Heart of Darkness Totally Explained

Everything about Heart Of Darkness totally explained

Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Polish-born writer Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski). Before its 1902 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in Blackwood's Magazine. It is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the Western canon.
This highly symbolic story is actually a story within a story, or frame narrative. It follows Marlow as he recounts, from dusk through to late night, his adventure into the Congo to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary.
The story details an incident when Marlow, an Englishman, took a foreign assignment as a ferry-boat captain, employed by a Belgian trading company, on what readers may assume is the Congo River, in the Congo Free State, a private colony of King Leopold II; the country is never specifically named. Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver; however, his more pressing assignment is to return Kurtz to civilization in a cover up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region.

Background

In writing the novella, Conrad drew inspiration from his own experience in the Congo: eight and a half years before writing the book, he'd served as the captain of a Congo steamer. However he became ill and returned to Europe. Some of Conrad's experiences in the Congo, and the story's historic background, including possible models for Kurtz, are recounted in Adam Hochschild's King Leopold's Ghost.
The story-within-a-story device that Conrad chose for Heart of Darkness — one in which an unnamed narrator recounts Marlow's recounting of his journey — has many literary precedents. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein used a similar device, but the best examples of the framed narrative include Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, The Arabian Nights and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Motifs and themes

ť 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!"

T. S. Eliot's use of a quotation from The Heart of Darkness--"Mistah Kurtz, he dead"-- as an epigraph to the original manuscript of his poem, The Hollow Men, contrasted its dark horror with the presumed "light of civilization," and suggested the ambiguity of both the dark motives of civilization and the freedom of barbarism, as well as the "spiritual darkness" of several characters in Heart of Darkness. This sense of darkness also lends itself to a related theme of obscurity — again, in various senses, reflecting the ambiguities in the work. Moral issues are not clear-cut; that which ought to be (in various senses) on the side of "light" is in fact mired in darkness, and vice versa.
   Africa was known as "The Dark Continent" in the Victorian Era with all the negative attributes of darkness attributed to Africans by the English. One of the possible influences for the Kurtz character was Henry Morton Stanley of "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" fame, as he was a principal explorer of "The Dark Heart of Africa", particularly the Congo. Stanley was infamous in Africa for horrific violence and yet he was honoured by a knighthood. However, an agent Conrad himself encountered when travelling in the Congo, named Georges-Antoine Klein (Klein means 'small' in German, as Kurtz is 'short') could have possibly served as an actual model for the Kurtz that appears in Heart of Darkness. Klein died aboard Conrad's steamer and was interred along the Congo, much like Kurtz in the novel.. Among the people Conrad may have encountered on his jouney was a trader called Leon Rom, who was later named chief of the Stanley Falls Station. In 1895 a British traveller reported that Rom had decorated his flower-bed with the skulls of some twenty-one victims of his displeasure, including women and children, resembling the posts of Kurtz´s Station.
   The motif of "darkness" from the title recurs throughout the book. It is used to reflect the unknown, the concept of the "darkness of barbarism" places Mr. Kurtz, the ambiguous anti-hero of the story, at the dark heart of the twentieth century.
   To emphasize the theme of darkness within all of mankind, Marlow's narration takes place on a yawl in the Thames tidal estuary. Early in the novella, Marlow recounts how London, the largest, most populous and wealthiest city in the world at the time (where Conrad wrote and where a large part of his audience lived), was itself a "dark" place in Roman times. The theme of darkness lurking beneath the surface of even "civilized" persons is further explored through the character of Kurtz and through Marlow's passing sense of understanding with the Africans. Themes developed in the novella's later scenes include the naïveté of Europeans — particularly women — regarding the various forms of darkness in the Congo; the British traders and Belgian colonialists' abuse of the natives; and man's potential for duplicity. The symbolic levels of the book expand on all of these in terms of a struggle between good and evil (light and darkness), not so much between people as within every major character's soul.
   In the novel, Conrad uses the river to show Marlow progressing further into the "Heart of Darkness". When Marlow first arrives at the station, the ship that he must use for his journey has been sabotaged by the manager and requires rivets in order to be fixed. The journey is tedious and exposes Marlow to the inner spirit of mankind as one moves further away from society
   Throughout the novel Conrad dramatizes a tension in Marlow between the restraint of civilization and the savagery of barbarism. The darkness and amorality which Kurtz exemplifies is argued to be the reality of the human condition, upon which illusory moral structures are draped by civilization. Marlow's confrontation with Kurtz presents him with a 'choice of nightmares' - to commit himself to the savagery of the human condition, or to the lie and veneer of civilized restraint. Though Marlow 'cannot abide a lie' and subsequently can't perceive civilization as anything but a veneer hiding the savage reality of the human condition, he's also horrified by the darkness of Kurtz he sees in his own heart. After emerging from this experience, his Buddha-like pose aboard the Nellie symbolizes a suspension between this choice of nightmares.

