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By Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) A Study Guide |
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Plot Summary By Michael J. Cummings...© 2005 .. .......The unnamed narrator describing the scene says Marlow “had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect, and, with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outward, resembled an idol.” .......The sun is setting. Marlow observes that the great city they see before them is “one of the dark places of the earth.” He then begins telling them a story about another dark place–the very heart of darkness. It is deep within the jungles of the Congo Free State in Africa. (King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo Free State as a Belgian colony in the late 19th Century.) .......Marlow tells the crew that he had been hired at one time by a Belgian company that trades in African ivory at a handsome profit. The company maintained several outposts along a river in the Congo, all of them called “stations.” Marlow’s mission was to travel more than 200 miles inland, partly on foot but mostly by river steamer, to a company outpost called “the Inner Station” (as opposed to “Outer” and “Central” stations along the way). Upon his arrival at the Inner Station, he was to reconnoiter the activities of the outpost’s manager, a man named Kurtz, who had been incommunicado for some time with his home office in Belgium. Marlow says he was told that it might be necessary for him, depending on what he found in the jungle, to bring Kurtz back to civilization. Kurtz had been running the Inner Station with amazing efficiency, returning tons of ivory to his employers and earning a reputation elevating him to the status of legend. .......Here is the story that Marlow narrates about his adventure: .......After a month’s sea voyage, he arrives on the shore of Africa and must travel the first 30 miles inland, to the company’s Outer Station, on a steamer with a Swedish captain. The captain tells Marlow about another man he took inland who hanged himself. When Marlow asks why the man killed himself, the captain says ominously, “Who knows? The sun too much for him, or the country perhaps.” .......After arriving at the Outer Station, Marlow observes natives building a railroad and setting off dynamite. He is struck by their emaciation. .......“I could see every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knobs in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck, and all were connected together with a chain whose  bights
swung between them, rhythmically clinking.”
.......They are prisoners. What crime had they committed? Perhaps the crime of simply being available for white Europeans to exploit. “They were not criminals,” Marlow says, “they were nothing earthly now–nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation in the greenish gloom.” .......Marlow must wait 10 days, lodging in a hut, before resuming his trip with 60 hired hands in a tramp through the jungle to reach the Central Station of the Belgian company. There, his own steamer awaits him. During the trek, a few of his men die under the burdens they carry, and at night distant drums pound out strange rhythms. Along the jungle trail, Marlow encounters a native with a bullet hole in his forehead. What happened to him? Why? .......Upon arriving at the Central Station, Marlow discovers that the steamboat he is to captain to the Inner Station sits submersed after someone piloted it over stones that ripped out its bottom. The manager of the station has no particular qualities to commend him for his work except one: He has the uncanny ability to remain healthy while others around him regularly fall victim to tropical diseases. He is jealous of Kurtz’s reputation as a master at his trade and claims that Kurtz is conspiring against him, placing his job in jeopardy. Thus, he is all in favor of bringing Kurtz out of the jungle and plans to accompany Marlow to the Inner Station in order to assist in Kurtz’s removal. .......During his stay at the Central Station, Marlow learns that Kurtz has ceased communicating with the station and has stopped shipping ivory. Moreover, he hears that Kurtz may be sick. .......Marlow needs rivets to repair his boat. He had seen endless supplies of them after arriving in Africa. But here, in this godforsaken way station, there is not a single rivet to be found. So, in the next few months, he mends his steamship with any material he can find–a scrap of this, a piece of that. During this time, a gang of men who call themselves the Eldorado Exploring Expedition visits the station. “To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire,” Marlow says, “with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.” .......At long last, with the manager of the Outer Station and a crew that includes cannibals as well as white men, Marlow sets out for the Inner