses in
  the Companys employees, the rumors he hears that
  Kurtz is a remarkable man, and the numerous
  examples of Europeans breaking down mentally or
  physically in the environment of Africa.

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Key Facts

• Climax Marlows discovery, upon reaching the
  Inner Station, that Kurtz has completely
  abandoned European morals and norms of behavior.
• Falling Action Marlows acceptance of
  responsibility for Kurtzs legacy, Marlows
  encounters with Company officials and Kurtzs
  family and friends, Marlows visit to Kurtzs
  Intended.
• Themes The hypocrisy of imperialism, madness as
  a result of imperialism, the absurdity of evil.

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Heart of Darkness Narrative Structure

• Framed Narrative
• Narrator begins
• Marlow takes over
• Narrator breaks in occasionally
• Marlow is Conrads alter-ego, he shows up in some
  of Conrads 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.

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Heart of Darkness Motifs

• Darkness
• Primitive Impulses (Kurtz, previous captain,
  etc.)
• Cruelty of Man (Kurtz and Company)
• Immorality/Amorality (Kurtz)
• Lies/Hypocrisy (Marlow chooses Kurtzs evil
  versus Companys hypocritical evil)
• Imperialization/Colonization (Belgian Company)
• Greed / Exploitation of People
• Power Corrupts
• Savage vs. Civil

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Heart of Darkness Motifs

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

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Key Facts

• Motifs Darkness (very seldom opposed by light),
  interiors vs. surfaces (kernel/shell,
  coast/inland, station/forest, etc.), ironic
  understatement, hyperbolic language, inability to
  find words to describe situation adequately,
  images of ridiculous waste, upriver versus
  downriver/toward and away from Kurtz/away from
  and back toward civilization (quest or journey
  structure).

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Contrasts in Heart of Darkness

• Light vs. Dark
• Heavy vs. Light
• Inferiority vs. Superiority
• Civil vs. Savage
• Interior vs. Exterior
• Illusion vs. Truth
• Misogyny vs. Misanthropy

• Insanity vs. Sanity
• Racism vs. Anti-racism
• Imperialism vs. Insularity
• Evil
• What makes well-intentioned people do bad things?

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Key Facts

• Symbols Rivers, fog, women (Kurtzs Intended,
  his African mistress), French warship shelling
  forested coast, grove of death, severed heads on
  fence posts, Kurtzs Report, dead helmsman,
  maps, whited sepulchre of Brussels, knitting
  women in Company offices, man trying to fill
  bucket with hole in it.

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Order in the Midst of ChaosHeart of Darknesss
Structure

• Threes
• Chapters
• Marlow breaks off story 3 times
• Stations
• Women
• Central Characters
• Frame Narrative
• Light and Dark
• Transformation

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Movie Versions of the Book
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Apocalypse Now

• Apocalypse Now is a film directed by Francis Ford
  Coppola starring Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall and
  Marlon Brando
• This film was based on Conrads 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

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Circle of Influence

• Thomas Pynchon
• T.S. Eliot
• Ernest Hemingway
• F. Scott Fitzgerald
• William Faulkner
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez

• Mario Vargas Llosa
• Jorge Luis Borges
• Carlos Fuentes
• George Orwell
• Saul Bellow
• Eugene ONeill
• Graham Greene

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Joseph Conrads Other Works

• Almayers Folly (1895)
• The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897)
• Lord Jim (1900)
• Heart of Darkness (1902)
• Typhoon (1902)
• Nostromo (1904)
• The Secret Sharer (1907)
• Under Western Eyes (1910)
• Chance (1914)

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Bibliography

• PowerPoint from Sandra Effinger
• http//mseffie.com/assignments/heart_of_darkness/h
  od.html