Historical context

The novel is largely autobiographical, based upon Joseph Conrad's six-month journey up the Congo River where he took command of a steamboat in 1890 after the death of its captain. At the time, the river was called the Congo, and the country was the Congo Free State. The area Conrad refers to as the Company Station was an actual location called Matadi, a location two-hundred miles up river from the mouth of the Congo. The Central Station was a location called Kinshasa, and both these locations marked a stretch of river impassable by steamboat, upon which Marlow takes a "two-hundred mile tramp."
The Company was in reality the Anglo-Belgium India-Rubber Company formed by King Leopold II of Belgium charged with running the country of the Congo Free State in 1885. The Congo Free State was voted into existence by the Congress of Berlin, which Conrad refers to sarcastically in his novella as "the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs." - to Cedric Watts' A Bloody Racist: About Achebe's View of Conrad (1983), which sets out to refute Achebe's critique. Other critiques include Hugh Curtler's Achebe on Conrad: Racism and Greatness in Heart of Darkness (1997).
In King Leopold's Ghost (1998), Adam Hochschild argues that literary scholars have made too much of the psychological aspects of Heart of Darkness while scanting the moral horror of Conrad's accurate recounting of the methods and effects of colonialism. He quotes Conrad as saying, "Heart of Darkness is experience...pushed a little (and only very little) beyond the actual facts of the case." Heart of Darkness is also criticized for its characterization of women. In the novel, Marlow says that "It's queer how out of touch with truth women are." Marlow also suggests that women have to be sheltered from the truth in order to keep their own fantasy world from "shattering before the first sunset."

Readings of Heart of Darkness

The most famous reading of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 movie Apocalypse Now, which translates the context of the narrative from the Congo into Vietnam.
Some read this through the eyes and works of Nietzsche and 'will to power' theories, where society no longer works for its own good, but for the good of one man. Kurtz could be read as being the embodiment of Übermensch or super man, an almost antichrist figure whom society has built itself around. In the novel, Kurtz refuses to leave the station; he's ‘king’ to the people, although he isn't from those people. There is a stark contrast from the middle station where Marlow has a long trek over land and laments on the slavery of the blacks to the almost godlike figure Kurtz has become for the same people at the inland station.

