Joseph
Conrad's Heart of Darkness. (Penguin ed, 1995).
Rendered as a film
(1994) by Nicolas Roeg with screenplay by Benedict Fitzgerald.
This novel/film is
the Africa of late 1800's, against the backdrop of (1) the division of Africa
between the European powers (see p 25 for a reference to this division) (2)
exploration of the continent: Conrad's own Congo Diary is reproduced in the
Penguin edition, pp 150 - 162 (3) trade and commerce: 'men go prying into all sorts of places where they have no
business) and come out of them with all kinds of spoil" (p 10) (4)
Christian mission to enlighten and the general idea of 'civilizing' the rest of
the world.
I had then, you will remember, just returned to London after a lot of Indian Ocean, Pacific, China Seas - a regular dose of the East - six years or so, and I was loafing about, hindering you fellows in your work and invading your homes, just as though I had got a heavenly mission to civilize you …. (p 21).
Something like an emissary of light, something like a lower apostle … She talked about 'weaning the ignorant millions from the horrid ways … p 28
Conrad was a
Polish émigré to Britain, a sea captain who became a professional writer in
English, his third language. Said has
suggested that being an émigré helps you see the world through more than one
pair of eyes (1994: xxiii). Although he
became a British citizen, there is a sense in which Conrad described and
observed Britain's own colonial enterprise as an outsider. He could be critical of its morality yet was
passive in apparently accepting its inevitability: 'All Conrad can see is a
world totally dominated by the Atlantic West, in which every opposition to the
West only confirms the West's wicked power.
What Conrad could not see is an alternative to this cruel tautology'
(Said, 1994: xviii).
In the story,
Marlowe, a sea captain, accepts a commission with a trading company to navigate
a steamer up-river to the Inner Most station, where Kurtz, a 'universal genius'
(p 51) has become a 'great power'. Marlowe 'had a passion for maps' and as a
child had liked to 'put his finger on' them and say, 'When I grow up I will go
there' (p 21 - 22). He had now been to
many of these places but not to Africa, 'the biggest, the most blank, so to
speak'. No ivory has been sent back to HQ for some time from Kurtz's station
and Marlowe's job is to find out why.
His visit to the Company Office is rather mysterious. We read of two
women 'guarding the door of Darkness' and are told that later Marlowe often
thought of them when he was 'far away'. The film version captures this very
skilfully. The 'door of darkness' alludes to Sibyl in the Aneid, who guards
'the door of gloom' through which Aeneas descended into hell (p 131 fn. 39).
On route up river, Kurtz's people, who seem to
want to prevent Kurtz from leaving (p 78), attack Marlowe's ship. Kurtz is also
writing a report for the International Society for the Suppression of Savage
Customs (p 83). Here we have an example
of the type of in-the-field scholarship in which many colonial personnel
engaged, including explorers, merchants or government officials. Kurtz is sick
and dies soon after Marlowe finds him, uttering 'the horror, the horror' (p
112).
The book has few
if any direct reference to religion yet reflects some common Christian
attitudes of the time.
Identify some of
these attitudes. Can you illustrate
them from the text?
Reflect on the
word 'Darkness' in the book's title.
Might Conrad actually be suggesting that it is the Europeans who have brought
'darkness with them'. See p 111, 'his
heart was an impenetrable darkness', a reference to Kurtz. The film version seems to follow the
interpretation that the evil and the horror of the narrative lurk in 'the heart
of man' .
Does 'darkness' or
a similar image of Africa appear on your list (see above).
How are Africa and
Africans described in the novel? Look
especially at pp 30, 33, 35 - 36, 38, 54, 83, 108 - 9 ('amazing words that
resembled no sounds of human language … some satanic litany').
In the film, the
addition of sight and sound make the journey through the forest, then upriver,
very menacing; we hear strange sounds and see masked and camouflaged Africans
moving stealthily through the jungle. De Griffe, the Company agent travelling
with Marlowe, doesn’t like the way 'these inhuman brutes are behaving' shortly
before the attack by Kurtz's people.
Does, 'They were
not inhuman …. What thrilled you was the thought of their humanity' (pp 62 -
63) challenge the stereotypical view?
Also read Marlowe's remarks about hid dead helmsman; p 84, 'I missed him
… Perhaps you will think it passing strange, this regret for a savage …'. In the film, he refers to Bumbu as his
friend.
How are Europeans
depicted? What characterizes their
attitude towards Africans?
Look again at
Conrad's description of Africans on p 36, when he uses the word 'it'. Do you think that Conrad may be using what
is almost a caricature here satirically, to challenge readers to think again
about their view of Africans?
What does the
famous sentence on p 20 tell us about Conrad's view of imperialism? See also p 25 and the editor's comments on p
xxxiv. Do you agree with Hampson's
evaluation?
In the film, Kurtz
and Marlowe are described as part of the new breed, the moral men. This implies that 'doing good' was part of
their mission, despite the fact that they were working for a commercial
enterprise (see the comments about Kurtz, p 47 and Marlowe's comments on p 28.
Look at p 55, 'To
tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more
moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a
safe'.
Is Conrad saying
that the imperial project is really immoral and that nothing actually 'redeems
it' because the 'idea' to which a sacrifice can be made is just that, an
abstract idea?
When the 'idea of empire' is presented as a
'noble enterprise ' (p 55) is this only in the European imagination? Is there any correspondence between this
'idea' and the reality of colonial Africa?
Do you agree that Conrad 'excludes the female reader? (see p
xxxv). See Marlowe's description of Kurtz's 'bararous and superb woman' (p 99,
109), of the two women in the Company office (p 24) and the scene with Kurtz's
fiancée, pp 118 - 123. Why does Marlowe
lie to her, telling her that she 'knew him best'. See also pp 80 - 81, 'the women … are out of it - should be out
of it. We must help them to stay in
that beautiful world of their own …'.
Do you agree with
Achebe's critique of Conrad that Africans are 'reduced to the role of props for
the break-up of one petty European mind' (p xxxi)?
How had Kurtz
become such a legend and a 'power'? (see p 47; 81; 83 - 84; 95).
What do you think
Kurtz meant by, 'the horror', 'the horror'? (p 112).
What is meant by
the 'ascription of savagery' and how does this work in the novel? Who are the real savages in this narrative?
Note two allusions
to a Buddha like pose - p 20 and p 123, 'preaching in European clothes and
without a lotus flower'.
In the film version, how do you interpret the
pictures (one semi-nude) of Kurtz's fiancée?
Is there a sexual undertone here?
© Clinton Bennett 2001