“The horror! The horror!” – Captain Kurtz, (Part III, Page 12)
Introduction
Written in 1899 by Joseph Conrad after his journey up the Congo River, Heart of Darkness is a fictional recount of the colonization of the Congo by King Leopold II of Belgium. The book is one of the most impactful stories of our time, most famously known to be the inspiration and the original adaptation of Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. That said, everywhere the book goes, its controversies follow. To some, it may be the modern Moby Dick its supporters claim it to be. But to others, it’s a vile, racist piece of literature that emphasizes the atrocities of the 2nd Industrial Revolution. To me, it is the harshest, most frightening, and arguably the most evil story I’ve ever read. However, it is also one of the most important.
Heart of Darkness masks itself as an adventure story through the Congo River, which is why I decided to read it in the middle of the Canadian outback four hours away from my city, Toronto. But in reality, it is a journey into the psyche that leaves no stone unturned in its quest to expose the shadows underneath the soul. Heart of Darkness clashes the most heinous aspects of humanity with such poetic prose I was left dumbfounded. How can an individual [Marlow] with such backward and contradictory ideologies have such a grasp on not just the self but society at large? Through coarse and painful writing that feels like a nightmare, Joseph Conrad shows us that this complex understanding of the human psyche and its inevitable corruption can be seen by those paying close enough attention. It doesn’t require some fantastical setting like the 19th-century colonization of The Congo Free State. It can be seen anywhere and everywhere, all it requires is a keen perceiver.
Plot Overview
Heart of Darkness is a story within a story. Taking place at the turn of the 20th century, the book opens upon a tugboat on the Thames River where a seaman named Marlow recounts his adventure through the Congo river years prior. On this particular journey, Marlow was hired by the Belgian ivory trading company and tasked to traverse the Congo River in search of the ivory agent Colonel Kurtz who has seemingly vanished from his post leaving his superiors worried he has gone rogue. Kurtz is one of the most successful ivory traders within the African Jungles, netting significant earnings for the British while exercising their colonial interests. So, his sudden departure leaves tremendous profits on the table and triggers a range of fear and anger amongst his European contemporaries.
As Marlow travels upriver deeper into the Congo, he sees the European conquest of Africa for what it was—a depraved, inhumane exercise of tyranny where greed and corruption masked themselves as tools for survival. At his first meeting post, Marlow encounters Africans for the first time and sees how they and their land are truly treated. They were forced into slavery to pillage their land just for their resources to be shipped to Europe. The Africans were viewed as a subhuman species. Marlow himself is prone to these same prejudices. Though he sees what’s happening as morally wrong, he views it more like taking candy from a baby so to speak. He’s just as ignorant of the cultures within the Congo and their ways of life as any other European conqueror.
“They were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force – nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get and for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind – as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. 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, it is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.” – Marlow
Roughly halfway through his journey upriver 100km deep into the Congo, Marlow’s boat breaks down and he’s forced to dock it while making repairs. Here, he learns more about the man Kurtz and develops a strange fascination not just with him, but with the jungle that has swallowed the man whole. Within the shadows of the jungle, power is free for any man willing to embrace the darkness. We learn Kurtz is a man who not only embraces said darkness, but thrives in it. Kurtz isn’t your typical ivory agent pseudo salesman, he’s a conman of the largest degree, one who twists and bends the branches of the jungle to his whim. Instead of wielding blatant violence to colonize the land and the people like the majority of his contemporaries, he uses his presence. He has molded his face in the shape of a god to his innocent victims, offering them a life with purpose, their purpose being to bow down and serve the deity that so happens to be this white man named Kurtz.
After fixing the tugboat, Marlow and his crew travel closer to their destination where they’re suddenly hit with a barrage of arrows. Though some of his crew parishes, Marlow survives and they push onward until they finally reach Kurtz’s last known destination. Unlike the rest of the station camps, Kurtz’s camp is much more fleshed out, like an oasis in the middle of the desert. The first individual Marlow comes across is a Russian who stumbled into the heart of the Congo on a Dutch exhibition years prior. The Russian, who has taken care of Kurtz during a bout of sickness, believes wholeheartedly in Kurtz’s greatness. He is one of the few individuals to witness Kurtz’s ascension, from ivory agent to God. Kurtz offered the Russian what no other man did, a purpose, an ideology to subscribe to. The Russian divulged that the Natives of the Congo attacked Marlow’s boat because they didn’t want Kurtz to leave. Through his rituals and his words, Kurtz’s standing as a god among men infects all, whether you are from the depths of the Congo Free State or the Tsarist autocracy of Russia.
