The History Behind Heart of Darkness...
Conrad based Heart of Darkness on his journey to the Belgian Congo in 1890. By checking his diaries at the time, we can trace his experience against his fictional portrayal. But this novella is more than an autobiographical account of his time spent there. It is a modern work that challenges the basic ethical question of good and evil in mankind, a topic explored by many authors. We need only think of the Adam and Eve myth, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Golding’s Lord of the Flies, and Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange to name a few. Francis Ford Coppola based his film Apocalypse Now on this philosophical concept by updating Conrad’s story to the Vietnam War and the Southeast Asian jungle of the 1960s.
Conrad also tackled the political environment of the Congo in Heart of Darkness. When King Leopold of Belgium founded the “International Association for the Suppression of Slavery and the Opening Up of Central Africa,” he attempted to impose civilization and order. Greed, though, fostered widespread abuse. By the time Conrad visited the Congo, exploitation festered everywhere. Brutality and degradation reigned, not progress and enlightenment. The natives’ sufferings and Kurtz’s writings about them reflect the historical reality.
A number of factors influenced Conrad and other twentieth-century British writers. We have to first understand Victorian England and the reasons why the modern novelist rejected the values and beliefs of that time to mold a new society founded on different ideals.
Victorian England believed in materialism and progress. Their bourgeois (middle class) values served to stabilize all facets of society, so they believed. The writings of Jane Austen Charles Dickens and George Eliot represented the standards of their time, with Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, and Middlemarch serving as landmarks in fiction at that time. Their novels usually followed the traditional three-volume format. They focussed on many details, often writing at length about seemingly insignificant details.
As the era closed, reaction against Victorian life, commercialism, and community spread. The artist stood, not as a member of society, but in isolation from it. Once embraced by authors, religious faith even declined.
With formal religion destroyed, writers needed to discover a new faith to follow—with art often filling the void. In his preface to The Nigger of Narcissus, Conrad wrote: “Art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its very aspect.” For him, art was religion.
New techniques emerged for novelists to tell their stories. The stream of consciousness and internal monologue emphasized a shift in focus from the external world to the interior world. Dreams, thoughts, and explanations of a character’s mental process replaced lengthy descriptions of external objects. Even though Conrad did not use these devices per se, he did focus on the internal world of his characters, and the reality of their dreams and thoughts. Marlow’s story suggests a nightmarish journey into the unknown.
More than any other factor, the advent and progression of psychology shaped the new vision of man in the universe, as well as the artist’s conception of him. Freud’s ideas showed the different aspects of man’s personality. With Freud’s analysis, man is not easily understood unless we consider his multi-layered make-up. His terms “ego,” “id,” and “super-ego” reveal the depth of our conscious and subconscious mind. After Freud’s work appeared, many works received a “psychological” interpretation. This added a depth of meaning to each work which had not existed before.
If we look at Heart of Darkness specifically and apply Freud’s concept of the human psyche, we can analyze Marlow’s journey not only as a literal one, but a psychological one. Marlow and Kurtz represent different aspects of man’s personality. Marlow reflects the “ego” (man’s more rational side), while Kurtz represents the “id” (man’s primitive force within). This difference explains why Marlow recoils at Kurtz’s barbaric behavior.
The recurring symbols in Conrad’s work show Jung’s influence. Many things represent not only their actual meaning, but a symbolic one, as well. The jungle, Marlow’s journey, and even Kurtz himself suggest other ideas and meanings besides their literal ones. Since Conrad gives no clues, the reader must interpret each one.
Bergson’s theories of time relate to Conrad’s use of a non-chronological narration. He could have had Marlow tell his story without any alteration in time, by starting at the beginning and proceeding straight through until the end. Instead, Conrad lets Marlow jump ahead, then return at whim. This technique merges the past with the present, making the reading more challenging. It shuffles the pieces of a strict chronological plot. As with the symbols, the reader must order the time to organize the sequence of events.
In his preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus Joseph Conrad wrote how an artist’s (writer’s) success allowed readers a “glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.” He also said: “Art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect.” In each case, notice his reference to the “truth.” Here,
Conrad proclaimed what his contemporaries felt. Only the artist could lead society to the truth. Only the work itself could enable society to understand the truth. The modern artists stood before their audience like prophets addressing the multitudes. The twentieth-century novelists’ work represented a way for the reader to see the new reality.
