Significance of the Title of the Novella ‘Heart of Darkness’

“The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising wind. ‘The horror! The horror!’.”
– Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

The ‘Mad Scramble for Africa’ began in the late 19th Century in which European nations colonized Africa to its utmost extent. Their primary motive being ‘civilizing’ the natives and attaining wealth. Joseph Conrad was himself a part of this institution of Imperialism and shares his experience in the form of the character, Marlow. Personally, Conrad was miserable and resentful of the judgment that his own Belgian employers were exploiting him. This novella was a part of colonial literature, written between the transition period from Victorianism to Modernism, primarily containing elements of the latter. Modernists used the Associative Techniques, a collection of random impressions which were literary, historical, and philosophical allusions that aided the readers to make connections. With the help of this title, Conrad is proficient in telling his readers about the brutalities, hollowness, and consequences which coincide and hide the darkness of what is called a greed-driven colonialism.

Owing much to its Modernistic content, Conrad used the stream of consciousness to describe Marlow’s thoughts, feelings, and reactions, which emphasized the coherence of darkness in the novel from the beginning. The description of the greatest town on earth, which was London, was surrounded by the mournful gloom, reflecting the actual condition of people residing there. Although this period is marked as the peak of colonization, it was not a new one for them. “But darkness was here yesterday”, marked the invasion of the Romans in Britain in 43 AD, who likewise came for riches, gold, lands, and slaves. Looking at the trajectory of England, it was colonized and invaded multiple times by external forces, making their history tragic and black. Cedric Watts was one of the many critics who interpret this novella as an expose of imperialist rapacity and violence, which is precisely what the title is hinting towards. Simultaneously, in another work of fiction, The Inheritors: An Extravagant Story (1901), Conrad talked about how King Leopold ruthlessly raped Congo. The interior regions of the African Continent are, geographically, dark and dense, with Congo having a snake-like disposition of a river, which was foreshadowing Marlow’s personal experience. Conrad, not following the ways of his predecessors, had described the rusted pillars of Imperialism astoundingly. It is a work of a “mournful and senseless delusion”, whose followers turn out into nothing more than the same. The procedure of the white man civilizing the “ignorant millions from their horrid ways” is readily comprehensible. Marlow describes them as, “I could see every rib, the joint of their limbs was like knots in a rope; each had an iron collar on his neck and were connected with a chain…”, who were forced to find bosoms’ in the wilderness. The title, accompanied by the portrayal of the black people, was also said to be racist, as it projected the image of Africa as the ‘Other World’. Chinua Achebe retorted by saying that Conrad is not so much concerned about Africa as he is with the deterioration of one European mind caused by solitude and sickness. He continues to dehumanize Africa and the Africans, which till date continues to foster in the world. The powerlessness and hate beneath the Chief Accountant’s civilized exterior; the rustic machinery; the breaking down of the steam boat and the corruption are pointedly bringing forth the reality of narcissism and emptiness. Every human that Marlow encounters, who submits himself to the darkness of greed, is a “papier-mâché Mephistopheles”, who is a hollowed devil. They celebrated the loot of innumerable outfit shops and provision stores, that human folly made look like the spoils of thieving, under the Eldorado Exploring Expedition. Even while narrating his story, Marlow is bursting with guilt and is forced to carry on a heavy heart.

The metamorphosis of Kurtz, from a man, well-versed with his unshakable principles and ideologies of civilization into a monster, brings out the blurred hollowness and fickle-mindedness of people. He came along as a character who was self-absorbed and who wrote a report on The Suppression of Savage Customs, concluding it with, “Exterminate all the brutes.” Tzvetan Todorov offered another interpretation, “One can only dream about the ultimate moment, at the threshold of death, when one acquires absolute knowledge. What Kurtz actually utters at that moment are words that actually express the void, canceling out knowledge…an absolute horror whose object we shall never know” and arguing that he is himself the heart of darkness. Kurtz was unable to hold up to his European morals against the wilderness’s bitter inner truth. This can also be substituted with the idea of coming to the East from the West to find oneness with your soul (which can be sensed today as well). After his return, Marlow grew weary of the heart of darkness that he perceived in people of Europe. They all were, as he said, “intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretense because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things that I knew”. This reading exposed Leopold’s bloody system, along with many other works that shaped the past of the dark continent, like The Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pakenham (1991), and Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe (1964). King Leopold’s methods in the Free State of Congo aroused international anger, although he was supported by international finance agencies. Patrick Brantlinger correctly points out that this work of Conrad’s is not only regarding his ‘Congo Diary’ but also considers the atrocities which began appearing in the British Press, reaching its climax in 1908, when the Belgian Government was forced to take control of Leopold’s private domain. This period was marked by the uprooting of as many as six million people in Congo.

This title is best suited as it comprises different perspectives that this narrative offers us in the interpretation of the Heart of Darkness. Marlow took us with him to the farthest point of navigation and undergoes a divine change. This also forced the reader to reconsider the moral, ideological, physical, mental, and geographical darkness which the shackles of civilization force him to believe in. The title and the narrative, together take us to the adventure more significant than mere knockabout of the world. It is youth in the toils, a struggle with phantoms worse than the elements, a destructive experience.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, ‘Introduction by Sumanyu Satpathy’
2. Tzvetan Todorov, ‘Heart of Darkness’
3. Wilson Harris, ‘The Frontier on which Heart of Darkness Stands’
4. Patrick Brantlinger, ‘Kurtz’s “Darkness” and Heart of Darkness’
5. Chinua Achebe, ‘An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness’.