Station, navigating the boat deep into the savage beauty of the jungle. It is a primeval world, full of peril and lush with vegetation that thrives in the humid air and heavy silence. The journey challenges Marlow’s every navigational talent with twists and turns and shallow water hiding rocks that could once again undo the boat. At night distant drums beat out rhythms of prayer or peace or war. During the day, Marlow occasionally glimpses natives along the shore sometimes shouting or leaping, sometimes frowning or clapping. Eventually, Marlow stops for wood to stoke the steamer’s fire and, to his surprise, finds a pile stacked near a hut and a note telling the finder to help himself. .......Later, back on the river, the steamer encounters heavy fog, hits a snag, and comes upon hostile natives who shoot arrows and hurl spears at the boat from positions in the dense forest. The white crew members, armed with Winchesters, spray volleys of bullets into the bushes. The boat struggles through the water, brushing overhanging limbs. A black man, Marlow’s helmsman, takes a a spear in his side and falls at the feet of Marlow. During all the frenzy, Marlow reaches up and pulls hard on a line that sounds the steam whistle. Again and again he jerks it. Its screeches frighten the natives, who cry out and scramble off into the jungle. The helmsman dies, frowning. .......When the boat is under way again, Marlow dumps the body overboard–a callous act, some of the crewmen think, but Marlow worried that the cannibals would have eaten the corpse. Oddly, he learns during the rest of the trip that it is the cannibals who keep their place; the white men, whom he calls “pilgrims,” are the ones who are hard to control. They are ever ready to shoot at anything that moves; it is all good sport. .......When the steamer arrives at the Inner Station, a talkative Russian trader dressed in motley, like a clown or a jester, greets Marlow. After serving aboard English ships, the Russian had persuaded a Dutch trading company to equip him for a foray into the jungle to reap profits from its riches. He tells Marlow it was he who left the pile of wood along the river. .......After almost two years of traipsing through the bush, the Russian ended up at the Inner Station, where he doctored Kurtz through two sick spells. Kurtz maintains a house at the station, but he only recently returned to it after spending time in the interior of the jungle, perhaps taking part in native rituals. He has manipulated the natives into idolizing him, as if he were a god, for his gigantic ego requires homage. But now he is a sick god–“bad, very bad,” the Russian says. .......Marlow trains a telescope on the house, situated across a field of high grass. What he sees, he says, surprises him but does not shock him: heads impaled on stakes. All of the heads except one face Kurtz’s house, paying homage. .......“There was nothing exactly profitable in these heads being there,” Marlow says. “They only showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his various lusts . . . .” .......Marlow observes that Kurtz–in spite of his genius as an ivory trader and his ability to dazzle and manipulate the natives–is actually a victim of the jungle, the heart of darkness. .......“I think it had whispered to him things about himself which he did not know, things of which he had no conception till he took counsel with this great solitude–and the whisper had proved irresistibly fascinating.” .......It was the voice of temptation, perhaps, inviting him to walk on the dark side of his soul, canceling moral law and becoming emperor of all that he sees. .......Sometime later, Marlow observes savage-looking natives bearing Kurtz on a stretcher to a cabin at the site. .......“I could see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arm waving,” Marlow says. “It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze.” .......Marlow and his men have a stack of letters for Kurtz–missives which had collected to await delivery–and they take them to the sick man. Kurtz fingers them and acknowledges their receipt in a surprisingly robust voice. .......Later, outside, a beautiful native woman appears, then disappears. Days later, she visits Kurtz for an hour while Marlow is nearby. During her conversation with Kurtz, she repeatedly points to Marlow. What she is saying is a mystery to Marlow, for he has no knowledge of native dialects. However, it becomes quite obvious that she has been serving as Kurtz’s mistress. .......Sometime later, the manager of the Outer Station visits Kurtz and receives a browbeating for saying he wants to “save” Kurtz–that is, take him out of the jungle. .......