Before entering Kurtz’s hut, the Russian asks Marlow to crawl, a ritual all of Kurtz’s followers must do if they wish to speak to the deity. Dumbfounded, Marlow refuses to give in to Kurtz’s rituals. Suddenly, Kurtz is carried out on a stretcher and brought directly to Marlow’s boat where he tells Marlow he is glad to see him, indicating he knew Marlow was coming all along. Clearly, Kurtz is beyond a mere case of sickness and is on the brink of death. Kurtz argues with the ivory company manager, one of Marlow’s crewmates and superiors, claiming they are only here for his ivory and do not care for his life. The boat quickly gets moving and Kurtz is returning to civilization.
Docked in the middle of the night for rest, Marlow wakes up to the sound of drums and the sight of fire on the nearby shore. Immediately weary of Kurtz and his pilgrims, he checks Kurtz’s stretcher to find he has vanished. Following a trail, Marlow discovers Kurtz crawling on all fours, mere feet away from the native’s camp. Marlow contemplates strangling him right then and there, knowing the natives would hear and quickly kill him too. He decides not to not because he is worried for his fate, but because he too, like the Russian and the people of the Congo, genuinely sees Kurtz as a remarkable individual. Marlow’s infatuation with Kurtz isn’t Godlike, but he recognizes that he is the only thing standing between Kurtz and his final step into madness. He is so far removed from the European civilization that he and Marlow were raised on, to judge him right or wrong, to either let him embrace the darkness of the jungle or to kill him right there, is a futile juxtaposition. The man infected by the heart of darkness has seemingly “kicked himself loose of the earth,” he is free from any sort of judgment and preconceptions society deems. By letting go of everything, he opened the door to madness.
Kurtz, overwhelmed with sickness and the grief of his foiled plans, follows Marlow back to the steamboat, and they proceed downriver. Left with nothing but his ideas, Kurtz spills his philosophical musings to an eager Marlow, who is left both profoundly moved and painfully irritated. Kurtz’s grandiose theories on everything from love to the economy are littered with childish aspirations of fame and fortune, revealing the contradictions that lie within the Heart of Darkness. Eventually, Kurtz foresees his death and delivers one of the most famous and debated quotes in all of fiction before perishing on that steamboat.
“It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror—of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? 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!’” – Marlow
After Kurtz’s death, Marlow gets violently sick himself. On the brink of death, Marlow realizes what makes Kurtz so remarkable. Marlow had nothing to say, of himself, or his ideas. If he were to die, he would be transplanted back into the earth in the same fashion he was born from it. Kurtz on the other hand, the man who “kicked himself loose from the earth” had everything to say, and so he did. To Marlow, Kurtz through his descent into madness let go of everything, but in doing so found himself, something most individuals spend their lives chasing. In himself was surely a heart of darkness, but said heart was pampered with candor and conviction. The darkness made him blind to the subjectivity of the world we’ve built, but painfully aware of the objective truths of the universe.
Historical Significance; The Scramble For Africa
Heart of Darkness (1899) takes place amid the 2nd Industrial Revolution (1870-1914). This period was characterized by rapid industrialization, technological advancements, and social changes that were built upon the innovations of the First Industrial Revolution (which occurred from the late 18th to early 19th centuries). Essentially, new sources of energy like electricity, oil, and gas led to breakthroughs in the production of steel. Subsequent innovations like railroads, cars, ships, and planes, as well as communication devices like the radio and telephone, began sprouting up across the world. This was the first time in history we could communicate and travel across vast distances, leading to the first instances of globalization. Governments were quick to realize that these newfound technological advancements required tremendous amounts of resources to be deployed effectively. Europe simply didn’t have the raw materials necessary to produce their industrial goals. At the same time, the major players within the continent (Belgium, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Portugal, and Spain) were in skirmishes amongst one another trying to flex their imperial power. For example, events like the Congress of Vienna (the fall of Napoleon), The Franco-Prussian War (France vs. Germany), and the unification of Italy and Germany all led to bitter resentment among the major European factions.
After seeing the success of the British in the Americas and India, in the 1830s France makes the first move towards Africa by occupying Algeria. After colonizing Algeria, France moved eastward to take Tunisia, provoking Italy to join in this conquest. While France and Italy wage war over Northern Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium announces his plans to “rescue” The Congo Free State. Unlike the other European empires, King Leopold II vowed not to make it a part of the Belgian empire, but instead, chose to make it his own domain so that he personally could “aid and civilize” the people of The Congo, presenting his conquest as a humanitarian effort. King Leopold II’s reign over The Congo is known to be one of the most brutal, inhumane exercises of depravity known to history. While personally owning The Congo, the king netted over $200 million francs (over $1 billion in today’s money). There are so many lessons to be learned from this period of history, but the fact that he passed it off as a humanitarian effort goes to show how just how naive we humans can be.
