Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness centers around Marlow, an introspective sailor, and his journey up the Congo River to meet Kurtz, reputed to be an idealistic man of great abilities. Marlow takes a job as a riverboat captain with the Company, a Belgian concern organized to trade in the Congo. As he travels to Africa and then up the Congo, Marlow encounters widespread inefficiency and brutality in the Company’s stations. The native inhabitants of the region have been forced into the Company’s service, and they suffer terribly from overwork and ill treatment at the hands of the Company’s agents. The cruelty and squalor of imperial enterprise contrasts sharply with the impassive and majestic jungle that surrounds the white man’s settlements, making them appear to be tiny islands amidst a vast darkness.

Theme & Motifs :-

#Theme

ü The Hypocrisy of Imperialism

Heart of Darkness Explore the issues Surrounding imperialism Iin complicated ways. As Marlow travels from the Outer station to the central station and finally up the river to the inner station, he encounter scenes of torture, cruelty and near-slavery. At the very least, the incidental scenery of the book offers a harsh picture of colonial enterprise. The impetus behind Marlow’s adventures too. Has to do with the hypocrisy inherent in the rhetoric used to justify imperialism. The men who work for the company describe what they do as “trade”, and their treatment of native African Is part of a benevolent project of “civilization”. Kurtz on the other hand, is open about the fact that he does not trade but rather takes ivory by force, and he describes his own treatment of the natives with the words “suppression” and “extermination”. He does not hide the fact that he rules through violence and intimidation. His perverse honesty leads to his downfall, as his success threatens to expose the evil practices behind European activity in Africa.

ü Madness as a Result of imperialism

Madness is closely linked to imperialism in this book. Africa is responsible for mental disintegration as well as physical illness. Madness has two primary function. First it serves as an ironic device to engage the reader’s sympathies. Kurtz, Marlow is told from the beginning id mad. However, as Marlow and the reader, begin to form a more  complete picture of Kurtz, it becomes apparent that his madness is only relative, that in the context of the company insanity is difficult to define. Thus, both Marlow and the reader begin to sympathize with Kurtz and view the company with suspicion. Madness also functions to establish the necessity of social fictions. Although social mores and explanatory justification ae shown throughout Heart of Darkness to be utterly false and even leading to evil, they are nevertheless necessary for both group harmony and individual security.

ü The Absurdity of evil

This novella is, above all an exploration of hypocrisy, ambiguity and moral confusion. It explodes the idea of the proverbial choice between the lesser of two evils. As the idealistic Marlow is forced to align himself with either the hypocritical and malicious colonial bureaucracy or the openly malevolent, rule defying Kurtz, it becomes increasingly clear that to try judge either alternatives is an act of folly how can moral standards or social values be relevant in judging evil? Is there such things as  insanity in a world that has already gone insane? The number of ridiculous situations Marlow witnesses act as reflections of the larger issue: at one station, for instance, he sees a man trying to carry water in a bucket with a large hole in it.

#Motifs:-

ü Observation and Eavesdropping

Marlow gains a great deal of information by watching the world around him and by overhearing others’ conversations, as when he listens from the deck of the wrecked steamer to the manager of the central station and his uncle discussing Kurtz and the Russian trader. This phenomenon speaks to the impossibility of direct communication between individuals information must come as the result of chance observation and thus they must be taken in the context of their utterance. Another good example of this is Marlow’s conversation with the brickmaker, during which Marlow is able to figure out a good deal more than simply what the man has to say.

ü Interiors and Exterior

Comparisons between interior and exteriors pervade Heart of Darkness. As the narrator states at the beginning of the text, Marlow is more interested in surfaces, in the surrounding aura of a thing rather than in any hidden nugget of meaning deep within the thing  itself. This inverts the usual hierarchy of meaning: normally one seeks the deep message or hidden truth. The priority placed on observations demonstrates that penetrating to the interior of an idea or a person is impossible in this world.

 hierarchy of meaning: normally one seeks the deep message or hidden truth. The priority placed on observations demonstrates that penetrating to the interior of an idea or a person is impossible in this world.

ü Darkness

Darkness is important enough conceptually to be part of the book’s title. However, it is difficult to discern exactly what it might mean, given that absolutely everything in the book is clocked in darkness. Africa, England and Brussels are all described as gloomy and somehow dark, even if the sun is shining brightly. Darkness is the inability to see this may sound simple, but as a description of the human condition it has profound implications failing to see another human being means failing to understand that individual and failing to establish any sort of simpathytic communication with him or her.