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Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
Heart of Darkness (1899) is a novella by Polish-English novelist Joseph Conrad about a narrated voyage up the Congo River into the Congo Free State in the Heart of Africa. Charles Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames.
https://wjccschools.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/02/Heart_of_Darkness-1.pdf
Joseph Conrad’s short novel Heart of Darkness is widely considered one of the richest examples of the use of symbolism in modern literature. Though the story is a mere fraction of a normal novel’s length, Conrad’s dense, layered prose can make for a slow and potentially frustrating—though ultimately rewarding—reading experience. The main story is centered on a riverboat pilot named Marlow who signs on to work for a Belgian company making inroads into the African Congo. Once he reaches Africa, Marlow’s piloting job transforms into a quest to locate a mysterious company employee named Kurtz who has all but vanished into the African jungle. Marlow’s journey is a nightmarish trip through land he does not understand, where his European cohorts operate without the influence of laws or ‘‘civilized’’ society
Audio book
(Each part is about an hour)
https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/99/heart-of-darkness/1688/part-1/
https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/99/heart-of-darkness/1689/part-2/
https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/99/heart-of-darkness/1690/part-3/
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/heart-of-darkness/
Part 1
Heart of Darkness opens aboard the ship Nellie on the Thames River in London at dusk. Five longtime friends have gathered on the boat, though only one is mentioned by name: Marlow. The other men are referred to by their current occupation, such as the Lawyer and the Accountant. All were once seamen, but Marlow is the only one who remains a sailor. Like all sailors, Marlow shows a ‘‘propensity to spin yarns.’’ At dusk, as the sun falls into a patch of brooding clouds in the west, the unnamed narrator ponders the centuries of great ships and great men the river has seen during the glorious expansion of the British Empire. Suddenly, Marlow begins to speak of the region’s earlier, darker history. He imagines how desolate and wild the region must have seemed to the first Romans who claimed the land as part of their empire two thousand years before. Although the area now holds the most important city in England—and arguably all Europe—Marlow is quick to point out that they ‘‘live in the flicker,’’ implying that darkness can return at any time. Marlow then tells of his own experience with darkness—similar to the first Romans, but in Africa.
Since his story makes up the bulk of the rest of the book, Marlow acts as a narrator to the reader and to his friends aboard the Nellie. Having recently returned from several years in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, Marlow tries to keep himself busy in London. He becomes restless, though, and calls upon his relatives in continental Europe to help him secure a position piloting a boat along the Congo River in Africa. His family’s influence, and the fact that a Belgian company has just lost a boat captain in the Congo due to an argument with a native chief, lands Marlow an immediate appointment. Marlow travels to Belgium to sign the employment contract, noting that the city from which the Company operates looks to him like ‘‘a whited sepulcher,’’ or burial vault. The contract is signed, and a French doctor examines Marlow to affirm his health for the trip. He bids farewell to his aunt and heads to Africa aboard a French steamer. Long before reaching his port, Marlow encounters the African coastline, made seemingly impenetrable by ‘‘a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black,’’ and extending as far as he can see. The steamer passes numerous ragged outposts, as well as a warship firing its cannons into the dense jungle for what appears to be no reason. A member of the crew informs Marlow that there is ‘‘a camp of natives—he called them enemies!—hidden out of sight somewhere.’’ Marlow finally reaches the mouth of the Congo River after a month of travel. He boards another vessel and continues up the river since he is to be stationed more than two hundred miles from the coast. The captain of the boat, a Swede, tells Marlow of a recent passenger who had hanged himself for no known reason. Marlow is deposited thirty miles upriver at one of the Company’s stations to await further passage. The station is a ‘‘scene of inhabited devastation,’’ riddled with broken-down machines and apparently pointless excavations. Marlow sees a group of black men chained together— judged by the colonists to be criminals—carrying baskets of dirt. Marlow ducks into a stand of trees for shade and finds himself among a group of black men on the verge of death, each too ill or weak to continue working. He offers one a biscuit from his pocket and then leaves the men to their suffering. Continuing on, Marlow encounters the Company’s chief accountant, an astonishingly well-dressed man who is to be the first to mention a name Marlow will come to know well: Kurtz. The accountant comments that Marlow is bound to meet the fellow Company agent when he travels upriver. According to the accountant, Kurtz is not only ‘‘a very remarkable person,’’ but also brings in more ivory for the Company than all other traders put together. Ten days later, Marlow leaves camp with a large caravan to begin the two-hundred-mile, two-week trek to the Central Station. When he arrives, Marlow is told the boat he was meant to pilot has sunk. It is now his job to reclaim the boat and fix it. The general manager of the station, an anxious man who seems concerned about Kurtz’s well-being at an outpost farther inland, asks Marlow how long it will take to repair the ship and head-on. Marlow estimates that it will take a few months and quickly sets to work. Marlow notices that, other than himself, none of the employees at the camp appears to do anything productive. They spend their time talking about ivory and devising plots and schemes against each other that are never enacted. Marlow becomes acquainted with another Company agent, a brick-maker who has not made any bricks because of the absence of some key components never specified. The brick-maker is very interested in Marlow and his connections back in Europe, but Marlow is interested only in repairing his ship and learning about Kurtz. The brick-maker tells Marlow that Kurtz is ‘‘a prodigy’’ and accuses Marlow of being from the same ‘‘gang’’ as Kurtz—a gang that is destined to assume control of the Central Station in due time. After beginning his work on the boat, Marlow realizes he will need rivets ordered to finish his repairs. There are no rivets to be found in Central Station, yet he had seen piles and cases of them back at the station he had only recently left. Marlow muses, ‘‘Three carriers could have brought all that was wanted to set that steamboat afloat.’’ Marlow asks the brick-maker, who maintains a close relationship with the general manager, to make sure he gets rivets. In the meantime, the general manager’s uncle emerges from the jungle. He is the leader of the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, a secretive group whose only goal seems to be to ‘‘tear treasure out of the bowels of the land’’—in Marlow’s view, a calling no higher than ‘‘burglars breaking into a safe.’’