Conrad also tackled the political environment of the Congo in Heart of Darkness. When King Leopold of Belgium founded the “International Association for the Suppression of Slavery and the Opening Up of Central Africa,” he attempted to impose civilization and order. Greed, though, fostered widespread abuse. By the time Conrad visited the Congo, exploitation festered everywhere. Brutality and degradation reigned, not progress and enlightenment. The natives’ sufferings and Kurtz’s writings about them reflect the historical reality.
A number of factors influenced Conrad and other twentieth-century British writers. We have to first understand Victorian England and the reasons why the modern novelist rejected the values and beliefs of that time to mold a new society founded on different ideals.
Victorian England believed in materialism and progress. Their bourgeois (middle class) values served to stabilize all facets of society, so they believed. The writings of Jane Austen Charles Dickens and George Eliot represented the standards of their time, with Pride and Prejudice, Great Expectations, and Middlemarch serving as landmarks in fiction at that time. Their novels usually followed the traditional three-volume format. They focussed on many details, often writing at length about seemingly insignificant details.
As the era closed, reaction against Victorian life, commercialism, and community spread. The artist stood, not as a member of society, but in isolation from it. Once embraced by authors, religious faith even declined.
With formal religion destroyed, writers needed to discover a new faith to follow—with art often filling the void. In his preface to The Nigger of Narcissus, Conrad wrote: “Art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its very aspect.” For him, art was religion.
New techniques emerged for novelists to tell their stories. The stream of consciousness and internal monologue emphasized a shift in focus from the external world to the interior world. Dreams, thoughts, and explanations of a character’s mental process replaced lengthy descriptions of external objects. Even though Conrad did not use these devices per se, he did focus on the internal world of his characters, and the reality of their dreams and thoughts. Marlow’s story suggests a nightmarish journey into the unknown.
More than any other factor, the advent and progression of psychology shaped the new vision of man in the universe, as well as the artist’s conception of him. Freud’s ideas showed the different aspects of man’s personality. With Freud’s analysis, man is not easily understood unless we consider his multi-layered make-up. His terms “ego,” “id,” and “super-ego” reveal the depth of our conscious and subconscious mind. After Freud’s work appeared, many works received a “psychological” interpretation. This added a depth of meaning to each work which had not existed before.
If we look at Heart of Darkness specifically and apply Freud’s concept of the human psyche, we can analyze Marlow’s journey not only as a literal one, but a psychological one. Marlow and Kurtz represent different aspects of man’s personality. Marlow reflects the “ego” (man’s more rational side), while Kurtz represents the “id” (man’s primitive force within). This difference explains why Marlow recoils at Kurtz’s barbaric behavior.
The recurring symbols in Conrad’s work show Jung’s influence. Many things represent not only their actual meaning, but a symbolic one, as well. The jungle, Marlow’s journey, and even Kurtz himself suggest other ideas and meanings besides their literal ones. Since Conrad gives no clues, the reader must interpret each one.
Bergson’s theories of time relate to Conrad’s use of a non-chronological narration. He could have had Marlow tell his story without any alteration in time, by starting at the beginning and proceeding straight through until the end. Instead, Conrad lets Marlow jump ahead, then return at whim. This technique merges the past with the present, making the reading more challenging. It shuffles the pieces of a strict chronological plot. As with the symbols, the reader must order the time to organize the sequence of events.
In his preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus Joseph Conrad wrote how an artist’s (writer’s) success allowed readers a “glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.” He also said: “Art itself may be defined as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one, underlying its every aspect.” In each case, notice his reference to the “truth.” Here,
Conrad proclaimed what his contemporaries felt. Only the artist could lead society to the truth. Only the work itself could enable society to understand the truth. The modern artists stood before their audience like prophets addressing the multitudes. The twentieth-century novelists’ work represented a way for the reader to see the new reality.
