Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Review Essay

Introduction

Heart of Darkness by Conard Joseph (Conrad, 1902) and The Crime of the Congo? by Arthur Conan Doyle are two stories of British and Belgian people in Africa in the early 1920s. The novel Heart of Darkness (1900) is one of the most unique and outstanding works based on philosophical and psychological interpretations, historical and sociological issues. Until the actual military conquest of most of Africa by Europeans, the continent’s populations, except in regions significantly influenced by intruders from Asia, were largely left free to shape their own individual paths of development. Thesis Using unique symbols and literary devices, Conrad creates the main idea of oppression and perception of the African continent by Europeans through the lens of old prejudices and bias against Africans.

Discussion section

Metaphors and other stylistic devices

Using metaphors of white and black men, Conrad portrays that culture and economic relations between tribes and African states were unknown for Europeans who perceive this land as underdeveloped and dangerous for a white man. With the appearance of a settled agricultural civilization, The symbolic meaning of the title can be explained as follow: “It was very quiet there. … Whether it meant war, peace, or prayer we could not tell. … We were wanderers on a prehistoric earth, on an earth that wore the aspect of an unknown planet” (Conrad). The novel concentrates on one of the most unique African countries, Congo. Congo locates in the center of the continent and can be compared within the heart of Africa. “The vision seemed to enter the house with me – the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshippers, the gloom of the forests… the beat of the drum, regular and muffled like the beating of a heart – the heart of a conquering darkness” (Conrad). Conrad underlines that most of Africa, therefore, underwent slow and measured evolution in isolation from the events occurring in the major centers of world civilization. Conrad is no nearer a central reality at the geographical heart of the darkness than he was when, proceeding down the coast, he was aware of a “general sense of vague and oppressive wonder” (Conrad).

Symbols of darkness

Using the symbol of “dark continent” Conrad states that Africans were never entirely cut off from many of the important steps in man’s progress taking place in areas outside the continent. Conrad underlines that there was a great difference between European countries and African states. The title has a symbolic meaning reflecting European prejudices against the African continent, inability to understand and accept a black population. On the other hand, darkness is associated with the wildness of the land and the underdevelopment of the states. The title has both positive and negative meaning within the center of a man, of a wilderness and human experience itself. African populations are associated with “aloneness” or remoteness from the world there is revealed a general condition of human experience.

Euphemisms

In the work, Conrad intentionally uses euphemisms like Nigger to create emotional tension and impress readers with vivid images of oppression. In the heart of darkness, the word Nigger and Negro is used in profusion and to imply that the Africans were worthless citizens who had to be treated like animals. It must be understood that the novel was actually written in 1902 when the word was commonly used to depict Black people. The Africans served as mere objects and prop devices for Marlow and Kurt, to be used and discarded as they wanted. In the passage to India, native Indians are called ‘muddles’ who are fit for only scorn. While it is true that racism and discrimination exist in both the novels, it is however much subtler in the passage to India and British ladies at least talk about native Indians, even though it is in scorn. Beatings and torture are not related in any of the passages. But on the other hand, racism is practiced and displayed at its worst in the heart of darkness where Africans are routinely killed. Conrad describes native populations: “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” (Conrad). It has been suggested that the title, Heart of Darkness has a lot of symbolic elements. Africa was known as the Dark Continent and the title suggests the onward journey into the darkness of the continent where there is very little difference between good and evil, between light and dark, and between correct and incorrect. It has also been argued that the title represents the darkness of the heart of the British people who were actually savages at heart under the fine clothes and their instincts of dark behavior, repressed desire to kill and savagery comes out when no one is there is observe and censure.

Conrad and Doyle’s perception of Africans

Similar to Conrad, Arthur Conan Doyle portrays that Europeans, namely Belgians, oppressed native populations and perceived them as underdeveloped nations. The poor natives are exploited, tortured, raped, killed, enslaved, and starved to death. An analysis reveals the extremes in the environment that the two stories are set in and the morality and the extent of depraved mentality that the British could display. Arthur Conan Doyle depicts Congo as an ordered place with a judicial system, a social system in place where social classes were clearly differentiated. While the British could level any type of charges against the local Indians who were regarded as second-class citizens, still the British Judicial system prevailed. The accused were allowed to prove their innocence in court and the judgment was fair. On the other hand, in the heart of darkness, the Congo River and the British or rather the Belgian company that believed the only way to survive in Africa was to treat the Africans like animals. There was obviously no law and order system and the British were never brought to trial for the brutal killings, beheadings, and torture that they inflicted on the natives. The following paragraph reveals the extent of cruelty displayed by Kurt “black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids — a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and, with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling, too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of that eternal slumber” (Conrad). The horror and the violent life that Kurt has lad has undermined his health and he soon falls seriously ill and dies on the way back and his last words are ‘The Horror, the horror’. Marlow goes back to England and meets Kurt’s wife and tells her a lie that the last words Kurt spoke were her name. One of the characters, Kurt has taken over a village and has forced the villagers, many of them cannibals to go headhunting and he has placed severed heads on the fence of his house as ornaments and also to warn off other offenders.