In the arts

1910 - John Buchan, in Prester John, his adventure novel concerning a Zulu uprising, has his main character David Crawfurd say "Last night I'd looked into the heart of darkness, and the sight had terrified me".
1925 - T. S. Eliot quoted the line, "Mistah Kurtz, he dead," along with the folk saying, "A penny for the old Guy," at the beginning of his poem, "The Hollow Men."
1938 - Orson Welles and the Mercury Theater on the Air adapted Heart of Darkness for radio.
1940 - Orson Welles attempted to make an adaption of Heart of Darkness as his first feature film, but abandoned the project.
1940s - Lux Radio Theater, with Brian Aherne as Marlow.
1943 - Orson Welles did a half-hour adaptation for the radio show This is My Best.
1954 - Lord of the Flies by William Golding has Ralph weep "for the darkness of man's heart" at the novel's culmination. Golding's novel also depicts displaced 'Westerners' in a mysterious, Other realm, which he uses to outline breakdown of civilised consciousness, revealing the monstrosity that lies beneath.
1958 - Playhouse 90 episode# 3.7, aired November 6 - American television version of Heart of Darkness starring Roddy McDowall, Eartha Kitt, Richard Haydn, Inga Swenson, and Boris Karloff as Kurtz.
1966 - , a novel by Hunter S. Thompson, closes with an account of the gang's savagery visited on him and quotes of Kurtz: "The horror! The horror! ... Exterminate all the brutes!" Thompson also wrote a pocketbook obituary for Dr. Timothy Leary upon his death, named Mistah Leary - He Dead, after the epitaph given for Kurtz in the novel, "Mistah Kurtz, he dead".
1979 - John Milius based his script for Apocalypse Now on the novel and moved the plot to Vietnam. The film was directed by Francis Ford Coppola.
1980 - In A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole, the theme of 'modern slavery' in America during the Jim Crow period is explored. There are two divisions in Levy Pants, a business that makes and markets pants: white collar (office work) and blue collar (factory work). Most (perhaps all) of the underpaid factory workers in Levy Pants are American Blacks. When Ignatius J. Reilly enters the factory, he's reminded of Heart of Darkness: "Perhaps I likened myself to Kurtz in Heart of Darkness when, far from the trading company offices in Europe, he was faced with the ultimate horror. I do remember imagining myself in a pith helmet and white linen jodhpurs, my face enigmatic behind of a veil of mosquito netting." In addition, the terms Outer Station, Central Station, and Inner Station are used in association with Levy Pants.
1987 - U2's The Joshua Tree features the song "One Tree Hill" containing the phrase "And in the world, a heart of darkness, a fire-zone/Where poets speak their heart then bleed for it."
1987 - Title of a song performed by The Hoodoo Gurus.
1989 - J.F. Lawton based his film Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (also known as Piranha Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death) on Conrad's book. Kurtz, now a feminist played by Adrienne Barbeau, has taken to the jungle's amazonian inhabitants, rather than continuing to write books that nobody reads and promoting them on TV talk shows. Mimicking the original, her dying words are "The horror! The horror... of Letterman!"
1991 - Orson Welles' attempt to base a film on this story is a centre piece of the novel Flicker by Theodore Roszak.
1993 - Nicolas Roeg filmed Heart of Darkness for television with Tim Roth as Marlow and John Malkovich as Kurtz.
1993 - In the novel Headhunter by Canadian author Timothy Findley, a schizophrenic spiritualist accidentally sets Kurtz free from page 92 of Heart of Darkness, and is forced to find a Marlow to defeat him. The novel recasts Kurtz and Marlow as psychiatrists in an apocalyptic version of Toronto.
1995 - Iron Maiden's 1995 album " The X Factor" contains a song titled The Edge of Darkness which is based on the novel and the film Apocalypse Now.
1995 - German metal band Grave Digger in 1995 released an album Heart of Darkness containing track also titled "Heart of Darkness" lyircs of which are based on the novel and the film "Apocalypse Now".
1996 - Alex Garland's book The Beach heavily references the Heart Of Darkness
1998 - took plot inspiration from Heart of Darkness.
1998 - the video game Heart of Darkness borrowed the title from the novel and was loosely based on the story.
2000 - "His last step. My hesitating. Excerpt from Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness" ('Sein letzter Schritt. Mein Zögern'), Art of Thomas Offhaus inspired by Heart of Darkness.
2002 - video game featured a reference to Heart of Darkness in the final mission called "Heart of Plastic".
2003 - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon made a reference to Heart of Darkness calling it a very good book even though it was quite short.
2003 - The Rundown indirectly referenced this novel when Christopher Walken's character Hatcher, the slave-driving operator of a mining town in the Amazon, says, "I’m the heart in the darkness!"
2003 - A reference to Heart of Darkness was inserted into HIM's lyrics for the song "Love's Requiem" on the album "Love Metal". "The heart of darkness is hope of finding you there, and that hope will be our love's requiem."
2004 - Lost. The novel is one of many to be mentioned in the popular television series Lost. It has been hinted that the literary works that are featured in this series are clues to its mysterious plot.
2005 - Peter Jackson's King Kong has many references to Heart of Darkness, such as a scene where Jimmy holds a copy of the book and says "It’s not an adventure story, is it?" As King Kong itself is a story of the cruelties of men, the film suggests that Conrad meant to explore human cruelty towards others as much as he meant to explore the Belgian Congo—and thus also the film is more than an adventure story but also explores the human will to exploit others. (External Link)
The 2005 video game,, features a level entitled Heart of Darkness. The 501st Legion (Clone Troopers) is called in to find a lost legion on Felucia, and battle the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS) with the help of Aayla Secura, their hero. An introduction to the level includes narration from the novella.
2006 - During the Valentine's Day Event in the Online PC Video Game City of Heroes, two badges were made available: Heart of Light for heroes and Heart of Darkness for villains. The badges have been available in every Valentine's Day Event since.
2006 - Flags of Our Fathers. On page 137 of the book, James Bradley describes the Marines who flew the flag at Iwo Jima as "boys back from their Pacific Heart of Darkness."
2007 - Heart of Darkness is a chamber opera version of the novella by the British composer Tarik O'Regan in collaboration with the artist Tom Phillips RA, which is jointly in development in London with Royal Opera House OperaGenesis and in New York with American Opera Projects.
2007 - Publication of book by Tim Butcher: Blood River - A Journey To Africa's Broken Heart, ISBN 0-701-17981-3, the account of the author's 2004 journey along the same stretch of Congo river used by Conrad as the setting for Heart of Darkness. The journey had been too dangerous to complete for decades. Subsequently, Tim Butcher wrote the introduction to a new edition of Heart of Darkness published in September 2007 by Vintage Classics ISBN 0-099-51154-1
2007 - In Blizzard Entertainment's Online Roleplaying PC Video Game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft, Heart of Darkness is an item that can be obtained by players from the Black Temple and Mount Hyjal raid instances.
2008 - R.E.M. recorded a song "Hollow Man" on their album Accelerate

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