Conrad's Biography
In a part of Russia that once belonged to Poland Joseph Conrad was born Josef Teodor Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski on December 3, 1857, to his parents, Apollo and Evelina. Members of the landed gentry, his parents believed in liberating Poland, though from opposite extremes. Apollo Korzeniowski came from a family dedicated to the romantic idealism of their cause, eager to act, if necessary, to die for Poland. Though championing the same beliefs, Evelina Bobrowski’s family advocated working quietly for their goal, and surviving as best they could under the dictates of the occupying power. Their concerns deeply influenced Conrad’s upbringing.
Joseph Conrad Apollo devoted his life to literary interests and political involvement. He wrote plays and poems of little value, but adeptly translated Victor Hugo and Shakespeare into Polish. In 1862, Conrad’s father started a literary journal, Fortnightly Review. Politically, Apollo’s main concern centered around fortifying resistance against Russian oppression. He helped organize the National Central Committee. He joined a radical wing and was arrested before he took any action. Exiled to the Vologda region of northern Russia in 1862, Apollo longed to have his family accompany him.
Already physically fragile, Conrad’s mother suffered under the harshness of exile. The strain of imprisonment hastened her death in 1865 at thirty-four, less than three years after their exile. Authorities allowed Apollo to move to southern Russia after his wife’s death. Suffering from tuberculosis later in life, and not considered a threat anymore, Apollo returned home. He spent his last months in Cracow, where he died in 1869.
By the time Conrad was a teenager, he had suffered from his family’s political involvement. At four, he saw his father arrested; at seven, he saw his mother die; and, at eleven, he saw his father die. He was left in the care of his uncle, Thaddeus Bobrowski. These traumatic experiences stayed with Conrad for his entire life.
They fueled his wish to flee Poland. Consequently, they also instilled in him feelings of desertion, betrayal, and guilt for leaving his homeland. These themes were explored deeply in his work Lord Jim.
From his parents’ tribulations, Conrad concluded that no future lay in store for him in Poland. He needed to escape to fashion a life based on his inner promptings. His desire to see other countries led him to say as he looked at a map of Africa, “When I grow up I shall go there.” That place was the Belgian Congo, which became the germ for Heart of Darkness.
By traveling, Conrad could secure economic independence, live out adventures, and escape political unrest. Since his uncle had connections in the shipping industry and French was his second language, the French merchant marine attracted him, even though he had never seen the sea. The excitement he had read about in the works of Victor Hugo and James Fenimore Cooper could now become part of his life. His Polish relatives viewed his choice of becoming a sailor as an insult to his cultural background.
Two months before his seventeenth birthday, in 1874, Conrad left for Marseilles and a sea career. The four years he spent on French ships gave him the richness of experience he longed for. He sailed to the West Indies, and Central and South America. On his second voyage, he met Spanish rebels and smuggled guns on their behalf. With his ship wrecked on the Spanish coast, Conrad escaped to France. He fictionalized these experiences in his novels Nostromo (1904) and The Arrow of Gold (1919).
At this time he met Dona Rita, a Spanish rebel. He supposedly fought a pistol duel with an American, Captain Blunt, over her. Both were wounded. Rita and Blunt disappeared by the time Thaddeus arrived. Conrad told his uncle he had lost money gambling and had tried to commit suicide, he said nothing about the duel. Here, his adventures in France ended.
After turning twenty, Conrad switched allegiances to Britain by becoming an English seaman. He did so for two reasons: he wanted to flee the obligation to the Russian military forces, and he thought that if he learned English, he could be promoted sooner.
Modern British literature profited from Conrad’s defection from the French seas. There is a good possibility he would not have undertaken his writing career in English if he had not joined the British navy. In 1886, the same year he was naturalized as a British citizen, Conrad passed his examinations for master mariner. By then it was clear his life had settled and he had made a wise choice.
Conrad served on British ships for nearly sixteen years. As second mate, he sailed on a ship journeying between Singapore and Borneo. He sailed to the Orient on the Palestine, a ship that burned and sank off the coast of Java. He used this adventure in Youth (1902). In 1888, ten years after his switch from the French to British seas, he commanded his only ship, the Otago. His novella, The Secret Sharer, reflects this experience. His one interlude from the British service was when he piloted a river boat to the Belgian Congo, the basis for Heart of Darkness. This journey also affected his health, a consequence which may have influenced his switch from seaman to writer.