Arthur Conan Doyle vividly depicts that the administrator embodied military, administrative, and judicial authority, all three. He saw to law and order, the execution of the law, and the completion of public works. He supervised tax collection, administered the census, and watched over and advised local chiefs. He also served as the lowest level of the judicial system, since, in contrast to British practice, there were no native courts. “Though we persuade ourselves that the African’s skin is very tough, it needs an extraordinary constitution to withstand the terrible punishment of one hundred blows; generally, the victim is in a state of insensibility after twenty-five or thirty blows” (Doyle 21). It was the administrator’s duty to see to it, as the law quaintly stated, that “the natives gave up their habits of indolence” and became peasants and agricultural laborers. Conrad uses avid images of oppression and suffering to create a unique world unknown to European people. The difference is governed not merely by language, but by an entire attitude. At once serious in nature and ludicrous in expression, is representative of the general dramatic situation in which the evil characters of the novel find themselves. This curious juxtaposition of elements has been aptly characterized by the phrase, evil. Like other colonizing powers, the whites also acted on the maxim of divide and rule, destroying the larger African polities in order to integrate the smaller divisions into the colonial state. That radically altered the political landscape and also ushered in fundamental social and economic transformations. The latter did not always signify progress for the Africans but because they lay outside the ken of colonial officials went unconsidered by them. “When you have to attend to things of that sort, to the mere incidents of the surface, the reality—the reality, I tell you—fades. The inner truth is hidden—luckily, luckily. But I felt it all the same” (Conrad). Conrad uses the word “reality” to depict the essence of the wilderness. Similar to Conrad, Arthur Conan Doyle portrays historical settings and social relations inside the African community. The creation of a unified territorial administration was one of the aims sought by reformers around the turn of the century. Another less important aim was securing more autonomy for the individual colonies. These demands, coming from leading colonial officials, coincided with wishes which local communities of white settlers and businessmen had been expressing for years. Built to convey a theme of highest eminence to an audience of broadest diversity, they combined symbolism, typology, realism, and homiletics. Within a dramatic context representing the providential order that governed all things and all mankind, there arose a dramaturgical method that staged evil as something comic, not only for reasons grounded in the medieval philosophy of evil but for the more practical homiletic purpose of engaging the least sophisticated of minds. Though evil in the mysteries could be laughed at, it could not lightly be dismissed; even in its most grotesque or ludicrous manifestations, it remained a ubiquitous force in the earthly existence of man. “The activity of the natives is thus limited to very restricted areas, and their economic condition is immobilized. Thus, abusively applied, such legislation would prevent any development of native life” (Doyle 54). Evil conventions were being firmly established: the discomfiture of the godless was consistently represented by two basic emotions–wrath and despair; the suffering of innocents, on the other hand, was dramatized in lyric lamentation, and consistently arose from established situations either as part of Christ’s passion or within a domestic context. And all the elements of suffering and evil were rendered endurable and intelligible in terms of the over-ruling, benevolent, and just scheme of Christian providence. Awareness of this scheme, both in its ideological and dramaturgical dimensions, was the key to the interpretation of suffering and evil on the medieval stage.

Conclusion

In sum, the Heart of Darkness can be seen as a literary achievement as it utilizes unique characters, plot, themes, symbols, and historical context. The basic framework is simple and mechanical, designed to be understood by everyone; and like most simple mechanisms, it was destined to last a surprisingly long time. The suffering of the human heroes, in either their physical or spiritual forms, is always retributive because of the homiletic nature of the novels Since the moral hero is essentially the man who falls victim to vice, there are no suffering innocents. In the rigidly defined structure of morality, both suffering and evil are non-problematic. If the dramatic context of the novel provided the essential clue for the interpretation of evil and suffering, the solidity and permanence of that context were responsible for the unshakeable conventions which governed the expression of suffering and evil.

Works Cited

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of DarknessPenguin Group (USA) Inc. 1999. Web.

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Crime of the Congo? Aegypan, 2007. Web.