After Leopold II of Belgium, also known as the “Two-faced King” announced his conquest of The Congo, the major European powers convened in Berlin to establish official claims for what is now deemed as “The Scramble For Africa”. Belgium, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, Portugal, and Spain all agree on makeshift borders representing the new reaches of their empires. The African kingdoms and rulers fought to retain control of their land, but 9 times out of 10 though they had the terrain advantage, they were overwhelmed by Europe’s newfound technological achievements like the inventions of bombs and machine guns. In just 40 years, Africa went from 10% European control to 90%. It wasn’t until the outbreak of World War I that European colonies began losing their grip on Africa. A wave of economic and military strains as well as increased scrutiny of colonialism and a growing African nationalist movement came together to dissolve European colonial control in Africa.
Responding to Controversies; Is HoD a Critique or Complicit in Colonialism?
It should be no surprise Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a highly controversial book. It depicts the brutal injustices of King Leopold II’s reign over The Congo Free State from an entirely Eurocentric perspective. Routinely the African characters in the book are referred to as cannibals, savages, and “the others”, reinforcing racist tropes so prevalent at the start of the 20th century. Beyond the palpable racism portrayed by the book’s main characters, Joseph Conrad’s decision not to give any African characters a voice throughout the entire story represents the larger issue. The racist bigotry of the European colonizers would be far easier for readers to digest if we could juxtapose their sentiments with African characters and culture. But that never happens. The only perspective we see is the Eurocentric one, where the jungles of Africa are prehistoric and the people are primitive, compared to their civilized culture back home. It’s impossible to read Marlow’s journey as any sort of pro-colonization propaganda, but the question remains; Does Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness do enough to present a sound critique of colonialism, or does it merely serve as a mundane reminder that this so-called “darkness’ is within all of us, as demonstrated through history?
In 1975, Nigerian novelist and poet Chinua Achebe wrote “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”. Achebe’s scathing critique of Conrad’s story does an excellent job of highlighting its inherent biases. He does not hold back his disdain for the ignorant racist he believes Conrad to be. Achebe calls for a closer inspection of the constant juxtaposition at play. The first river we’re introduced to where Marlow tells his tale is the Thames River running through London. The Thames River is depicted as a place highly regulated for commerce, ordered, and civilized. Contrast this river with the Congo River where the heart of the story takes place. The Congo River is the antithesis of the Thames River, it is a chaotic mess, closer akin to the Wild West than any official trade route. The juxtaposition spreads to the supposed lack of laws and customs in The Congo compared to the much more “civilized and cultured” Europe. Everything we learn of Africa in the story only serves to be the foil for Eurocentric ideals. The very few actual Africans in the story not only have zero dialogue but serve as symbolic objects and superficial tropes to the “superior” European mind.
I believe Chinua Achebe does a better job explaining what’s flawed with the book better than I ever can, which is why I recommend reading his paper yourself. Achebe asserts that Conrad’s depiction of Africa in Heart of Darkness only prolongs the negative and stereotypical sentiments of Africa being this so-called place of “darkness” where savegry and bouts of evil are societal norms. Taking away the direct racism within the book, at first glance the story seems to be concerned with two individuals (Marlow & Kurtz) descent into madness when placed in a situation so far removed from what they consider home. Implying this inevitable “descent into madness” occurs when trolling through the uncivilized rivers of The Congo seems to come with a fair bit of veiled racism. It leads one to believe that the jungles of Africa aren’t fit for the cultured Europeans and it should be left to the wild Africans. It’s hard to ignore that interpretation, but by the end of the book, Joseph Conrad litters tidbits of clues within his philosophical monologues that seem to imply it wasn’t The Congo that brought madness on these Europeans, their madness was within them all along. On Kurtz’s deathbed, he utters delusions of grandeur, he talks of dining with kings and disseminating his ideas to the farthest reaches. So all this talk of Kurtz being the man who “has kicked himself loose of the earth” is total baloney. He’s just as conscious and longing for these arbitrary societal norms as before he ever stepped foot in Africa. In fact, he was so greedy for fame, fortune, and power, that he was willing to sacrifice everything else he knew and loved to move to Africa and manipulate its people. The insatiable appetite for more Kurtz demonstrates isn’t something that evolves over time, especially in a place like the 20th century Congo Free State where traditional lappings of luxury are few and far between. Kurtz’s ambitions were within him far before his time in The Congo. It’s these ambitions, part of the archetypical European colonial mindset that spurred his descent into madness. At its core, the book isn’t the adventure narrative it’s trumped up to be. It’s a psychological breakdown of what corrupts the soul. The answer to that question isn’t some fantastical setting like The Congo River during the 2nd industrial Revolution. It’s a far more nuanced answer that leaves you questioning your desires. It wasn’t The Congo that made these men mad, these men brought madness to The Congo.