“You are interrupting my plans now,” Kurtz tells the manager. “Sick! Sick! Not so sick as you would like to believe.” .......When the district manager later pulls Marlow aside, he says Kurtz’s methods are unsound and is doing more harm than good for the company. Marlow observes that Kurtz is a “remarkable man.” The district manager says, “He was.” .......Marlow learns that it was Kurtz who had ordered the attack on the steamer. He wanted to scare the crew off so that he could remain in the jungle to carry out his enterprises. .......Meanwhile, the Russian prepares to return to civilization after receiving ammunition and supplies from Marlow. Before leaving by canoe, he tells Marlow of Kurtz’s talent for reciting his own poetry. .......After Marlow decides it is time for Kurtz, too, to return to civilization, his crewmen take Kurtz aboard but he later escapes. When Marlow searches for him, he finds him crawling in deep grass. Marlow tells him he will be “lost” if he does not return, although Marlow knows that Kurtz is already lost. Worried that Kurtz will call out to his native friends for help, Marlow threatens to bash his head if he makes a sound. .......“I was on the threshold of great things,” Kurtz says. .......The jungle holds a spell over him; he simply does not want to give up. Kurtz’s soul, Marlow says, has gone mad. Yet Marlow manages to prevail. .......The next day at noon, he and his crew carry Kurtz into the pilot house of the boat before their trip out of the jungle. When natives gather, Marlow’s crewmen begin reaching for their guns as if they are about to have a sporting good time. So Marlow blows the steam whistle to drive the natives off and, thus, save them from a hale of bullets. The natives run off in a fright–all except for that savagely beautiful woman, who reaches out her arms toward the boat. And then crewmen open fire. .......After the boat is on its way, Kurtz speaks out deliriously of all his plans; it seems that the jungle, which had become part of him, is fighting for possession of him. “Oh, I will wring your heart yet,” he says, addressing the mysterious wilds. Along the way, the boat lapses into a mechanical problem, and Marlow puts in at an island to effect repairs. While there, Kurtz gives him some papers and a photograph tied together with a shoestring, saying he wants Marlow to keep them away from the meddlesome Outer Station manager. One evening, when Marlow goes to check on Kurtz, the sick man says, “I am lying here in the dark waiting for death.” .......Not long after he dies. The last words Marlow hears him speak are “The horror! The horror!” Apparently, Kurtz is aware of the depth of evil into which he plunged himself. The next day, the crewmen bury him in a “muddy hole.” .......A year after his return to Belgium, Marlow gives the packet of papers to the person for whom they were intended, Kurtz’s fiancée, who mourns his loss, saying he was such a remarkable man, such a good man. “Men looked up to him–his goodness shone in his every act.” When she asks Marlow about Kurtz’s last moments, he lies: “The last word he pronounced was–your name.” .......When Marlow ends his story, he resumes his pose, looking like an idol, a Buddha. The unnamed narrator aboard observes at that moment–as black clouds appear in an overcast sky–that the Thames, as it flows out to sea, “seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.” .  Settings . .......The action takes place in the early 1890s. It begins on a boat anchored within sight of London, England, then shifts to Africa during a flashback in which Charles Marlow, one of the crew members, tells a story about a trip he took up the Congo River to the "heart of darkness." Characters
Type of Work and Themes . .......Heart of Darkness is a novella (short novel) that conveys its meaning on symbolic and literal levels. It does not slip neatly into a distinct genre. It is clear, though, that Conrad intended the novel to do the following in revealing his themes:
. .......To tell his story, Conrad uses two narrators, both serving on a small boat, a yawl called The Nellie. The first narrator, unidentified, is only a minor character in the story. He sets the scene–a port along the Thames River near London as the sun begins to set–and describes the captain and the crewmen, one of whom is Charles Marlow, the second narrator. .......Marlow takes over as the main narrator and central character of the story when he begins telling the crew about a journey that took him to Africa and up the Congo River to the “heart of darkness.” Marlow’s tale continues uninterrupted except at short breaks when the first narrator describes Marlow’s demeanor or appearance, or informs the reader of the time of night, as the tale progresses. A literary work with an “outer narrator” who introduces an “inner narrator” (such as Marlow) is often referred to as a frame tale. The outer narrator’s story is like the frame around a painting; the inner narrator’s story is the painting itself. . Style . .......Conrad develops Marlow’s story with an ingenious mix of elegant imagery and everyday language–the latter including truncated sentences and colloquialisms–expressed through Marlow’s intimate first-person narration. Occasionally