The Heart of Darkness: The Dark Side of Human Nature

Joseph Conrad set his tenebrous Heart of Darkness in the depths of the Belgian Congo at the turn of the twentieth century, a time when European powers dominated the world, and subjugated much of it in ruthless systems of resource theft on a grand scale. Oftentimes, imperialism’s beneficiaries justified it as an engine of development for the world’s less fortunate peoples, overlooking its primary function as a means for unscrupulous men like Kurtz to accrue personal wealth, at any cost. In the Victorian view, which critics like Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe believe Conrad subscribed to, white people were inherently superior to Africans. However, Marlow, whose experiences closely mirror those of Conrad’s himself just a decade prior as a steamboat captain on the Congo River, said a good deal about imperialism which ran contrary to status quo thinking at the time. His subtle, dry quips criticizing the practices of European empires and companies recur notably in a book initially serialized in the magazine Blackwood’s, a prestigious publication well-liked by the British establishment at the time. Conrad knew his audience, and took advantage of it as a unique opportunity to advance a notion which was rarely entertained in those days. That notion - though steeped in European assumptions of African inferiority - is shown to be, through Kurtz’s entrapment in the jungle (the heart of darkness) and his descent to a low level of savagery, that all people are the same in their hearts, and that moreover oppressive colonies and wars against natives are fundamentally wrong. Kurtz, a symbol of Europe, found something in the darkness of the jungle which penetrated deeper into his human condition than anything he had ever encountered in Europe, but it only spurred his savage and reckless pursuit of wealth; that lawless setting could be said to serve as an experiment wherein Conrad proves the commonality of savage and base motives in all people, which civilization, he affirms, successfully restrains.

A common charge leveled by Conrad-detractors, like famed Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, is that Conrad is clearly bigoted, and therefore Heart of Darkness is in an outdated class of books defending a problematic view of Africans; it does not belong on college reading lists. Indeed, Conrad often described his African characters in disgusting terms; for example, as having “faces like grotesque masks” (Conrad 11). He also wrote that “what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity — like yours — the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar. Ugly”. While such diction is unacceptable, Conrad made it clear that Europeans and Africans do share a common kinship (however remote and distasteful he may find it). Achebe also believed that Conrad’s work embodies a Western habit of viewing Africa as a foil to modern progress and achievement: “Heart of Darkness projects the image of Africa as ‘the other world,’ the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant beastiality” (Achebe). On this front he has more of a leg to stand on, particularly in Conrad’s juxtaposition of the Thames and Congo rivers. At the beginning of the novel, waiting in a ship on the River Thames, Marlow describes how “the old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth” (Conrad 2). On the other hand, while regarding a map of the Congo, Marlow described that river as “fascinating - deadly - like a snake”. Despite the contrast between these two descriptions, an alternative exists to Achebe’s assertion that Marlow means to characterize Africa as a foil to Europe wherein civilization is inverted to savagery. The novel’s Europeans are seen to be villainous bandits, whereas the Africans Conrad portrays as victims, not savage enemies. Ergo, the moral of the story is something more than the idea that Europeans are civilized while Africans are not.

Conrad had a very similar experience to Marlow’s in real life, and he presumably shares Marlow’s thoughts to a certain degree, although the context in which the book was serialized blurs any attempt at a conclusion on his exact views, which were overall progressive and anti-empire for his time. Conrad led a troubled childhood, orphaned by the age of eleven. Raised by other family members, he devoured books as part of a coping mechanism, until he went off to sea and adventure. His time in the British navy is best described as chaotic, involving multiple near-wrecks and a suicide attempt. It did, however, allow him to learn English, and led him to take on the position of steamboat captain in 1890 for the Belgian firm which would send him to the Congo to see firsthand the atrocities being committed. He came back from that experience a different man. As Albert J. Guerard pointed out, Conrad may have been impelled to write this novel not merely by what he saw but by a stubborn “guilt of complicity” he felt after having assisted and profited, in his capacity as a paid steamboat captain, in the vile work being done (Guerard). Marlow’s “horror-struck” reaction to the Africans living in squalor where he first arrived in the Congo, and his distaste for the sight of the black man “being beaten near by” who had supposedly “caused the fire in some way” are instances where Conrad works off guilt for being a bystander to what amounted to genocide.

