Joseph Conrad 1857 1924 The Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad (1857 -1924) The Heart of Darkness KMorley

Background • He is simultaneously a nineteenth- and a twentiethcentury writer and thinker • He is also cosmopolitan in outlook, not British • NOTE: English was actually Conrad’s third language (after Polish and French) KMorley

Preoccupations Deep ambivalence about Victorian values, conventions, and practices Ability to articulate a new kind of subjectivity A tendency to speak from a deracinated perspective. Always aloof from narrow nationalistic concerns KMorley Conrad was a religious agnostic

A Polish Youth • Józef Teodore Konrad Nalcez Korzeniowski was born in Berdichev, Poland (then ruled by Russia and now part of Ukraine) in 1857. • His parents were minor Polish aristocracy, and were opposed to the Russians. After involvement in uprisings against the Tsar, their lands were confiscated and they moved to Warsaw, Poland in 1861. • His parents became editors for a political magazine that protested the Tsar's rule, and they were imprisoned for seven months. Because of their political actions, they were deported to live in Northern Russia in 1862. KMorley

His Education • In 1865, Jozef and his mother became ill with tuberculosis, and his mother died. His father, who had been a poet and playwright, began Jozef's education. • He read the works of Dickens, Fenimoore Cooper and Captain Marryat. • Jozef and his father returned to Poland in 1869, and shortly after his father also died of tuberculosis. • He was put under the care of his uncle, and was enrolled into a Gymnasium (Grammar School). • His teachers said that he was disobedient and rather uninterested. KMorley

Early life • Shortly afterward, he joined the French merchant navy to avoid conscription into the Russian army. • He became involved in gun-running to Spain, and had numerous adventures. • He became depressed and gambled away all of his money. • His depression deepened to the point where he shot himself in the chest in a failed suicide attempt. • NOTE: KMorley some claim that this was the byproduct of a duel

His Life in England • In 1896 he married Jessie George. Although they were Catholic, the marriage took place in a courthouse in accordance with his agnostic beliefs. • She was a typist by trade, and many accused Joe of marrying simply for the ease of publishing. • Jessie supported her husband through his tantrums and depressed periods. • In 1924, Conrad died of a heart attack after declining 5 KMorley honorary degrees and knighthood

Heart of Darkness (1902) • Conrad starting writing the novella in 1898 and finished it in 1899. It was published along with two other works in 1902. • The novel is fundamentally concerned with the excesses of European colonialism. • NOTE: Conrad has more recently been criticized by post-colonial critics concerned with the way in which his KMorley criticism has unfolded

Colonialism • The late-19 th century represents the high water mark in European colonialism • Great competition among European nations for power and wealth • Often went hand in hand with Christianity • KMorley Not until the 1960 s and ‘ 70 s that colonialism was effectively

Colonialism • The drive by European nations to accumulate overseas possessions and thus demonstrate: • their superiority (moral, social, and military) over the local populations; • Thet used their advantages to trade in monopolized raw materials (tea, ivory). • These could be manufactured, processed or refined in Europe and then sold in Europe. • Also KMorley re-exported to the colonies (at vast profit)

The Belgian Congo • It is generally agreed that the most exploitative of the colonial regimes in Africa belonged to the Belgians. • They did little except exploit local tensions and natural resources (human, plant, and animal) in the name of King Leopold’s “International Association for the Civilization of Central Africa. ” • See Kurtz’s report for the “International Society for the KMorley Suppression of Savage

The Cost of Colonialism • The colonies cost more to maintain than they were worth, • Europeans believed Africa existed solely to provide them with raw materials for their industries • Massive abuses of human rights occurred, • Christian education exacerbated local ethnic and cultural tensions • Africa was never allowed to develop economically KMorley

Conrad and Colonialism • Conrad foregrounds colonialism in the early parts of the novel • He suggests that those leaving down the Thames are on a civilizing mission. • Note Marlow’s emphasis on the redemptive “idea” that it is possible to bring civilization to a society. • This may be ironic. Is Conrad a colonialist or critic? • We as readers must make up our minds as to the political content of the novel. • Traditionally this has been the source of much KMorley disagreement

Narrative Structure • In Heart of Darkness, we have an outside narrator telling us a story he has heard from Marlow. • The story Marlow tells centers around Kurtz. • However, most of what Marlow knows about Kurtz, he has learned from others. • They have good reason for not being truthful to Marlow. • Therefore Marlow has to piece together much of Kurtz’s story. KMorley

Narrative Voice • What we learn is only through interpreting Marlow’s actions and words. • Part of the meaning in Heart of Darkness is that we learn about "reality" through other people's narratives much of which is already twice-told. • Part of the meaning of the novel is the unreliable nature of narrative. • Marlow is the source of our story but he too is also a flawed character within the KMorley • "To [Marlow] the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel, but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out as a glow brings out a haze. "

The Russian Doll Effect • The structure of Heart of Darkness is like that of Russian dolls • You open each doll up, and there is another doll inside • Much of the meaning in Heart of Darkness is found not in the center of the book, the heart of Africa, but on the periphery of the book. • KMorley Notice how Marlowe looks into the obscurity- to find nothing.

Patterns in Heart of Darkness- Three KMorley • Three chapters • Three times Marlow breaks the story • Three stations • Three women (Aunt, Mistress, Intended) • Three central characters (Kurtz, Marlow, Narrator) • Three views of Africa (adventure, religious, economic)

Three European Views of Africa • Some, like Marlow’s Aunt, see Africa as full of “savages” that need to be saved. This view is demonstrated in the famous poem White Man’s Burden. • http: //www. boondocksnet. com/ai/kipling. html • To others, like the Belgians in the Outer Station, Africa represents economic prospects such as free slave labor and ivory. This is the underlying reasoning of colonialism. • To those such as Marlow, Africa represents a chance for KMorley adventure and self exploration.

