Heart of Darkness 13535 225191491 2008-07-12T11:06:48Z 124.168.163.246 /* Adaptations */ {{otheruses}} {{Infobox Book | <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Novels or Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books --> | name = Heart of Darkness | title_orig = | translator = | image = | image_caption = | author = [[Joseph Conrad]] | illustrator = | cover_artist = | country = [[United Kingdom]] | language = [[English language|English]] | series = | genre = [[Frame story]], [[Novella]] | publisher = ''[[Blackwood's Magazine]]'' | release_date = [[1899 in literature|1899]] | media_type = Print ([[Serial (literature)|Serial]]) | pages = | isbn = <!-- Released before ISBN system implemented --> | oclc = 16100396 | preceded_by = | followed_by = }} '''''Heart of Darkness''''' is a [[novella]] written by [[Poland|Polish-born]] writer [[Joseph Conrad]] (born ''Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski''). Before its 1902 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in ''[[Blackwood's Magazine]]''. It is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the [[Western canon]]. This highly [[symbolism|symbol]]ic [[Novella|story]] is actually a story within a story, or [[frame narrative]]. It follows Marlow as he recounts, from dusk through to late night, his adventure into the Congo to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the [[Thames Estuary]]. The story details an incident when Marlow, an Englishman, took a foreign assignment as a ferry-boat captain, employed by a Belgian trading company, on what readers may assume is the [[Congo River]], in the [[Congo Free State]], a private colony of [[King Leopold II]]; the country is never specifically named. Marlow is employed to transport ivory downriver; however, his more pressing assignment is to return [[Kurtz (Heart of Darkness)|Kurtz]] to civilization in a cover up. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region. ==Background== In writing the [[novella]], Conrad drew inspiration from his own experience in the Congo: eight and a half years before writing the book, he had served as the captain of a Congo [[Steamboat|steamer]]. However, he became ill and returned to Europe. Some of Conrad's experiences in the Congo, and the story's historic background, including possible models for Kurtz, are recounted in [[Adam Hochschild]]'s ''[[King Leopold's Ghost]]''. It is also alleged that Conrad drew from the adventures of Sir [[Roger Casement]]. The [[story within a story|story-within-a-story]] [[literary device|device]] that Conrad chose for ''Heart of Darkness'' &mdash; one in which an unnamed narrator recounts Marlow's recounting of his journey &mdash; has many literary precedents. [[Emily Brontë]]'s ''[[Wuthering Heights]]'' and [[Mary Shelley]]'s ''[[Frankenstein]]'' used a similar device, but the best examples of the framed narrative include [[Geoffrey Chaucer]]'s ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]'', ''[[The Arabian Nights]]'' and [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]]'s ''[[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner]]''. ==Motifs and themes== :''He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision&mdash;he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath&mdash;"The horror! The horror!"'' [[T. S. Eliot]]'s use of a quotation from ''The Heart of Darkness''&mdash;"Mistah Kurtz, he dead"&mdash;as an [[Epigraph (literature)|epigraph]] to the original manuscript of his poem, ''[[The Hollow Men]]'', contrasted its dark horror with the presumed "light of civilization," and suggested the ambiguity of both the dark motives of civilization and the freedom of barbarism, as well as the "[[spirituality|spiritual]] darkness" of several characters in ''Heart of Darkness.'' This sense of darkness also lends itself to a related theme of [[obscure|obscurity]]&mdash;again, in various senses, reflecting the ambiguities in the work. [[morality|Moral]] issues are not clear-cut; that which ought to be (in various senses) on the side of "light" is in fact mired in darkness, and vice versa. Africa was known as "[[The Dark Continent]]" in the [[Victorian Era]] with all the negative attributes of darkness attributed to Africans by the English. One of the possible influences for the Kurtz character was [[Henry Morton Stanley]] of "Dr. Livingstone, I presume" fame, as he was a principal explorer of "The Dark Heart of Africa", particularly the Congo. Stanley was infamous in Africa for horrific violence and yet he was honoured by a knighthood. However, an agent Conrad himself encountered when travelling in the Congo, named Georges-Antoine Klein (Klein means 'small' in German, as Kurtz is 'short') could have possibly served as an actual model for the Kurtz that appears in ''Heart of Darkness''. Klein died aboard Conrad's steamer and was interred along the Congo, much like Kurtz in the novel.