J.

CONRAD’S HEART OF
DARKNESS
- POETICS & POLITICS -
JOSEPH CONRAD (1857 - 1924)
• Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski

• b.1857 (Ukraine)

• 1886 - becomes British subject

JOSEPH CONRAD (1857 – 1924)
• professional sailor in French and British
merchant navy

• most famous works – Almayer’s Folly, Nostromo,

Lord Jim, Under Western Eyes, The Secret Agent, The
Nigger of the Narcissus, The Shadow-Line, Heart of
Darkness
CONRAD’S POETIC PRINCIPLES
• ushered in Modernist experimentation

• blurring the boundary between

prose/poetry/painting - art synthesis;
SYNAESTHESIA

• influenced by Symbolist poetry – Baudelaire,

Rimbaud

• parallels with Impressionist painting

 “Preface” to The Nigger of the
Narcissus
“Fiction – if it at all aspires to be art – appeals to
temperament. And in truth it must be, like painting,
like music, like all art, the appeal of one
temperament to all the other innumerable
temperaments… Such an appeal to be effective
must be an impression conveyed through the
senses. … only through an unremitting never-
discouraged care for the shape and ring of
sentences that an approach can be made to
plasticity, to colour, and that the light of magic
suggestiveness may be brought to play…over the
commonplace surface of words…”
 HEART OF DARKNESS (1899)
• initially praised as novel depicting exotic
locations, non-Western settings

• inspired by Conrad’s experience in the Congo

Free State

• ‘Scramble for Africa’

 HEART OF DARKNESS –
APOCALYPSE NOW (1979)
• Conrad’s story inspired the movie Apocalypse
Now (F.F. Coppola)

• Vietnamese war
 HEART OF DARKNESS -
NARRATION
• two narrators:

1) anonimous first-person narrator - listens to

Marlow’s story

2) Marlow – character-bound narrator

(FOCALIZATION)
 HEART OF DARKNESS –
SYMBOLIST ELEMENTS

• FORMAL SYMMETRY:

1) cyclic structure

2) word repetition

• create the impression of rhythm

 HEART OF DARKNESS –
SYMBOLIST ELEMENTS

• use of symbols (e.g. classical references – The

Knitters, Roman Empire; Kurtz’s painting…)

• abstract phrases, evocative descriptions – create

an atmosphere, meaning not explicit
G. F. Watts: “Hope” (1886)
HEART OF DARKNESS – ENTER
HISTORY

• historical readings prevalent after WWII

• focus on historical context – exploitation of

Congo under King Leopold II of Belgium

• affirmation/subversion of colonial ideology

 HEART OF DARKNESS – A
RACIST TEXT?
• C. Achebe: “An Image of Africa”

- accused Conrad of racism

- Heart of Darkness - reflects colonial ideology used

to provide legitimacy for exploitation of non-
European ‘others’
 HEART OF DARKNESS – A
RACIST TEXT?
• Africa depicted as ‘the other world’ of Europe –
embodiment of non-Europe

- described in binary oppositions:

1) culture
2) appearance
3) language
…
 HEART OF DARKNESS – A
RACIST TEXT?
• AFRICA’S kinship with EUROPE
threatening:

- ‘going native’ made Kurtz mad

- natives depicted with sympathy when sticking to
their own ‘place’

• Conrad eager to affirm the difference

 HEART OF DARKNESS -
GROUPWORK
A) identify binary oppositions in the text

B) provide arguments that affirm Achebe’s

statement
C) provide arguments in defense of Conrad

D) identify narrative devices used in

affirmation/subversion of colonial ideology
THE END!