Page 387 - DENG404_FICTION

Unit 31: Joseph Conrad — Heart of Darkness

The presence of ill characters in the novella illustrates the fact that Heart of Darkness is, at Notes
least in part, autobiographical. Many speculations have been made about the identity of various
characters, such as the Manager, or Kurtz, most recently and perhaps most accurately in Adam
Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost. But the geographical, as well as biographical, vagueness
of the novel—which is one of its most artistic, haunting characteristics—make it almost impossible
to pin down these details for sure.
Heart of Darkness first appeared in a three-part series in Blackwood Magazine in 1899. It was
published as a complete novella in 1904. It has since been referred to by many authors and
poets. Its most famous lines are both from Kurtz: “exterminate the brutes,” and Kurtz’s deathbed
utterance, “the horror! The horror!”

Did u know? Francis Ford Coppola directed the film version, Apocalypse Now, in which
the action occurs in Vietnam in 1979.

31.2 Joseph Conrad—Heart of Darkness: Detailed Study of the Text

Part One

A ship called the Nellie is cruising down the Thames—it will rest there as it awaits a change
in tide. The narrator is an unidentified guest aboard the ship. He describes at length the
appearance of the Thames as an interminable waterway, and then he describes the inhabitants
of the ship. The Director of Companies doubles as Captain and host. They all regard him with
affection, trust, and respect. The Lawyer is advanced in years and possesses many virtues. The
Accountant is toying with dominoes, trying to begin a game. They already share the “bond of
the sea.” They are tolerant of one another.
Then there is Marlow. He has an emaciated appearance—sunken cheeks and a yellow complexion.
The ship drops anchor, but nobody wants to begin the dominoes game. They sit meditatively
at the sun, and the narrator takes great notice of how the water changes as the sun sets.
Marlow suddenly speaks, noting that “this also has been one of the dark places of the earth.”
He is a man who does not represent his class: he is a seaman but also a wanderer, which is
disdainful and odd, since most seamen live sedentary lives aboard the ship that is their home.
No one responds to the remark, and Marlow continues to talk of olden times when the Romans
arrived and brought light, which even now is constantly flickering. He says those people were
not colonists but conquerors, taking everything by brute force. This “taking of the earth is not
a pretty thing” when examined too closely; it is the idea behind it which people find redeeming.
Then, to the dismay of his bored listeners, he switches into narration of a life experience: how
he decided to be a fresh water sailor after coming into contact with colonization.
As a child, Marlow had a passion for maps, and he would lose himself in the blank spaces,
which gradually turned into dark ones as they became peopled. He was especially taken with
the picture of a long, coiling river. In his tale, after a number of voyages in the Orient and
India, Marlow hopes to get charge of the steamboats that must go up and down that river for
trade. Marlow looks for a ship, but he has hard luck finding a position. His aunt has connections
in the Administration and writes to have him appointed a steamboat skipper. The appointment
comes through very quickly, and Marlow is to take the place of Fresleven, a captain who was
killed in a scuffle with the natives. He crosses the Channel to sign the contract with his
employers.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 381