He began writing his first novel, Almayer’s Folly, in 1889, though he did not in any way consider himself a writer. He eventually submitted the manuscript in 1894; it was accepted after Edward Garnett read it. Through Garnett’s encouragement, Conrad began writing another novel. He still pursued a sea career, however, attempting to secure a command until 1898. For the next thirteen years, he wrote nearly one volume per year.
Married and with two sons, Conrad found it difficult to live off his literary earnings, even though he lived modestly in country homes. He received a Civil List pension from the British government.
After twenty years and sixteen volumes, Conrad finally achieved popular success with his novel Chance (1913). His limited audience grew to a wider acceptance.
During his literary career, Conrad met and made friends with Stephen Crane H. G. Wells Ford Madox Ford, and Henry James—influential writers of their time. Even with their friendships, he lived outside the mainstream of literary life. He was unaware of Freud’s work and other scientific advances. He knew nothing of James Joyce Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence—writers with whom his work is often compared. Yet, his relative isolation did not prevent him from formulating his philosophy about art, fiction, and their relation to life. Many of the prefaces of his novels serve as his foundation for his artistic beliefs.
Often linked to Herman Melville and Jack London other writers of adventure stories, Conrad infused his work with psychological and moral implications. His characters face deep problems, ones with difficult or no answers. Their response to these questions often determines the course of their lives. Symbol and myth fill his fiction, and much of his story lies beneath the surface narrative. The adventure is merely one level of the story, the more intriguing one is buried under the plot. Reading a work by Conrad requires patience, diligence, and concentration.
From his first book, he used “Joseph Conrad” as his writing name, his difficult given name had been misspelled too many times on official sailing papers. A master craftsman and stylist, Conrad labored at the writing process. No writing came easy to him. His major works include Almayer’s Folly (1895), The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897), Lord Jim (1900), Youth, containing Heart of Darkness, (1902), Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), The Secret Sharer (1910), Under Western Eyes (1911), and Victory (1915).
Never a healthy man, Conrad suffered from indigestion, hypochondria, and melancholia. Conrad died at his desk in 1924, at the age of sixty-six. A man who did not speak English before he was twenty-two, and did not write English until he taught himself at thirty-two, Joseph Conrad fashioned his life at sea into his life in fiction. By transforming experience into art, he established his permanence as a twentieth-century British novelist.
Joseph Conrad Apollo devoted his life to literary interests and political involvement. He wrote plays and poems of little value, but adeptly translated Victor Hugo and Shakespeare into Polish. In 1862, Conrad’s father started a literary journal, Fortnightly Review. Politically, Apollo’s main concern centered around fortifying resistance against Russian oppression. He helped organize the National Central Committee. He joined a radical wing and was arrested before he took any action. Exiled to the Vologda region of northern Russia in 1862, Apollo longed to have his family accompany him.
Already physically fragile, Conrad’s mother suffered under the harshness of exile. The strain of imprisonment hastened her death in 1865 at thirty-four, less than three years after their exile. Authorities allowed Apollo to move to southern Russia after his wife’s death. Suffering from tuberculosis later in life, and not considered a threat anymore, Apollo returned home. He spent his last months in Cracow, where he died in 1869.
By the time Conrad was a teenager, he had suffered from his family’s political involvement. At four, he saw his father arrested; at seven, he saw his mother die; and, at eleven, he saw his father die. He was left in the care of his uncle, Thaddeus Bobrowski. These traumatic experiences stayed with Conrad for his entire life.
They fueled his wish to flee Poland. Consequently, they also instilled in him feelings of desertion, betrayal, and guilt for leaving his homeland. These themes were explored deeply in his work Lord Jim.
From his parents’ tribulations, Conrad concluded that no future lay in store for him in Poland. He needed to escape to fashion a life based on his inner promptings. His desire to see other countries led him to say as he looked at a map of Africa, “When I grow up I shall go there.” That place was the Belgian Congo, which became the germ for Heart of Darkness.
By traveling, Conrad could secure economic independence, live out adventures, and escape political unrest. Since his uncle had connections in the shipping industry and French was his second language, the French merchant marine attracted him, even though he had never seen the sea. The excitement he had read about in the works of Victor Hugo and James Fenimore Cooper could now become part of his life. His Polish relatives viewed his choice of becoming a sailor as an insult to his cultural background.
