Major themes and racial issues in the novel

Heart of Darkness by James Conrad

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Polish-born English novelist, considered to be among the

great modern English writers, whose work explores the vulnerability and moral instability at the
heart of human lives. Conrad is best known for his classic story Heart of Darkness (1902), in
which a European sailor discovers that the heart of darkness is not Africa, but something within
the human soul, and perhaps also something linked to European imperialism. Conrad’s other
acclaimed works include Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904), The Secret Agent (1907), Under
Western Eyes (1911), and “The Secret Sharer” (1912).

Conrad is noted not only for his stories of life at sea, his insights into human psychology,
and his literary style, but also for his depictions of imperialism and racial issues. Conrad writes
in a rich, vivid prose style with a narrative technique that makes skillful use of breaks in linear
chronology. His character development is powerful and compelling, but his outlook is generally
bleak. In Heart of Darkness Conrad explores the character of the well-intentioned ivory trader
Kurtz, who proves to have the capacity to be far more savage than the supposedly “savage”
Africans among whom he lives.

Conrad’s favorite themes include the impact of isolation on an individual, the codes of
morality that people design for themselves, the moral ambiguities of human existence, and the
attempt to be loyal to an idea or an ideal—for example, an ideal of masculine heroism, a political
philosophy, or a belief in the righteousness of one’s work. In most of his novels Conrad
portrayed European men in situations far removed from their usual society and customs. Thus
isolated, his characters are brought into conflict with nature and with the forces of good and evil
within themselves.

Major Themes

Primitivism As the crew makes their way up the river, they are traveling into the “heart
of darkness.” The contradiction, however, is that Marlow also feels as if he were traveling back
in time. When Conrad wrote this story, scientists were learning that Africa is the seat of human
civilization, and this knowledge is reflected in the fact that the trees are (almost prehistorically)
enormous on the route down the river. The paradox of the novel, however, is that by traveling
backwards in time, the crew does not move closer to the innocence and purity of the "noble
savage" but farther away from it. Words like “pestilent” and “sordid” are used again and again to
describe the natives and their land. Conrad seems to claim that the Christian belief that prehistory
was untouched by obscurity or evil is a fallacy. Instead, there is “the horror.” In contrast, it
seems, is the more advanced civilization of the colonizers and visitors.
 Uncertainty Nothing in this novella is described in very concrete terms. Shores are
hazy. Land looks like a spine sticking out from a man’s back but is not described in
topographical terms. Marlow is obsessed with Kurtz before he even meets him, without a clear
idea why. A sense of danger pervades the entire trip, and it is mostly dictated by uncertainty. The
natives do not seem inherently threatening. On one occasion, they let fly a series of arrows, but
these even look ineffectual to Marlow. They are threatening because they might be poisoned.
Similarly, Marlow has no clear idea of what the natives might do to him if Kurtz gave them free
rein, and it is possible that this uncertainty increases his fear. Kurtz himself is an uncertain
figure, ruled as he is by two separate impulses, the noble and the destructive. At the beginning of
the novella, the reader perceives that the former is his dominant (or only) characteristic. But with
vicious scrawlings on his manuscript and his ruthlessness in extracting ivory from the land,
Kurtz proves himself the latter. Marlow’s adherence to Kurtz until the end confuses the matter;
one could judge him one way or the other. The idea of "darkness" expresses the theme of
uncertainty in the novella.

Imperial Authority Whatever the conditions in Africa may be, all of the characters
agree that they are different from those of Europe. There is a feeling of anything-goes
vigilantism that shifts the balance of power from the stewards in a “civilized” state (police,
doctors, bureaucrats) to whoever is most threatening. Kurtz is physically quite a weak man, but
he maintains enormous sway over the native population through his understanding of their
language and his cultural and communication skills. He exploits their appreciation of him as an
Other. Marlow’s men use a much more simple means of gaining authority, namely, firearms.
This is the tragedy of imperialism in that the arrival of the white man heralds a new order, but in
the creation of that order, they retain the tools and the authority. Black men in this book first
appear as members of a chain gang, and they gain little power after that scene.

Religion Although there is controversy over whether Conrad is critiquing

colonialism or not, it is clear that he is critiquing religion. The two groups in the novel, the
pilgrims and the natives, are linked by having religious beliefs, and the pilgrims seem at least as
bloodthirsty as the natives. The rite in the woods that Marlow describes seems alien but certainly
no more dangerous than the ambush. One of the seemingly admirable characteristics of Kurtz, as
presented by Conrad, is that he seems just as compelled by African religion as by Christianity
but seems beholden to neither. Marlow genuinely admires his ability to independently critique
religions. He may not agree with Kurtz’s evaluation, but he respects Kurtz's ability to have his
own opinions in the face of the various religious traditions he encounters.

Illness Illness is a major factor in this novella. It appears in physical and mental forms.
Marlow is hired to replace a man who committed suicide, and another instance of suicide is
announced by a somber Swedish man. The first thing that Marlow does upon being hired is go to
the doctor, who checks both his mental and physical health and provides a very gloomy
prognosis. The specter of ill health, or of one’s body not standing up to the conditions, is a
constant specter in the novella. The mental health issue is particular to Heart of Darkness, while
the issue of wider health continues in the tradition of Victorian novels, in which men often travel
to Africa only to come down with exotic diseases. In the end, it seems that Marlow is more
mentally than physically taxed, while Kurtz is clearly both.

On the basis of the novel Heart of Darkness (1902) and other works, Joseph Conrad
gained a reputation as a master stylist of the English language. The question of racism, however,
has raised controversy about his works. Some authors, such as Nigerian novelist and poet Chinua
Achebe, have accused Conrad of racist views toward Africans in Heart of Darkness and allege
that he portrayed Africa as a continent that lacks civilization. In the 1970s Chinua Achebe wrote
an essay entitled “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.” In it, Achebe
claimed that Conrad was “a thoroughgoing racist” because of the way that he portrayed Africans
in the story. Others argue that Heart of Darkness shows Conrad's objections to European colonial
practices in Africa.

A tumultuous scholarly debate broke out after the publication of Achebe’s essay. Some
scholars argued that Conrad was a visionary who recognized the wrongs of imperialism at a time
when most Europeans either tacitly accepted or enthusiastically endorsed efforts to colonize
Africa. Others argued that Conrad believed British imperialism was far superior to the Belgian
imperialism he depicts in the novella. Some praised Conrad for attempting to depict Africans
sympathetically; others argued that Conrad’s depictions of Africans were shaped by racial
stereotypes but noted that Conrad’s views and blind spots were typical of the time in which he
lived. There is the evidence in the book that supports both sides of the argument, which is
another way of saying that the book’s actual stance on the relationship between blacks and
whites is not itself black and white. Heart of Darkness attacks colonialism as a deeply flawed
enterprise run by corrupt and hollow white men who perpetrate mass destruction on the native
population of Africa, and the novel seems to equate darkness with truth and whiteness with
hollow trickery and lies. So Heart of Darkness argues that the Africans are less corrupt and in
that sense superior to white people, but its argument for the superiority of Africans is based on a
foundation of racism. Marlow, and Heart of Darkness, take the rather patronizing view that the
black natives are primitive and therefore innocent while the white colonizers are sophisticated
and therefore corrupt. This take on colonization is certainly not “politically correct,” and can be
legitimately called racist because it treats the natives like objects rather than as thinking people.

While the majority of Conrad critics today concur that Conrad was anti-imperialist,
debates on Conrad’s presentation of imperialism and of African characters continue to enliven
classrooms.

Nita Cristina Georgiana, American Studies