University of Auckland

Victorian Literature

Conrad: Heart of Darkness (c)

Name: 

Geoffrey Schoning 

(International Student) 

Tutorial: Thursday 2-3pm

Section C: Imperialism 

‘He [Kurtz} began with the argument that we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, “must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings … by the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded” … It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence.’ 

(Marlow)

Write an essay discussing whether you think Heart of Darkness endorses this view of the colonizing enterprise. 

Being a student of history, and of European colonialism in particular, I have had the pleasure to hear of Heart of Darkness several times. Whether it was introduced as a literary bonus to lectures on the notorious atrocities in the Congo or merely served as a vague metaphorical reference in scientific and popular articles, Conrad’s novel seemed to produce unanimous tenor. “[One] of fiction’s strongest statements about imperialism”¹ it was; one that like “[no] other Victorian literary work addressed so radically [this] great era.”² Readers like me would thus deny the above quotation in a sort of reflex retort; pointing to the fact that imperial rule might have been immense in its impact on native life but was certainly far from being benevolent. Rapacity and ruthlessness dominated under the spurious cloak of philanthropic interest – just as Heart of Darkness so clearly shows. Apparently.

It is the aim of this essay to dive beyond such well-nigh automatic associations and scrutinise the novel’s treatment of imperialism, equipped with the tools of literary method. In which way does Heart of Darkness really depict the colonial enterprise? And what are the long-term consequences this view entails? I.e. what kind of general judgement can be inferred from the novel? Since imperialism is first and foremost a phenomenon rooted in time, insights from the historical discipline might be helpful and, wherever appropriate, will be used too. Conrad himself expressed this belief in synthesis between history and literature, emphasising that the “novelist is a historian, the preserver, the keeper, the expounder, of human experience.”³ Nonetheless, it is the novel, his fictionalised account, which remains the basis of any kind of interpretation.

When discussing the plot of Heart of Darkness, it is essential to keep in mind that the main part of the story, the journey up the Congo River as recalled by Charles Marlow, is placed within an over-arching narrative.⁴ The latter sets both Marlow and his audience of seamen, including the unknown framenarrator, far away from the colonialist scene, namely on a yawl waiting to leave the Thames for the open ocean. It is here, near London – the virtual centre of colonialism – that first allusions to imperial values are made. Reflecting on England’s “knights-errant”, the narrator ruminates:

“Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!… The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealths, the germs of empires (137).”

[...]

1 Hunt Hawkins, ‘Conrad’s Critique of Imperialism in Heart of Darkness’, in PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 94, 2, March 1979, pp. 286-99, here p. 286.

2 Cedric Watts, ‘Introduction’, in Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness and Other Tales, edited with an introduction by Cedric Watts, Oxford/ New York, 1990, pp. vii-xxiii, here p. xxiii. keeper, the expounder, of human experience.”

3 Nonetheless, it is the novel, his fictionalised account, which remains the basis of any kind of interpretation.

4 The decisive implications of Marlow’s retelling the happenings in the Congo out of his memory will be dealt with later on.