heart of darkness introduction

2. EART OF DARKNESS

4.  3 Dec. 1857- 3 Aug. 1924
 Russian citizen as born in Ukraine
 Polish- British nationality in 1886
 Wrote stories and novels
 Writing style and narration
 After 1874 started career as a merchant navy first
with French ships , later with British merchant
marine

5.  NARRATIVE
 CHARLES MARLOW’S JOB
 MIGHTY RIVER CONGO, CENTRAL AFRICA
 SAVAGERY Vs CIVILIZATION
 COLONIALISM+RACISM+IMPERIALISM
 Travelogue
 Patriarchal society for men, about men
 Ancient Mariner by Coleridge

6.  Published in BLACKWOOD MAG.
 Published and translated
 Modern Library Award in 1998
 67th in top 100 novels of 20th century
 Included to Western canon

7.  08 years earlier appointed as Captain of
steamer in Belgian trading company.
 His steamer was repaired.
 Travelled by another steamer and served as a
captain .
 Picked up company’s agent from the
innermost station who died.
 His parents suffered from imperialism of
Russia when they were in poland

8.  Marlow’s job and his journey to Company
outer station and central station.
 Journey to Kurtz’ inner station and his initial
encounter with Kurtz.
 Kurtz death and return of Marlow towards
civilization.

9.  Starts with the conversation of 05 men on
Nellie’s deck.
 Romans as conquerors and English as colonist
 As a captain of river boat steamer replacing
Fresleven, killed by the natives.
 Visit to company office and medical checkup
 French Warship
 Reached outstation and Rail road construction
….. The waste

10.  His trip is not pilgrimage but a nightmare
 Station accountant, stay 10days and description
of Kurtz.
 Marlow’s journey towards central station. “
grove of death”
 Station Manager “ a hair dresser’s dummy”, boat
repairing, a hut on fire
 Meeting with brick maker and painting of a
woman with a torch.
 Eldorado Exploring Expedition

11.  20 good workers, sympathy for not being paid &
fed. Manager as symbol of inhumanity
 Kurtz isolation and delay in ivory procurement.
 Marlow’s journey to Kurtz station.
 Visit of a strange hut and notes
 Boat in the fog & under attack, helmsman death
 My ivory, my station, my river (Kurtz and Satan)
 Kurtz history… whites must appear to the natives
as supernatural beings… shooting an elephant.
 Kurtz inner station & wooden poles

12.  Kurtz as a god…. Collection of ivory forcibly,
disappearance for many days.
 Kurtz changed by wilderness or mad.
 Exterminate all the brutes.
 Natives arrival in the evening, Kurtz unwilling to
return. Midnight incident,
 Natives protest. More rapid journey in return
 Kurtz death,, the horror, the horror!
 Last words, his fiancé name

13.  The hypocrisy of imperialism
 The women knitting black wool in the office and
doctor’s external physical check up
 The pilgrims worship idol of ivory
 Scenes of torture, sufferings and slavery
 All about trade instead of project of civilization
 Kurtz as a symbol of imperialism
 Cruelty is everywhere.

14. CONTROVERSY
 In 1975 the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe
published an essay, An image of Africa Racism
in Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'", which provoked
controversy by calling Conrad a "thoroughgoing
racist". Achebe's view was that Heart of
Darkness cannot be considered a great work of art
because it is "a novel which celebrates...
dehumanization, which depersonalizes a portion
of the human race." Referring to Conrad as a
"talented, tormented man," Achebe notes that
Conrad (via the protagonist, Charles Marlow)
reduces and degrades Africans to "limbs,"
"angles," "glistening white eyeballs," etc.

15.  Evil genius like Faustus and Satan.
 A white man, works for organization,
 Whites must appear as super naturals to the
savages and can exercise great powers.
 Part of the darkness, rituals,
 a god on the land, brutality, a protagonist,
 King or ruler for the savages
 Desired to be there for ever
 Representative of imperialism
 The horror, the horror

16.  A device of the writer
 As a misogynist
 The influence of social Darwinism “ certain
group of people were more suitable for survival
than others, they can dominate and protect the
inferior races”
 Racism when uses “ Black” nigger”
 Always criticizes the brutality

17.  Fog….. Marlow’s steamer caught in fog… having
no direction….. Symbolizes the indecisiveness…
ignorance of Kurtz
 The whited Sepulchre.. Brussels company
headquarter…. Means death shows Europe as a
colonist which brings death…. Biblical Book of
Matthew…. As something beautiful from outside
and containing horrors from within.
 The River… keeps white men separate, journey to
upriver is slow and down river is fast… struggle
towards up river is struggle to understand the
situation.

18.  Literally, the title refers to the dark continent
of Africa, especially the territory known as
the Congo.
 Henry Morton Stanley “the dark continent” still
to be explored. Conrad visit to Congo in 1890.
describes experiences of the interior region.
Savages belong to heart of darkness.
 Description of wild scenery.
 Natives and Kurtz an essential part of darkness..
Attack of natives on the steamer shows their
backwardness.

19.  instead of civilizing the natives, Mr. Kurtz has
himself become a barbarian… representative of
evil…. Himself a part of darkness and evil
 An exploration of the mind.. Marlow explores
his own mind and soul…human mind as dark
continent… Marlow’s journey in to mind.
 Darkness in many ways.. Unknown, Sub
consciousness, moral darkness, evil and
mysteriousness of man’s spiritual lives.
 A warning to all men.

20.  An existential idea that fear drives us…Marlow ..
River as a devil or serpent.. Afraid of the
circumstances or experiences lead him to.
 The absurdity of the natives
 Existentialism is the presence of nothingness…
Marlow starts and gets direction from “ white
shining city” means pure or heaven….. Kurtz as a
god
 Kurtz as a tragedy of choice… an ideal man,
genius, moral but becomes quite opposite to it