Two months before his seventeenth birthday, in 1874, Conrad left for Marseilles and a sea career. The four years he spent on French ships gave him the richness of experience he longed for. He sailed to the West Indies, and Central and South America. On his second voyage, he met Spanish rebels and smuggled guns on their behalf. With his ship wrecked on the Spanish coast, Conrad escaped to France. He fictionalized these experiences in his novels Nostromo (1904) and The Arrow of Gold (1919).
At this time he met Dona Rita, a Spanish rebel. He supposedly fought a pistol duel with an American, Captain Blunt, over her. Both were wounded. Rita and Blunt disappeared by the time Thaddeus arrived. Conrad told his uncle he had lost money gambling and had tried to commit suicide, he said nothing about the duel. Here, his adventures in France ended.
After turning twenty, Conrad switched allegiances to Britain by becoming an English seaman. He did so for two reasons: he wanted to flee the obligation to the Russian military forces, and he thought that if he learned English, he could be promoted sooner.
Modern British literature profited from Conrad’s defection from the French seas. There is a good possibility he would not have undertaken his writing career in English if he had not joined the British navy. In 1886, the same year he was naturalized as a British citizen, Conrad passed his examinations for master mariner. By then it was clear his life had settled and he had made a wise choice.
Conrad served on British ships for nearly sixteen years. As second mate, he sailed on a ship journeying between Singapore and Borneo. He sailed to the Orient on the Palestine, a ship that burned and sank off the coast of Java. He used this adventure in Youth (1902). In 1888, ten years after his switch from the French to British seas, he commanded his only ship, the Otago. His novella, The Secret Sharer, reflects this experience. His one interlude from the British service was when he piloted a river boat to the Belgian Congo, the basis for Heart of Darkness. This journey also affected his health, a consequence which may have influenced his switch from seaman to writer.
He began writing his first novel, Almayer’s Folly, in 1889, though he did not in any way consider himself a writer. He eventually submitted the manuscript in 1894; it was accepted after Edward Garnett read it. Through Garnett’s encouragement, Conrad began writing another novel. He still pursued a sea career, however, attempting to secure a command until 1898. For the next thirteen years, he wrote nearly one volume per year.
Married and with two sons, Conrad found it difficult to live off his literary earnings, even though he lived modestly in country homes. He received a Civil List pension from the British government.
After twenty years and sixteen volumes, Conrad finally achieved popular success with his novel Chance (1913). His limited audience grew to a wider acceptance.
During his literary career, Conrad met and made friends with Stephen Crane H. G. Wells Ford Madox Ford, and Henry James—influential writers of their time. Even with their friendships, he lived outside the mainstream of literary life. He was unaware of Freud’s work and other scientific advances. He knew nothing of James Joyce Virginia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence—writers with whom his work is often compared. Yet, his relative isolation did not prevent him from formulating his philosophy about art, fiction, and their relation to life. Many of the prefaces of his novels serve as his foundation for his artistic beliefs.
Often linked to Herman Melville and Jack London other writers of adventure stories, Conrad infused his work with psychological and moral implications. His characters face deep problems, ones with difficult or no answers. Their response to these questions often determines the course of their lives. Symbol and myth fill his fiction, and much of his story lies beneath the surface narrative. The adventure is merely one level of the story, the more intriguing one is buried under the plot. Reading a work by Conrad requires patience, diligence, and concentration.
From his first book, he used “Joseph Conrad” as his writing name, his difficult given name had been misspelled too many times on official sailing papers. A master craftsman and stylist, Conrad labored at the writing process. No writing came easy to him. His major works include Almayer’s Folly (1895), The Nigger of the Narcissus (1897), Lord Jim (1900), Youth, containing Heart of Darkness, (1902), Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), The Secret Sharer (1910), Under Western Eyes (1911), and Victory (1915).
Never a healthy man, Conrad suffered from indigestion, hypochondria, and melancholia. Conrad died at his desk in 1924, at the age of sixty-six. A man who did not speak English before he was twenty-two, and did not write English until he taught himself at thirty-two, Joseph Conrad fashioned his life at sea into his life in fiction. By transforming experience into art, he established his permanence as a twentieth-century British novelist.