<ref> Sherry, Norman. "Conrad's Western World". Cambridge University Press. 1971.</ref> Among the people Conrad may have encountered on his journey was a trader called [[Leon Rom]], who was later named chief of the Stanley Falls Station. In 1895 a British traveller reported that Rom had decorated his flower-bed with the skulls of some twenty-one victims of his displeasure, including women and children, resembling the posts of Kurtz´s Station.<ref> Moore, Gene M. "Heart of Darkness&Other Stories". Wordsworth Classics. 1999.</ref> ===Motifs=== In the novel, Conrad uses the river as the vehicle for Marlow to journey further into the "heart of darkness." The descriptions of the river, particularly its depiction as a snake, reveal its symbolic qualities. The river "resembl[es] an immense snake uncoiled" and "it fascinates [Marlow] as a snake would a bird." Not only is Marlow captivated by the river, representing as it does the jungle itself, but its association with a snake gives this "fascination of the abomination" its metaphorical characteristics. The statement that "the snake had charmed me" alludes to both the idea of snake charmer and the snake in the story of [[Genesis]]. While typically, a snake charmer would charm the snake, in this case, Marlow is charmed by the snake, a reversal which puts the power in the hands of the river, and thus the jungle wilderness. Furthermore, the allusion to the snake of temptation from the story of [[Adam and Eve]] demonstrates how the wilderness itself contains the knowledge of good and evil, and upon entering that wilderness Marlow will be able to see, or at least explore, the characteristics of humanity as well as good and evil. Throughout the novel Conrad dramatizes a tension in Marlow between the restraint of civilization and the savagery of barbarism. The darkness and amorality which Kurtz exemplifies is argued to be the reality of the human condition, upon which illusory moral structures are draped by civilization. Marlow's confrontation with Kurtz presents him with a 'choice of nightmares' - to commit himself to the savagery of the human condition, or to the lie and veneer of civilized restraint. Though Marlow 'cannot abide a lie' and subsequently cannot perceive civilization as anything but a veneer hiding the savage reality of the human condition, he is also horrified by the darkness of Kurtz he sees in his own heart. After emerging from this experience, his Buddha-like pose aboard the ''Nellie'' symbolizes a suspension between this choice of nightmares. ===Themes=== The major purpose and theme of Conrad's novella is the exploration of the degradation of human morality through Marlow's symbolic journey towards the "heart of darkness." As Marlow "penetrate[s] deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness," and further and further into the African wilderness, he probes further into the human subconscious and psyche, represented by the jungle. Marlow's experiences in the jungle, and the episodes of barbarism, depict what happens when man crosses the line of civility and gives in to his baser instincts, such as violence. This theme of [[atavism]], or the reversion to more primal or ancestral behaviors and instincts, is featured prominently in the novella. The reversal of the black and white imagery is also a major theme in the novel. Conrad challenges typical literary associations when he associates "black" with "good" and "white" with "bad" or "evil." The associations of black with good, or at least not with with more moral ambiguity than is typically seen, appear throughout the novel, especially in reference to the African natives and their actions. However, the most prominent example of the white/bad association occurs at the beginning of the novella. When Marlow sets out for Europe to receive his work assignment, he remarks that "I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre." A [[sepulchre]], or a type of tomb or container for human remains, obviously has bad or morbid connotations. This city, which contains the "Company's offices," can be surmised as a city in Belgium, with which Marlow has notably bad and death-like associations. The synthesis of "whited" and "sepulchre" demonstrates the reversal of black and white connotations that Conrad employes, and uses here to reveal his dislike of the Belgian companies that operated in the Congo where Marlow is sent. Furthermore, Marlow's symbolic journey can be interpreted with the Sigmund [[Freud]]'s "[[psychic apparatus]]" that involves the [[id, ego, and super-ego]]. Most importantly, the [[id]], or the part of the psyche that deals with one's subconscious instincts and basic drives, appears as part of the major theme, where Conrad explores what happens when the id is unleashed. To emphasize the theme of darkness within all of mankind, Marlow's narration takes place on a [[yawl]] in the [[Thames]] [[tidal estuary]]. Early