Conrad’s identification with Marlow is uncontested; however, making the tale into a frame story, with Marlow a third person narrator, evinces Conrad’s intention to distance himself from his main character (and, in turn, from his main character’s prejudices). Heart of Darkness was initially serialized in the prestigious, status-quo Blackwood’s Magazine, which meant he had even less room for diversion from mainstream thought, such as criticizing the Belgians, than would be expected (Atkinson). One need not revert to what Atkinson deemed a flimsy “popular academic rescue operation” on older texts which attempts to show that “at some level it knew better than it said or could say” (Atkinson). The fact that Conrad took the step of inserting an additional layer between himself and Marlow shows that he did not, personally, subscribe to some of the rampantly racist thinking which was characteristic of a Blackwood’s-published novel. Societal change is generally nonlinear and slow, and Conrad, wishing to gain a large platform, had limits on his works’ potential progressiveness. William Atkinson, in his study of the importance of Blackwood’s Magazine in the context of Heart of Darkness, concluded that “the average Blackwood’s reader would have been neither equipped nor inclined to read Conrad’s story ‘against the grain,’ as ultimately subversive of its own and the reader’s discourse” (Atkinson). The inscrutable listener to Marlow’s narrations expected “one of Marlow’s inconclusive experiences” when the old man began speaking, but, less than halfway through, felt a “faint uneasiness inspired by this narrative”. This is the crux of Conrad’s work that he sought to disperse through the British public: not an outright condemnation of the system upon which their culture, government, commerce and military were based, but an idea of its inefficacy and wrongheadedness, and examples of its savage tendencies.

Marlow from the very beginning makes many comments directed against the Belgian intrusion into the Congo, poking, often comically, at the “invaders,” noting how they “beguiled the time by back-biting and intriguing against each other in a foolish kind of way”. Averting a large hole, Marlow satirizes its purpose as being “connected with the philanthropic intention of giving the criminals something to do”. In addition to importance of Blackwood’s Magazine’s influence on Heart of Darkness, in the year 1899 the British Empire was stoking nationalist fervor due to the outbreak of the Second Boer War. These two factors combined made it much more difficult for Conrad to write any kind of book against the current of imperialism, at a time when that was simply not an acceptable line of thought. His dissent tends to manifest in subtle jabs, and they fade in frequency as Marlow gets deeper into the jungle - the heart of darkness - which is symbolic of the way the jungle can change people, including Conrad himself. His thoughts turned from abstractions on imperialism to day-to-day survival and dealing with the steamboat and the people around him, as well as anticipating Kurtz. The example of the savage-turned-fireman is an important key to understanding Conrad’s growing recognition of the ultimate common brotherhood shared by blacks and whites, as they went further up the river; although he did not view “that really fine chap” as an equal, they worked together. Another example of Conrad’s positive portrayal of African characters was described eloquently by Guerard: “But when the external restraints of society and work are removed, we must meet the challenge and temptation of savage reversion with our ‘own inborn strength. Principles won’t do.’ This inborn strength appears to include restraint--the restraint that Kurtz lacked and the cannibal crew of the Roi des Belges surprisingly possessed”. These elements of the African characters show that, in spite of his racist diction, Conrad does not regard Africans as inferior subhumans.

Marlow’s many critiques of imperialism--at a broader, systemic level--are embedded throughout the novel in his descriptions of ordinary scenes (such as the clearing of a path or the appearance of a station), which cleverly masks his dissent to the imperial world order. Having little to fear from the retaliation of Julius Caesar, in criticizing the Roman Empire Marlow bluntly said that “the conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much” (Conrad 4). Conrad criticizes imperialism and calls out racially-based systems of oppression. He also, in passing a French ship shelling the bushes of the African coast where there was suspected an encampment of Africans, describes a “a touch of insanity in the proceeding… and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring [him] earnestly there was a camp of natives - he called them enemies! - hidden out of sight somewhere”. Marlow views making war upon the natives, and viewing them as enemy combatants in that war, as lunacy. While in the stations of the Congo, where soldiers, traders, and workers gathered, he has little good to say about the general proceedings. The Europeans are greedy, violent, stupid, and lazy. “The word 'ivory' rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! [He’d] never seen anything so unreal in [his] life”. These are all sound criticisms of imperialism and its malignance. Unfortunately, Conrad does little to offer anything in the way of a solution to the problems he so aptly describes. He did, however, identify, in no uncertain terms, the traditional idea of European colonisation being wholly good for Africans as a pretence for what their real goal was: making money for themselves. The previous quotes showed the means of imperialism to be wrong and immoral; Conrad also shows the end to be fraudulent too, and motivated by something other than benevolence for the Africans. Listening to the men talk at the station, Marlow observed that “it was as unreal as everything else — as the philanthropic pretence of the whole concern, as their talk, as their government, as their show of work. The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages”.