Part 2
One night, as Marlow falls in and out of sleep on the deck of his sidelined steamer, he hears two men below him in conversation. It is the general manager and his uncle, discussing Kurtz in less than glowing terms. The manager dislikes Kurtz for his brazen lack of respect and fears Kurtz is plotting to take over his position. The uncle tells the manager that Kurtz—or another unnamed ‘‘pestilential fellow’’ thought to be in the district with Kurtz—should be hanged to serve as an example. The manager speaks contemptuously of Kurtz’s notion that the stations should not only be for trade, but also for ‘‘humanizing, improving, instructing.’’ Marlow leaps to his feet and startles the two men, who then try to slip away coolly. A few days later, the uncle departs camp with the Eldorado Exploring Expedition. Much later, Marlow hears news that all of the expedition’s donkeys have died. He reports dryly, ‘‘I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals,’’ meaning the uncle and his fellow explorers. Marlow finishes repairing his boat; accompanied by the manager, a few pilgrims from the Central Station, and a crew of natives, he sails up the Congo toward Kurtz’s camp. Marlow compares journeying upriver to ‘‘traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world,’’ a place of stillness but not peace. Marlow describes it as ‘‘the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention.’’ The journey takes two months, though Marlow keeps busy with the many challenges of navigating an unfamiliar river. His crew of natives, referred to as cannibals though they are never seen to eat people, prove to be hard workers. Marlow is especially fond of the fireman, who looks after the boiler that provides the boat’s steam power. Marlow calls him ‘‘an improved specimen,’’ but also compares the man to ‘‘a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat, walking on his hind legs.’’
Fifty miles from Kurtz and his Inner Station, the boat reaches a hut with a stack of cut wood intended for them and a note warning the travelers to approach the station with caution. In the hut, Marlow finds a well-worn book devoted to various trivial matters of seamanship. He finds notes in the margins left by the previous owner, apparently written in some kind of code. He takes the book with him to serve as a diversion from the gloom of the enveloping jungle. A few days later, with the boat within ten miles of the Inner Station, they become trapped in blinding fog and must stop. While waiting for the fog to lift, they hear a human cry from somewhere nearby. The pilgrims on board fear an attack by the local natives, but Marlow thinks the impenetrable fog will protect them. The fog eventually lifts and they continue, approaching within a mile and a half of Kurtz’s Inner Station. There, the river is split by a shallow sandbank that forces Marlow to steer the boat close to shore. At that moment, a flurry of arrows rains down upon the boat from the shore. The pilgrims blindly fire back with their guns. The native helmsman of the boat, also trying to return fire, is hit with a spear. Marlow blows the boat’s steam whistle, and the attackers flee. The helmsman dies, leaving a pool of blood in the pilothouse that soaks Marlow’s shoes. Marlow removes his shoes and tosses them into the river. The surprise attack leaves Marlow convinced that in a region of such violence, Kurtz must be dead. This thought fills Marlow with loneliness, even though he has never met the man. Marlow puts on dry slippers, pulls the dead helmsman’s body out of the pilothouse, and throws him overboard to prevent the cannibals from eating him. At last, they reach the Inner Station. On the shore, a young Russian man dressed in colorfully patched clothing, ‘‘like a harlequin,’’ greets them. He already knows of the attack on the boat but tells them that everything is fine now. The manager and the pilgrims go to meet Kurtz. Marlow stays behind with the Russian and learns that he was the one who left the stack of wood at the hut downriver. Marlow shows him the book he took from the hut, and the Russian thanks him for returning it. Marlow realizes that the notes in the margin are not written in code but in Russian. Marlow also learns from the Russian why his boat was attacked: the natives do not want the white men to take Kurtz away from them.