in the novella, Marlow recounts how [[London]], the largest, most populous and wealthiest city in the world at the time, was itself a "dark" place in [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] times. The idea that the Romans, at one time, conquered the "savage" [[Britons (historic)|Britons]] parallels Conrad's current tale of the Belgians conquering the "savage" Africans. The theme of darkness lurking beneath the surface of even "civilized" persons appears prominently, and is further explored through the character of Kurtz and through Marlow's passing sense of understanding with the Africans. [[Image:Roi des belges.jpg|200px|right|thumb|The ''Roi des Belges'', the ship Conrad used to travel up the Congo]] [[Theme (literature)|Themes]] developed in the novella's later scenes include the naïveté of Europeans&mdash;particularly women&mdash;regarding the various forms of darkness in the Congo; the British traders and Belgian [[colonialist]]s' abuse of the [[Indigenous people|natives]]; and man's potential for [[duplicity]]. The symbolic levels of the book expand on all of these in terms of a struggle between [[Goodness and value theory|good]] and [[evil]] (light and darkness), not so much between [[person|people]] as within every [[major character]]'s [[soul]]. == Historical context == The novel is largely autobiographical, based upon Joseph Conrad's six-month journey up the [[Congo River]] where he took command of a steamboat in [[1890]] after the death of its captain. At the time, the river was called the Congo, and the country was the [[Congo Free State]]. The area Conrad refers to as the Company Station was an actual location called [[Matadi]], a location two-hundred miles up river from the mouth of the Congo. The Central Station was a location called [[Kinshasa]], and both these locations marked a stretch of river impassable by steamboat, upon which Marlow takes a "two-hundred mile tramp." <ref name="HistoricalContext">"Historical Context: ''Heart of Darkness''." EXPLORING Novels, Online Edition. Gale, 2003. [http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/DC Discovering Collection]. <font color=red>''Subscription required''</font></ref> The Company was in reality the Anglo-Belgium India-Rubber Company formed by King [[Leopold II]] of Belgium charged with running the country of the [[Congo Free State]] in [[1885]]. The Congo Free State was voted into existence by the [[Berlin Conference (1884)]], which Conrad refers to sarcastically in his novella as "the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs."<ref name="HistoricalContext" /> Leopold II declared the Congo Free State his personal property in [[1892]], legally permitting the Belgians to take what rubber they wished from the area without having to trade with the African natives. <ref name="HistoricalContext" /> This caused a rise in atrocities perpetrated by the Belgian traders. The Congo Free State was taken out of the personal property of the king and made a regular colony of Belgium, called Belgian Congo, in 1908, after the extent of atrocities committed there became generally known in the West, partially through Conrad's novel. ==Controversy== In a [[Postcolonialism|post-colonial]] reading, the [[Nigeria]]n writer [[Chinua Achebe]] famously criticized the ''Heart of Darkness'' in his 1975 lecture ''[[An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"]]'', saying the novel [[Dehumanization|de-humanized]] Africans, denied them language and culture, and reduced them to a metaphorical extension of the dark and dangerous jungle into which the Europeans venture. Achebe's lecture prompted a lively debate, reactions at the time ranged from dismay and outrage - Achebe recounted a Professor Emeritus from the University of Massachusetts saying to Achebe after the lecture, "How dare you upset everything we have taught, everything we teach? ''Heart of Darkness'' is the most widely taught text in the university in this country. So how dare you say it’s different?"<ref>"[http://www.failuremag.com/arch_history_chinua_achebe.html Chinua Achebe: The ''Failure'' interview]"</ref> - to [[Cedric Watts]]' ''A Bloody Racist: About Achebe's View of Conrad'' (1983),<ref>Watts, Cedric. "A Bloody Racist: About Achebe's View of Conrad." ''The Yearbook of English Studies'', vol. 13 (January 1983), 196-209.</ref> which sets out to refute Achebe's critique. Other critiques include [[Hugh Curtler]]'s ''Achebe on Conrad: Racism and Greatness in Heart of Darkness'' (1997).<ref>Curtler, Hugh. "Achebe on Conrad: Racism and Greatness in Heart of Darkness." ''Conradiana'', vol. 29 issue 1 (March 1997), 30-40.