In the Congo, the lack of oversight by the revered but distant Council of Europe led to a state of disorganization where anyone could get away with whatever necessary to further their own ends. For example, in the conversation between the Central Station’s manager and his uncle which Marlow overheard, “‘Certainly,’ grunted the other; ‘get him hanged! Why not? Anything - anything can be done in this country. That’s what I say; nobody here, you understand, here, can endanger your position”. The violence and savagery of the Europeans proves that there’s nothing inherent about their race that makes them better; in the heart of darkness, they are capable of all sorts of ferocity. Marlow “seemed to see Kurtz for the first time” after hearing of how the notorious trader turned around halfway back from the Inner Station, and returned alone, despite having cleaned all the ivory out of the area (28). Marlow “did not know the motive. Perhaps he was just simply a fine fellow who stuck to his work for its own sake”. This peculiar decision by Kurtz demonstrates the power of the jungle to snare and entrap, making it difficult to leave--and impossible to leave the same way one was upon entry. Of course, Kurtz returned to continue executing local people and extorting the tribes for as much ivory as they could cough up. Achebe is proven wrong: he interprets the title of Conrad’s novel to mean that the jungle is the heart of darkness, the epitome of African damnation, and that the book was written to champion imperialism. Instead, “heart of darkness” refers to the place in all our hearts where we can commit the same crimes as Kurtz, which is enabled by the power of the jungle, often described as working a magical effect upon those Europeans who enter. Marlow feels that “going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest”. Conrad is saying that the Congo represents conditions before the rise of civilizations and empires, when all were lawless; he is proving here, through Kurtz and the others, that it is not the people who are different, just their countries. Kurtz, described as an amalgamation of every corner of Europe, was triggered somehow by the archetypal significance of a land without overarching authorities; his “insatiable appetite” met no obstacle in an alien world which, as described in a passage omitted from the published versions of Heart of Darkness, could only be comprehended “by conquest - or by surrender” (McClure; qtd. in McClure). His actions prove Conrad’s point: we’re all the same, and Europeans aren’t somehow more civilized or peaceful than Africans. Indeed, the novel suggests nothing of any African violence originating from their own vices--the ambush of the steamboat was in reality ordered by Kurtz.

Kurtz’ chilling last words are another subject of contention among critics: “‘The horror! The horror!’” This is Kurtz simultaneously recognizing his transgressions against the Congo, and, a racist European, expressing his horror at the mere thought of his kinship with the Congolese. Guerard thinks that “too much was made” of that phrase, arguing that Kurtz is still evil. Indeed, Kurtz did little to redeem himself, but that did not stop Marlow from revering him, in a way. Guerard said that “Marlow commits himself to the yet unseen agent partly because Kurtz ‘had come out equipped with moral ideas of some sort.’ Anything would seem preferable to the demoralized greed and total cynicism of the others, ‘the flabby devil’ of the Central Station” (Guerard). Marlow’s attachment to such a man as Kurtz proves that in a landscape barren of morality, ideals, values, and motives (as he so frequently laments, often criticizing anything which has no idea “at the back of it”), a cunning savage like Kurtz will prevail, although Kurtz himself is a symbol of the evils of imperialism and the similarities between Europeans and Africans, when one strips away prejudices and other external factors.

The way that Marlow fell in behind Kurtz, someone who most readers would not be inclined to like or admire, and someone whose crimes Conrad described in detail, is the final proof needed that Marlow and his thoughts are not a mirror image of Conrad’s but a device used by him. Overall, Marlow’s version of the story paints a picture of the Africans as victims and the Europeans as aggressors; that in and of itself is enough to make it a progressive book for its time, breaking down the attitudes of superiority that early twentieth century Europeans held towards Africans. By appealing to what he knew his audience’s expectations were, Conrad was able to be published and read on a large scale, while still advancing content that challenged the current system of imperialism and oppression, even if he didn’t do so as blatantly and aggressively as he could have. Therefore, while Achebe might be correct that Conrad’s work pandered to Europeans’ racial beliefs, it was for a good reason (Watts). Marlow was a device, a necessary evil to advance a difficult the anti-imperialist message which defines Heart of Darkness in a way that Conrad’s readers could swallow, and Blackwood’s Magazine publish.