Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness

The Heart of Darkness is an intricate novel that captivates and delivers Conrad's beliefs as well as leaves the reader with many ambiguous meanings and hidden messages that are for their own interpretation. The novel opens with a sailor by the name of Marlow recounting to several other shipmates about an incident in his past when he commanded a steamboat on the Congo River and the horrors and darkness he discovered during that perilous journey. In his tale Marlow is a young man eager to see the unexplored African jungles. But once he reaches the Company's Outer Station in Africa, he's confronted with a vivid depiction of black slavery and white greed that tears away all his pre-conceived notions of adventure and enlightenment. He also meets the Company's Chief Accountant, who mentions the central focus of Marlow's reflection, Mr. Kurtz whom is a remarkable agent that sends a tremendous amount of ivory but has stopped shipping ivory back to the Company and thus as Marlow's obsession over the mysterious Kurtz grows, he will continue deeper into the wilderness in search of him. Thus the journey through Africa and specifically the Congo River takes him through several outposts where ultimately in the innermost station, Mr. Kurtz exists. As he travels closer to Kurtz, the untamed force of nature slowly besets him and the rest of the European colonizers and every trace of "civilization" slowly dwindles away.

Once Marlow arrives at the Company's Central Station, he learns that the steamer he was supposed to command has been wrecked. During that time to repair it, he meets another character the local Manager of the Central Station that is full of greed, spite and essentially the embodiment of the European imperialism. The Manager, like many other characters, glean off more and more insights and information on the enigmatic Mr. Kurtz, where the Manager tells Marlow that Kurtz is ill, yet seems reluctant to help due to the greed and anger towards Kurtz as competition in profit making. After the steamer is repaired, Marlow continues the tedious voyage to Kurtz's station, through a jungle that Marlow describes as "foreboding, and gigantic." During the journey, a thick fog through which they hear of threatening cries surrounds the steamer. Once the fog clears, African natives attack Marlow and the crew, after the skirmish they continue on with great caution as the darkness encroaches upon them with greater intensity, feeling the hostility much clearer.

Finally they arrive at the Inner Station, it is discovered here that the wilderness ate away at Kurtz's nerves, and has gone mad. Marlow learns that Kurtz seized his ivory from the Africans through violence, brutality, and intimidation. As Marlow surveys the area he sees that the posts in front of the station house are crowned with heads, which further shows the savagery of the jungle. Mr. Kurtz finally appears and Marlow realizes that Kurtz has ever since decided to remain in the jungle where he's treated as a god yet complies and goes onboard the steamer. As the crew head back from the core of the jungle, Kurtz's life slowly drifts away and at the very end he exclaims, "The horror! The horror!" before he dies. Marlow is also stricken with a serious fever and nearly dies. Later on he pays a visit to Kurtz's Intended, the woman Kurtz was supposed to marry. She still mourns, heartbreakingly devoted to the memory of a man she thinks was noble and generous to the end. As Marlow confronts her he lies telling her, "The last word he pronounced was- your name," he lies (Conrad 75).

In closing, the story shifts back to the current crew listening to Marlow's retelling of his experiences and as the Narrator looks onward he says, "...the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky--seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness" (Conrad 76).

Joseph Conrad's own historic background greatly influenced the various meanings and events that drive the story; he was from Poland where he faced hardship and repression where the Tsarist Russia imposed their dominance upon the Polish during his childhood. His father and mother both suffered through that reign and ultimately fell to an untimely death when Joseph Conrad was only eleven years of age. Interestingly, he was never attuned to academic learning and sought to become a sailor, where later on he became an adept mariner sailing through various areas, specifically the Congo where the novel takes place (Bradbrook 5-6). Conrad became stricken with illness due to the African expedition and thus as a result inspired his vivid novel Heart of Darkness. It can be viewed that Joseph Conrad was inspired to write Heart of Darkness due to his not only extensive memory and thirst for discovery and traveling, but also of the troubles of his time. As Jean-Aubrey appropriately states, "It may be said that Africa killed Conrad the sailor and strengthened Conrad the novelist." (Jean-Aubrey 141-142)

The darkness of the title is the major theme of the book, but the meaning of that darkness is never clearly defined. Thus the theme is complex and unnerving for it stands for the unknown, the evil and horror that lurk in everything and everyone. The darkness that Conrad reveals to us is in essence its own force, not necessarily easily identifiable but exists no doubt, much like love or atoms, where they are not easily seen but are surely there. Yet this theme of darkness can be conveyed in an infinite number of ways such as the interior of the jungle, imperialism, and the brutality and suffering of humans, the Inner Station; Kurtz's own dark heart, or could allude to greater things such as the heart of every human being. The meanings of this darkness are left obscure on purpose. The Narrator himself calls the story "inconclusive." This reveals that the whole orientation of the novel is left ambiguous where it is impossible reduce the thematic meaning of the novel in one specific way. Thus the theme is difficult to exactly figure out where one can explain the full meaning of the darkness. But essentially this quality makes Conrad's point linger and seem unsettling in the readers' mind and this was the general idea of Conrad's work.

In a much less conceptual approach to the theme, Heart of Darkness centers on both political themes as well as a personal, individual ideas. In his mind, he goes to Africa only for the sole purpose of feeling the thrill of adventure. When he arrives and finds the devastation brought by the European imperialists in Africa, he feels disgust for the white man's greed and the brutal inhumanity towards the Africans. Which