</ref> In ''[[King Leopold's Ghost]]'' (1998), [[Adam Hochschild]] argues that literary scholars have made too much of the psychological aspects of ''Heart of Darkness'' while scanting the moral horror of Conrad's accurate recounting of the methods and effects of colonialism. He quotes Conrad as saying, "''Heart of Darkness'' is experience...pushed a little (and only very little) beyond the actual facts of the case." <ref> King Leopold's Ghost. Hochschild, Adam. Mariner Books. New York, 1999. Page 143. </ref> ''Heart of Darkness'' is also criticized for its characterization of women. In the novel, Marlow says that "It's queer how out of touch with truth women are." Marlow also suggests that women have to be sheltered from the truth in order to keep their own fantasy world from "shattering before the first sunset." ==Adaptations== The most famous adaptation of Conrad’s ''Heart of Darkness'' is [[Francis Ford Coppola]]’s [[1979]] movie ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'', which translates the context of the narrative from the Congo into [[Vietnam]]. A later street theatre pantomime based on the novel, arranged and composed by the infamous Captain Luke Strotz, was decried by the heads of several local churches in the city of Murmansk, when he paraded up and down the main square wearing nothing but his captains tricorn hat and his pair of dirty long johns. ==In the arts== {{trivia|date=May 2008}} * 1925 - [[T. S. Eliot]] quoted the line, "Mistah Kurtz, he dead," along with the folk saying, "A penny for the old Guy," at the beginning of his poem, "[[The Hollow Men]]." * 1938 - [[Orson Welles]] and the [[Mercury Theater]] on the Air adapted ''Heart of Darkness'' for radio. * 1940s - ''[[Lux Radio Theater]]'', with [[Brian Aherne]] as Marlow. * 1943 - [[Orson Welles]] did a half-hour adaptation for the radio show ''This is My Best''. * 1958 - ''[[Playhouse 90]]'' episode# 3.7, aired November 6 - American television version of ''Heart of Darkness'' starring [[Roddy McDowall]], [[Eartha Kitt]], [[Richard Haydn]], [[Inga Swenson]], and [[Boris Karloff]] as Kurtz. * 1959 - [[Things Fall Apart]] - A novel by Chinua Achebe that is often seen as a response to Heart of Darkness. The novel attempts to give readers a sense of African culture from Achebe's point of view, rather than the one that Conrad gives in Heart of Darkness. * 1970 - [[Robert Silverberg]]'s novel ''[[Downward to the Earth]]'' is in part a re-telling of ''Heart of Darkness'', and uses the name of Kurtz. * 1979 - [[John Milius]] based his script for ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'' on the novel and moved the plot to Vietnam. The film was directed by [[Francis Ford Coppola]]. * 1989 - J.F. Lawton based his film ''Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death'' (also known as ''Piranha Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death'') on Conrad's book. Kurtz, now a feminist played by Adrienne Barbeau, has taken to the jungle's amazonian inhabitants, rather than continuing to write books that nobody reads and promoting them on TV talk shows. Mimicking the original, her dying words are "The horror! The horror... of Letterman!" * 1992 - [[Sven Lindqvist]]'s 'Exterminate All the Brutes', an odyssey into the Heart of Darkness, European colonialism and the following genocide. * 1993 - [[Nicolas Roeg]] filmed ''[[Heart of Darkness (film)|Heart of Darkness]]'' for television with [[Tim Roth]] as Marlow and [[John Malkovich]] as Kurtz. * 1993 - In the novel ''[[Headhunter (book)|Headhunter]]'' by [[Canadian]] author [[Timothy Findley]], a schizophrenic spiritualist accidentally sets Kurtz free from page 92 of ''Heart of Darkness'', and is forced to find a Marlow to defeat him. The novel recasts Kurtz and Marlow as [[psychiatrist]]s in an [[apocalypse|apocalyptic]] version of [[Toronto, Ontario|Toronto]]. * 1995 - German metal band [[Grave Digger (band)| Grave Digger]] in 1995 released an album ''Heart of Darkness'' containing track also titled "Heart of Darkness," lyrics of which are based on the novel and the film "[[Apocalypse Now]]". * 1996 - [[Alex Garland]]'s book ''The Beach'' heavily references the ''Heart Of Darkness''.{{clarifyme|date=June 2008}} * 1998 - ''[[Star Trek: Insurrection]]'' took plot inspiration from ''Heart of Darkness''. * 1998 - the video game ''[[Heart of Darkness (game)|Heart of Darkness]]'' borrowed the title from the novel and was loosely based on the story. * 2000 - "His last step. My hesitating. Excerpt from Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness" ('Sein letzter Schritt. Mein Zögern'), Art of Thomas Offhaus inspired by ''Heart of Darkness''.