Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899)

"Authenticity comes from a single faithfulness: that to the ambiguity of experience." -- John Berger

First approaches

Title

Cf. Henry Morton Stanley, Through the Dark Continent (1878); In Darkest Africa (1890).

Style

• The sunset over London, pp. 78, 79, 80 (metaphor)
• Firing into a continent, p. 87 (irony)
• The darkness of the landscape, p. 103 (personification)

Setting

• London, the Thames, heroic exploits, p. 79
• The head office of the Company (Brussels), pp. 83-84
• The Company station, the grove of death, pp. 88-90

Narrator

• Participant narrator, pp. 78-80
• Marlow; his kind of tale, p. 80, etc.

Character

• Marlow as protagonist: his motivation:
• the river, p. 82
• rivets, p. 98
• to talk with Kurtz, p. 107
• Kurtz: lacked restraint, p. 123
• Other characters, e.g., The Intended, pp. 136-9

Structure

• Narrative breaks, pp. 98, 104, 114

Consciousness

• Sympathy with the natives, p. 105
• Delayed perception, pp. 112, 113

Language, as theme

• To talk with Kurtz, pp. 107, 114

Conrad

• 1857 born, Poland
• 1874 crew of French vessel
• 1878 joins English merchant ship
• 1884 Master's certificate
• 1890 May: to the Congo; arrives Matadi June 13; June 28 - Aug 2 trek to Leopoldville (Kinshasa); Nov. voyage upstream on Roi des Belges, death of agent Klein on return; Conrad falls ill, returns to England in January 1891.
• 1894 leaves the sea, devotes himself to writing
• 1898 November, moves to Rye, Sussex
• 1899 Heart of Darkness serial publication in Blackwood's Magazine (Feb, Mar, Apr)
• 1900 Lord Jim
• 1904 Nostromo
• 1907 The Secret Agent
• 1915 Victory
• 1924 dies

Possible topics for mini-project:

• Setting (note personification of forest, etc.)
• Style: from poetic to portentous, also ironic
• Character: Marlow's response to events; Kurtz, the representative of European civilization; the Intended
• To what extent is the narration unreliable; what difference this makes
• The figurative and hyperbolic uses of language ("The fascination of the abomination," p. 81, etc.)
• The administration of the Congo, from Head Office to "pilgrims"
• The question of racism in the novella, first raised by Achebe, disputed by Sarvan

Suggestions for the project:

• Aim for a presentation of up to 7 minutes. If reading, remember that a single page, double-spaced, takes 2 minutes to read. Rehearse, if you can, to be sure you keep within the time limit.
• Begin with a brief, clear statement of the aim of your presentation.
• Decide which students in your group will make the presentation -- not everyone has to present; it could be one student.
• For most topics, it will help to focus your comments on several short quotations from the text. To save typing these out, this is an online text of the story from which you can copy: www.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/darkmenu.htm
• For this project, you might try to raise questions rather than answer them. See if you can initiate some discussion with the class.
• You might consider using Powerpoint or a web page to support your presentation. The computer in the classroom has floppy, zip, and CD drives.
• When preparing share the written notes and records with others (e.g., use email), so that if one student has to be absent you are not left with no presentation.

Further reading, the question of race

Candice Bradley, "Africa and Africans in Conrad's Heart of Darkness" (Lawrence University Freshman Studies Lecture) http://www.cx.unibe.ch/ens/cg/africanfiction/conrad/bradley/bradley.html

Heart of Darkness, some web resources (see second main section of site) http://commhum.mccneb.edu/philos/phl206.htm

Conrad, Heart of Darkness. Norton Critical Edition, ed. Robert Kimbrough (3rd ed. 1988)
PR 6005 O4 H42 1988

John Hope Franklin, George Washington Williams, a Biography (1985). [Williams's report on the Congo, pp. 264-279; Letter to King Leopold, pp. 192-195.]
E 185.97 W695 F833 1985

Guy Burrows, The Land of the Pigmies (1898). [King Leopold on The Sacred Mission of Civilization, p. 286.]
DT 644 B97 1898 BARD

Wack, Henry Wellington. The Story of the Congo Free State. . New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1905.
DT 652 W11 HSS:3

Chinua Achebe, "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." Massachusetts Review, 18 (1977): 782-794.
AS 30 M3 A2 Rutherford: South 1 Also at: http://www.erinyes.org/hod/image.of.africa.html

C. P. Sarvan, "Racism and The Heart of Darkness." International Fiction Review, 7 (1980): 6-10.
PN 3311 I62

Ian Watt, Conrad in the Nineteenth Century (1979). [See especially pp. 168-200, 249-253.]
PR 6005 O4 Z7 W34 1979

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Document prepared September 24th 2001 / revised January 22nd 2004