Question
What might the title represent—the heart of darkness—what is this referring to?
Response
To be honest, when I first heard about the book without any background knowledge on it, I’d assumed it was going to be a deep, psychological journey of self-discovery. Instead, it turned out to be a book about some guy talking about some other guy he went stalking after into the forests of Africa. My hypothesis was disproved. Or so I thought.
Even though the novel repeatedly refers to the jungle as a “heart of darkness” or various similar terms and analogies, I don’t think that’s what the phrase is supposed to represent. to me, the jungle seemed like it was just a convenient background for the story. Really, I didn’t think Heart Of Darkness was about Africa. I interpreted it to be all about the quest to find Mr. Kurtz and bring him out of the isolation he’d imposed upon himself. The jungle just seemed to be a plot device. Yes, the Congo is referred to as the Heart Of Africa, but I don’t believe that an author would name his novel after the scenery. Certainly, the location added quite a bit of depth to the novel, but the novel could have achieved similar results even if it was about a trek in the frozen expanses of Russia or an expedition across the Sahara. A lot of things would be different, of course, but Marlow would still be trying to track down Mr. Kurtz and rescue him from his near-exile.
I think the “heart of darkness” is similar to what I had originally thought. I believe it represents the feelings of drudgery and hopelessness in mankind.
When Marlow first arrives on the river and loafs around the station, he spends quite a bit of time observing the various Africans working, living, and dying. He goes into incredible detail about their emaciation, their listless eyes, their exposed bones, the absence of the spark that makes life worth it. The Africans represent the lowest of humanity, the absolute dregs of society. They’re worked to the bone until eventually, they can do nothing else but crawl into the shade of some trees and wait until they die. There is no motivation, hope, or spirit within them. It had been excised by the British and the general hardships of living.
Even Marlow felt some of it. He felt like he was wasting time as he wandered around the river station. The only thing that gave him any sort of purpose was the vague mission to find Kurtz and bring him back to replace him. When attacked by some natives while traveling upriver, his disregard for the dead man’s body proved the irreverence towards life and death. If life isn’t worth living, why should one respect it’s end?
The lack of purpose, clarity, and even hope come together to form a figurative darkness that clouds people’s mentalities. They are the center, the heart, of it all.
But then Mr. Kurtz is found. His forceful personality, his magnetic attraction, his charisma, and his authority banish the darkness with enlightening salvation. He causes people to believe again, even if it is just in his works and actions. He is almost a Christ-figure. He bewitches all those who’ve heard him speak and turns them into faithful acolytes willing to listen, feast upon, and carry his words to others. He restores vitality to people, as observed in the Russian sailor, who’d only ever had a nomadic lifestyle before Mr. Kurtz gave him a fixed purpose in life. Mr. Kurtz positively influenced every single person he came into contact with.
That is a very good opinion! I never thought about that take on it! That is a very good point about the fact that the whole novel is centered around finding Mr. Kurtz and bringing him out of the darkness and back to the safety. I do not think I would have ever thought about that perspective but I do understand it! I did this same prompt and if I had this outlook on the prompt I would have been able to answer the question easier and with more depth. I really enjoyed reading this answer even though you always write novels yourself.
ReplyDeleteYou write quite a lot. Seriously. No one else writes this much, Brian. It's an affliction you've had since before we met, but you've carried your cross well. Mrs. Murdock (who I talked to today, by the way) would be proud. Without further ado:
ReplyDeleteYou're grasping at straws. Not every novel needs to be the philosophical roller coaster that you seem to be imagining and which those students from last year seem to have had with this book. Heart of Darkness is definitely about Africa. It's definitely about imperialism. To be completely honest, I disagree with you on every front. This was a simple story about the love of money not being enough to justify the atrocities used to acquire it. A few other things were tossed in that vegetable motif soup as well.
You say that Marlow disregarded the dead man's body, but I disagree with that. Marlow regarded the body greatly. He wondered at it and even went so far as to question if the life of Kurtz was worth more than the life of the dead black man.
Kurtz, rather than being Christ, is the anti-Christ. Yes, he leads them, but he leads them astray. He is the temptation against which the Bible warns. The "purposes" he gives to people are on the wrong path. They are worshipping a false idol.
Your interpretation is nice, too, though.
You use the term "bewitched," and I find that very interesting. As I was skimming Ben's comment, I felt compelled to reply. In terms of the comparison between Kurtz and a messianic figure, you could be right; Kurtz had all the qualities necessary to lead a group of people in a direction. However, as Ben suggests, this direction was one that was directly fed by temptation - the ivory. Combined with the historical efforts to bring Christianity to the Africans, this adds another layer to the already-complex novella. Although greed is a major theme of the novel, religion in this respect is also touched on. As everything seems to change upon the African soil, even Christian efforts can find themselves twisted and turned into something they were never meant to be.
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