{{clarifyme|date=June 2008}} * 2005 - [[Peter Jackson]]'s ''[[King Kong (2005 film)|King Kong]]'' has many references to ''Heart of Darkness'', such as a scene where Jimmy holds a copy of the book and says "It’s not an adventure story, is it?" As ''King Kong'' itself is a story of the cruelties of men, the film suggests that Conrad meant to explore human cruelty towards others as much as he meant to explore the Belgian Congo—and thus also the film is more than an adventure story but also explores the human will to exploit others. [http://www.bookslut.com/features/2006_01_007452.php] * 2005 - ''[[The First Casualty]]'', a novel by [[Ben Elton]], follows the same storyline where a British police detective investigates a crime in the midst of the [[First World War]], and gradually becomes painfully acquainted with the horrors of war. He is given the false name of Christopher Marlowe (cf Charlie Marlow), and he makes references to the [[Belgium|Belgian]] colonisation of the [[Democratic Republic of the Congo|Congo]]. * The 2005 video game, ''[[Star Wars: Battlefront II]]'', features a level entitled ''Heart of Darkness''. The [[501st Legion]] ([[Clone Troopers]]) is called in to find a lost legion on [[Felucia]], and battle the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS) with the help of [[Aayla Secura]], their hero. An introduction to the level includes narration from the novella. * 2007 - ''Heart of Darkness'' is a chamber opera version of the novella by the British composer [[Tarik O'Regan]] in collaboration with the artist [[Tom Phillips (artist)|Tom Phillips]] [[Royal_Academy#Membership|RA]],<ref>[http://www.operaprojects.org/heart_of_darkness.htm American Opera Projects: ''Heart of Darkness''],</ref> which is jointly in development in London with [[Royal Opera House]] [http://www.operagenesis.com/ ''OperaGenesis''] and in New York with [http://www.operaprojects.org American Opera Projects]. * 2007 - Publication of book by [[Tim Butcher]]: ''Blood River - A Journey To Africa's Broken Heart'', ISBN 0-701-17981-3, the account of the author's 2004 journey along the same stretch of Congo river used by Conrad as the setting for ''Heart of Darkness''. The journey had been too dangerous to complete for decades. Subsequently, Tim Butcher wrote the introduction to a new edition of ''Heart of Darkness'' published in September 2007 by Vintage Classics ISBN 0-099-51154-1 *2008 - ''Trencherman'' - a novel by South African author Eben Venter that uses Heart of Darkness as a strong intertext{{clarifyme|date=June 2008}} in a story about an imagined [[South Africa]] where interacial fear reigns the day. *2008 - The video game [[Ninja Gaiden II (2008 video game)|Ninja Gaiden II]]'s ninth level is called "Heart of Darkness" and is set in a dense South American river setting. ==References== <references/> ==External links== {{Wikisource}} {{wikiquotepar|Joseph Conrad}} * [http://www.archive.org/details/blackwoodsmagazi165edinuoft ''Blackwood's Endinburgh Magazine, Vol 165'', William Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh, 1899,] a digitized copy from the [[Internet Archive]] containing the original publication of ''Heart of Darkness'' in three parts: Part I, pp 193-220; Part II, pp 479-502; Part III, pp 634-657. * [http://www.archive.org/details/youthnarrativetw00conrrich Conrad, J. ''Youth, A Narrative, and Two Other Stories'', William Blackwood & Sons: Edinburgh, 1902,] a digitized copy from the [[Internet Archive]] containing the first publication of ''Heart of Darkness'' in book form. * {{gutenberg|no=526|name=Heart of Darkness}} * {{ria|85|Heart of Darkness}} * [http://www-english.tamu.edu/pers/fac/muana/introafricanalitarchive.htm Literary Critiques (from both sides) of Conrad's ''Heart of Darkness'']. * [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20070215.shtml Discussion of ''Heart of Darkness'' on BBC Radio 4 ''In Our Time'' series, 15 February 2007]. * Audio book recording with accompanying text of [http://heartofdarkness.loudlit.org/audio/heartofdarkness/pages/01_01_heartofdarkness.htm ''Heart of Darkness''] from [http://www.loudlit.org LoudLit.org]. * [http://librivox.org/heart-of-darkness-by-joseph-conrad ''Heart of Darkness''], a free audiobook version from [[LibriVox]]. * [http://www.amlit.com/HeartDark/chap0.html ''Heart of Darkness''] at [http://www.amlit.com/ American Literature]. * [http://publicliterature.org/books/heart_of_darkness/xaa.php ''Heart of Darkness''], at [http://publicliterature.org PublicLiterature.org] * [http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=ConDark.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=all ''Heart of Darkness''] from [http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ University of Virginia Library] {{Conrad}} [[Category:1902 novels]] [[Category:Novels by Joseph Conrad]] [[Category:Novellas]] [[Category:Portrayal of Africa in fiction]] [[Category:Serialized novels]] [[Category:Existentialist works]] [[Category:Roman à clef novels]] [[ar:قلب الظلام]] [[cs:Srdce temnoty]] [[da:Mørkets hjerte]] [[de:Herz der Finsternis]] [[es:El corazón de las tinieblas]] [[eu:Ilunbeen bihotzean]] [[fr:Au cœur des ténèbres]] [[it:Cuore di tenebra]] [[he:לב המאפליה]] [[hu:A sötétség mélyén]] [[nl:Heart of Darkness]] [[ja:闇の奥]] [[no:Mørkets hjerte]] [[pl:Jądro ciemności]] [[ru:Сердце тьмы (роман)]] [[sr:Срце таме]] [[fi:Pimeyden sydän]] [[sv:Mörkrets hjärta]]