Contrast in Heart of Darkness • Much of the imagery in Heart of Darkness is arranged in patterns of opposition and contrast • Examples: – Light / dark – Black / white – Civilized / savage – Outer / inner KMorley

Black and White • Black / dark • death, evil, ignorance, mystery, savagery, uncivilized • Symbolism is not new • Present in European society for centuries. • Middle Ages, when science and knowledge was suppressed, as the Dark Ages. • According to Christianity, in the beginning of time all was dark and God created light. • According to Heart of Darkness, before the Romans came, England was dark. In the same way, Africa was considered to be in the "dark stage". KMorley

Black and White • White / light • = life, goodness, enlightenment, civilized, religion. • Yet, in Conrad, the usual pattern is reverse and darkness means truth, whiteness means falsehood. • This contrast tells a political truth about colonialism in the Congo. • The contrast also suggests a psychological truth about Marlow and the Europeans mind. • The truth within, therefore dark and obscure. • White also suggests any number of unpleasant moral truths. • The trade in ivory is white and dirty. • Kurtz the white man is totally corrupt KMorley

Civilization and Savagery • The book implies that civilizations are created by the laws and codes that encourage men to achieve higher standards. • The law acts as a buffer to prevent men from reverting back to their darker tendencies. • Civilization, however, must be learned. • London itself, in the book a symbol of enlightenment, was once "one of the darker places of the earth" before the Romans forced civilization upon the Britons. • But civilized society does not get rid of primeval savage tendencies which lurk in the background. • This savagery is seen in Kurtz. • Marlow meets Kurtz and he finds a man that has totally thrown off the restraint of civilization and has de-evolved into a primitive state. KMorley

Marlow and Kurtz • Marlow and Kurtz are two opposite examples of the human condition. • Kurtz represents what every man will become if left to his own intrinsic desires without a protective, civilized environment. • Marlow represents the civilized soul that has not been drawn back into savagery by a dark, alienating jungle. KMorley

Marlow and Kurtz • Thirty-two years old, has always "followed the sea", • His voyage up the Congo river, however, is his first experience in freshwater travel. • When Marlow arrives at the station he is disgusted by the sight of wasted human life and ruined supplies. • The manager's senseless cruelty overwhelms him with anger and disgust. • He longs to see Kurtz- a fabulously successful ivory agent and hated by the company manager. • More and more, Marlow turns away from the white people and towards the dark jungle ( a symbol of reality and truth. ) • He begins to identify with Kurtz - long before he sees or talks to him. • The affinity between the two men becomes a symbolic unity. • Marlow and Kurtz are the light and dark selves of a single person. • Marlow is what Kurtz might have been, and Kurtz is what KMorley Marlow might have become.

The Hollow Men • The pilgrims and Kurtz share a hollowness. • "Perhaps there was nothing within” [the manager of the Central Station]. • Such a suspicion made one pause -for out there were no external checks. " • And there was nothing inside the Brickmaker, "but a little loose dirt, maybe. " • As for Kurtz, the wilderness "It echoed KMorley loudly within him because he was

(Self) Deception • Conrad recognized that deception is most sinister when it becomes self-deception. • The individual takes seriously his own fictions. Kurtz "could get himself to believe anything. " • His benevolent words of his report for the International Society for the Suppression of Savage customs was meant sincerely enough. • But a deeper voice spoke through his scrawled postscript "Exterminate all the brutes!" KMorley

Self-discovery • Marlow remarks that he did not know himself before setting out, and that he liked work to "find yourself in what no other man can know. ” • The Inner Station "was the farthest point of navigation and the culminating point of my experience. " • Marlow says "The mind of man is capable of anything- because everything is in it, all the past as well as all the future. " • Marlow’s temptation comes through his exposure to Kurtz, a white man and would-be idealist who had fully returned to the wilderness; • Marlow returns to Europe a changed man. • People are "intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense, because I felt so sure. KMorley they could not possibly know the things I knew. "

Redemption • According to Conrad we are protected from ourselves by society with its laws and watchful neighbors. • We are also protected by work • "You wonder I didn’t go ashore for a howl and a dance? Well, no- I didn’t. Fine sentiments you say? Fine sentiments be hanged! I had no time, I had to mess about with whitelead and strips of woolen blanket helping to put bandages on those KMorley leaky steampipes"

A Voyage to the End of the Night • Heart of Darkness explores something truer, more fundamental, and distinctly less material than just a personal narrative. • It is a night journey into the unconscious, and confrontation of an entity within the self. • Marlow insists on the dreamlike quality of his narrative. "It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream - making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream - sensation. " • Even before leaving Brussels, Marlow felt as though he "was about to set off for center of the earth, " not the center of a continent. KMorley

A Voyage to the End of the Night • The introspective voyager leaves his familiar rational world, is "cut off from the comprehension" of his surroundings, • His steamer toils "along slowly on the edge of a black and incomprehensible frenzy. " • As the crisis approaches, the dreamer and his ship moves through a silence that "seemed unnatural, like a state of trance; then enter a deep fog. " • “The approach to this Kurtz grubbing for ivory in the wretched bush was beset by as many dangers as though he had been an enchanted princess sleeping in a fabulous castle. " • Later, Marlow’s task is to try "to break the spell" of the wilderness that holds Kurtz entranced. KMorley

Acknowledgements • http: //www. acsu. buffalo. edu/~csicseri/ KMorley