Part 3
The Russian tells Marlow how he came to meet Kurtz and how Kurtz immediately captured his devotion. He also mentions that Kurtz enlisted the local tribe to help him acquire ivory—not through trade, but through violence. Kurtz, for all his lofty ideas, seems obsessed with obtaining ivory. Once, he even threatened to kill the Russian over a small piece of ivory the man received as a gift from a local chief. Even after this, the Russian remains as close to Kurtz as anyone can; he even cared for the man when he became ill. This time, however, Kurtz’s illness is grave enough to demand more serious treatment. Through his binoculars, Marlow surveys the hilltop house where Kurtz rests. He is shocked to find the surrounding fence posts topped by the decapitated heads of natives. The Russian defends Kurtz, claiming that these are the heads of rebels. Marlow notes, ‘‘Those rebellious heads looked very subdued to me on their sticks.’’ Kurtz is brought from the house on a makeshift stretcher. Tribesmen swarm out from the jungle, surrounding the stretcher and its carriers. Kurtz sits up and shouts something that Marlow cannot hear, and the natives clear out. The men carrying Kurtz place him in a small cabin on the boat. Suddenly, an exquisitely decorated native woman appears on the shore next to the steamer; she stares intently at the men on board, then walks away. The Russian says that if she had tried to board the ship he would have tried to shoot her and that she was acquainted with Kurtz. Inside Kurtz’s cabin, Marlow hears Kurtz arguing with the manager. Kurtz insists that the manager has not come to save him but to save the ivory. He also insists that he is not so ill that he should be removed from his station. The manager steps out of the cabin and complains to Marlow that Kurtz has ruined the region for the Company, doing far more harm than good. The Russian tells Marlow that he trusts him to look after Kurtz and will take his leave. He also informs Marlow that it was Kurtz who ordered the natives to attack the steamboat as they approached. Kurtz had hoped to scare the manager and his men and send them back to Central Station thinking he must already be dead. Marlow gives the Russian gun cartridges, tobacco, and a pair of shoes, and the colorfully the dressed man disappears into the night. After midnight, Marlow is awakened by drumming and a burst of ritualistic cries. He checks Kurtz’s cabin and discovers him missing. Marlow goes ashore and heads toward the drumming in search of Kurtz. Just thirty yards from the closest native fire, he catches up to Kurtz, crawling toward it like a man under the spell of great magic. Kurtz warns him to go away. Marlow first threatens Kurtz and then flatters him in an attempt to get him back to the boat. Kurtz speaks of his grand plans and the manager’s attempts to ruin him, but much to Marlow’s relief, Kurtz returns to the boat. The steamer departs at noon the next day, and a thousand natives line the shore to watch the ‘‘splashing, thumping, fierce river-demon beating the water with its terrible tail and breathing black smoke into the air’’ as it carries Kurtz away. Kurtz is moved into the pilothouse, which is better ventilated than his previous cabin. The native woman appears along the shore, and the entire tribe lets loose a chorus of cries. The pilgrims aboard the ship ready their guns, so Marlow blasts the steam whistle to disperse the natives before the pilgrims can start trouble. Traveling with the river’s current, their pace away from Kurtz’s camp is twice as fast as it was on their trip there, but Kurtz’s condition quickly worsens. The ship breaks down and must stop for repairs. Kurtz, sensing his end might be near, gives Marlow his personal papers and a photograph of his intended bride back in Europe. One night, when Marlow checks in on him, Kurtz tells him he is waiting to die. Marlow dismisses the remark, but Kurtz, seemingly lost in some vision, softly cries, ‘‘The horror! The horror!’’ Marlow leaves him alone and joins the other pilgrims in the mess room for dinner. Soon after, the manager’s assistant enters and informs them that Kurtz is dead. The pilgrims rush to see, but Marlow stays in the mess room. The pilgrims bury Kurtz the next day in a muddy hole. Marlow keeps Kurtz’s documents with him all the way back to Europe, despite the manager’s attempts to confiscate them as property of the Company. He meets with several people, including Kurtz’s cousin—to whom he gives some of Kurtz’s family letters—and a journalist who considers himself one of Kurtz’s colleagues. The journalist remarks that Kurtz would have made a great leader for an extremist political party. When Marlow asks which party, the journalist responds, ‘‘Any party.’’ Marlow gives the man one of Kurtz’s reports intended for publication, and the journalist departs, satisfied. The last of Kurtz’s belongings are meant for his fiancee, and Marlow visits her to deliver them. Although by this time it has been a full year since Kurtz’s death, she still wears black and appears to be in mourning. The two discuss Kurtz’s best qualities, and his intended bride calls his death a loss to all the world. The woman begs Marlow to tell her Kurtz’s last words. Knowing she seeks comfort more than truth, Marlow lies and says, ‘‘The last word he pronounced was—your name.’’ The woman breaks down, claiming that she knew this all along. Marlow ends his tale. The narrator looks out over the Thames, which, under a dark and foreboding sky appears to flow ‘‘into the heart of an immense darkness.’’
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