Marlow addresses the reader with the second-person “you.” Overall the writing is first rate, with rich characterization that provides insights into the psychological motivations and moral convictions–or lack of them–of his characters. Descriptions of exploited Africans are striking: . They were dying slowly–it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now–nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. . . . I began to distinguish the gleam of eyes under the trees. Then, glancing down, I saw a face near my hand. The black bones reclined at full length with one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind, white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died out slowly. The man seemed young–almost a boy–but you know with them it’s hard to tell. I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good Swede’s ship’s biscuits I had in my pocket. The fingers closed slowly on it and held–there was no other movement and no other glance........Marlow often provides brief descriptions of his experiences to supplement detailed descriptions. His abbreviated glimpses of reality are not unlike those of impressionist painters who attempt to capture a moment or a mood in an instantaneous rendering of what they see. Conrad is especially effective when describing the atmosphere of the jungle: dark, forbidding, mysterious, primeval. At times, he waxes into lengthy digressions, but they are often enthralling–building suspense. . The Congo River and the Country in Conrad's Time . .......The Congo River, one of the longest in the world, forms in central Africa in a country that was known as the Congo Free State in the late 19th Century. The name of the country changed several times in the 20th Century and is known today as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). From its headwaters, the river flows north in the DRC, then west, then southwest to the Atlantic Ocean. .......Joseph Conrad traveled up the Congo River in 1890 and later based Heart of Darkness on this voyage. Marlow, the main narrator of Heart of Darkness, arrives on the Atlantic coastline of Africa, then travels up the Congo to several sites in the jungle. (Traveling "up" a river means traveling toward its source, or headwaters; traveling "down" a river means traveling away from its source.) King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo Free State in the late 19th Century and commissioned the famous Anglo-American explorer Henry Morton Stanley to establish trading posts along the river. Supposedly, these trading posts were set up to civilize and develop the Congo region while ending the slave trade. However, the Belgians exploited the native population while capitalizing on the Congo as a rich source of ivory. . Author Information . .......Joseph Conrad, one of the most important novelists in English literature, was born in 1857 to Polish parents in Berdichev, Ukraine, a country in eastern Europe that was annexed as part of Poland in 1569 but incorporated into the Russian Empire in the 19th Century. Ukraine is now an independent country. .......Conrad’s birth name was Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski. When he was a child, Conrad learned about the great English authors–including Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, and Sir Walter Scott–from his father, a poet who also translated English books into Polish and French. Young Joseph could read translations of these authors in both of those languages. His parents, devout Roman Catholics, raised him in that religion. When he was still an adolescent, his father and mother died, and thereafter his uncle saw to his upbringing and schooling. .......In 1874, Conrad abandoned his studies to fulfill a longing to go to sea. Subsequently, he served on French and British merchants ships, sailing around the world. During this time, he became not only a master mariner (acknowledged with a British certificate in 1886) but also a master of the English language. He also became a British subject. In the late 1880's, he began to write. In 1890, he traveled up the Congo River from the Atlantic coast, then back, on a four-month journey. The trip provided him all the background he needed for Heart of Darkness. .......His first novel, Almayer’s Folly, was published in 1895, marking the first time he used the name Joseph Conrad instead of his birth name. Many other distinguished works–including The Nigger of the Narcissus, Heart of Darkness, Lord Jim, Typhoon, and Nostromo–followed within a decade. The British government invited him to receive knighthood in his later years, but he declined the honor. He died of a heart attack in 1924 at Bishopsbourne, England. .. .
Study Questions and Essay Topics
. The Portable Conrad Cambridge Companion to Joseph Conrad Joseph Conrad: A Biography Lord Jim on DVD Apocalypse Now on DVD (Based on Heart of Darkness) |
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