The Darkness
If the true theme of the story centers around the human psyche, the recurring symbol of darkness within Conrad’s prose should be analyzed from a new perspective. Multiple times the novel’s main character Marlow uses darkness to describe his environment; The geography of the jungle, the color of its inhabitants’ skin, and the morality of their actions are all repeatedly described as dark. In storytelling, darkness is what we associate with evil. So, it’s easy to assume that in placing these characters in this “dark” situation, they are running head-first into evil. However, Conrad subverts expectations by juxtaposing the darkness of The Congo with the blinding lightness of European civilization. As Marlow’s journey progresses, the “enlightened” European society he comes from becomes more and more a facade, a superficial beacon of light that blurs the truths of colonialism behind the glitz and glare of economic progress. In Conrad’s story, the light represents a shallow reflection of false desires, while the darkness reveals, the deeper, more complex, and uncomfortable truths of humanity.
Conrad’s use of light and darkness not as a tool for disseminating good versus evil, but rather as a metaphor to critique Eurocentric ideals, plays directly into Carl Jung’s theory of the Collective Unconscious. The Collective Unconscious can be understood as this layer beneath our consciousness where we all share the same understanding of universal patterns that come intuitively with being human. The universal patterns we innately recognize come in the forms of symbols and archetypes. For example, the archetype of “the hero” as brave and triumphant doesn’t come from any culture, religion, or story. “The hero” is something we all understand regardless of our background. Another archetype we share is “the shadow”. The shadow represents the dark, hidden side of the human psyche, the part of us we wish to ignore. For example, traits like anger, fear, greed, or being self-conscious are all things we may try to suppress. We don’t suppress these traits because they are inherently evil or morally bad, but only because they don’t align with how we want to be perceived. Although everyone’s shadow is comprised of individual experiences, the mere fact that we can recognize this shadow as an archetype proves that it lives in the collective unconscious. Carl Jung believed that to become a healthy person psychologically, one must confront the shadow and integrate it into their conscious awareness. This is exactly what Marlow went through on his journey through The Congo.
The light of Europe represents conscious awareness while the darkness of The Congo symbolizes the collective unconscious. Our conscious awareness pampers us with falsehoods and ideals whether it be on a personal level; i.e. “I’m not selfish”, or on a societal level; I.e. “We are civilizing The Congo”. While the collective consciousness, free from any rational constraints, lets loose the archetypes and shows things for what they really are. Here, the shadows reveal themselves as the ugly truths we try to sweep under the rug. When Marlow traverses through The Congo, he has no choice but to confront the darkest aspects of human nature; the cruelty, greed, and lust for power go hand in hand with the enlightened and civilized European culture. While The Congo is a symbol of the collective unconscious, Kurtz is the physical embodiment of Marlow’s shadow and everything he and Europe sought to suppress. Kurtz was once a man status, enlightened by Eurocentric ideals. But when he faced the darkness he abandoned his conscious beliefs and embraced his primal instincts. In Jungian terms, Kurtz lived up to the archetype of a tyrannical god, cementing himself within the collective unconscious. But when Marlow confronts his shadow, Kurtz, he sees in him his potential for darkness, an inescapable truth. While Marlow confronts his shadow, Kurtz is consumed by it. Kurtz’s absolute will to power blinded him to the truth, just like how the enlightened Europeans were blind to what was happening in The Congo. It isn’t until Kurtz’s famous last words on his deathbed, that he finally decides to see the darkness for what it is, thereby confronting his shadow.
Summary
When I picked up the book that inspired one of my favorite movies I knew I’d be in for a ride. But the downright racist and evil one-sided depiction of the colonization of The Congo is not at all what I expected. It caught me so off guard I had no idea what to make of it. In fact, immediately after finishing, I rated it 1 star on Goodreads. But it’s been over a month and I still can’t get the story off my mind. For better or for worse I’ve always believed that the more a piece of art provokes you, the more important it is. That said, the more I’ve thought about this story the more I come to grips with its purpose and see it for what it is. A horrific fictional account of one of the most brutal periods of history, but also a necessary one. Just like Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son, or Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes, it’s a haunting portrayal of our past. Without such works of art, our perceptions of the past would change, hindering our understanding of reality today. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness forces you to face the uncomfortable truths of reality, acting as a collective shadow overcasting society. Through this story, Conrad shows us that there is a period in time before the abyss gazes back into you where you can discover the truth within the darkness.
