Mans inner darkness the heart of darkness - Essay Example

Man’s inner darkness – the “heart” of darkness. The book “Heart of darkness” is a searing account of one man – Kurtz- and his journey from civilization into the jungle – sinking into the dark depths of his own bestiality, drunk with the power he exerts over trusting natives who are unaware of the manner in which they are being exploited. The main protagonist in the story is Marlow, who sets out on an obsessive quest - a journey down the coastline of Africa into its deepest jungles, to find Kurtz - he also faces the same darkness but is able to get out before it is too late. Analysis: Conrad’s book poses the question of what exactly civilization is – at the beginning of the novel the narrator Marlow states, “It seemed to throw a kind of light on everything about me….” but at the same time it was not very clear either. No, not very clear.” (Conrad 21) Civilization is a very important underlying theme in the book because it is this every civilization that purportedly elevates man above the status of beast into the status of manhood. As a result, the white men consider the natives as uncivilized brutes because they behead their enemies and are not exposed to the social norms and conventions of the white man. It is purportedly civilization that propels man towards progress and away from the evil within himself. But as Marlow moves deeper into the jungle, away from familiar things, he feels increasingly threatened, and his basest instincts are stirred by that fear. He views the still river and the dense vegetation as “an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention.”(Conrad 60). His increasing fascination with Kurtz rests in the fact that Kurtz also aimed to bring “civilization” to the uncivilized natives. Africa “has been one of the dark places of the Earth” (Conrad 65) and a “god forsaken wilderness” (Conrad 73), and Kurtz’s mission for the river is purportedly such that “each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a center for trade of course, but also for humanizing, improving, instructing.” (Conrad 107). Firchow highlights Conrad’s perceptions of Africa from the existing Western viewpoint during that time, which led to “misconceptions and misrepresentations of Africa and Africans” as a result of which Marlow’s journey into Africa “became an analogue for the exploration of the hidden, dark regions of their inner selves.” (Firchow 20). Achebe credits Conrad with highlighting the evils of imperialism and concedes that Conrad’s views may not have been his own, but may have been conditioned by the prevailing Western prejudices and the dominant image of the native in western imagination. According to Achebe, “Conrad saw and condemned the evil of imperial exploitation but was strangely unaware of the racism on which it sharpened its iron tooth.” (Achebe 15) As Marlow re-traces Kurtz’s path into the jungle, he must face the question of who is really civilized? Who is darker – the natives who cling to primitive beliefs or the colonizing white man who exploits the natives in search of material gain that is to be acquired through sale of ivory and the riches of the jungle. He is forced into the realization that while the white man proclaims his entry into the jungle for the high moral purpose of civilizing the natives, the actual purpose is quite simply out of their greed for the wealth of the jungle resources. Thus the darkness of the jungle is not merely a physical darkness but also represents the moral and spiritual darkness that is the fate of the white man who travels into the jungle and forgets all the values of love, brotherhood and equality, sinking into the pits of greed, oppression and injustice towards the natives. When Marlow sees Kurtz’s den deep in the jungle, with posts dotted with rotting human heads, he finds in Kurtz a man who has not only retreated deep into the dark jungle, but who has in a similar manner withdrawn deep into the darkness of his being, transforming himself into a horrid man who “had kicked himself loose of the earth” (Conrad 107) and “knew no restraint, no faith and no fear.” (Conrad 108). The darkness has overpowered him completely. The ending of the book is significant because it is a symbolic representation of the horrors that are transacted in the name of civilization. In the name of progress, the white men had sunk into a level of oppression and ill treatment of the natives that was anything but civilized and was motivated purely by selfish greed. Kurtz is an example of the extreme depths of the darkness into which man can sink. He does not wish to return to the white man’s world in spite of the fact that he is sick because he has descended so far into the pit of evil and is enjoying his position of power so much that he has no wish to return to civilization. It is only at the time of his death that the full realization of the depths to which he has sunk really hit him. It is then that he also realizes the full extent of the horrors which the colonizing white race had perpetrated on the natives. His dying words are “Horror! Horror!” (Conrad 112). In one sense, it represents the horror of Kurtz’ transformation form a superior human being to the scum of the earth. He was a man who was a poet, writer, musician and a consummate artist who had started out on the journey into Africa with the noblest of intentions. Yet he is unable to restrain himself once he is actually in Africa, as the darkness of the jungle closes in around him, he is cut off from civilization and once this state of affairs occurs, he begins to reveal his dark side and sheds all his noble intentions to turn into a thief and a murderer. To top the list of offenses is the fact that he allows the natives to worship him as a God, which is a clear blasphemy and violation of the Christian principles upon which he was raised. He is unable to fully sink into the level of a beast, yet he cannot be a fine human being either, so he vacillates between the two and it is only as he lies dying that he goes through a process of self realization to see himself clearly. Marlow tries to read the meaning of Kurtz’ dying words. He feels that Kurtz’s words were the expression of some sort of belief” and that “he had summed up – he had judged” (Conrad 113). While Marlow started out on his journey with a great admiration for Kurtz, yet at the end when he meets the unnamed woman to whom Kurtz was engaged and to whom the author refers to as “the intended”, he is unable to be completely truthful to her about the Kurtz that he had met in the jungle and the depths of darkness into which he had sunk. In fact Marlow acknowledges that telling the “intended” the truth about Kurtz “would have been too dark – too dark altogether.” (Conrad 123). For a moment, he wonders if he has done the wrong thing and whether, as a consequence of his lie to the “intended”, “the house would collapse” and “the heavens would fall” (Conrad 123). But then he realizes that this eventuality is more applicable if he had told the truth. Therefore, while Kurtz’s humanity had been almost fully obliterate din the darkness of the jungle, Marlow is able to draw back when he sees the horrors that have resulted from Kurtz’s transformation in the jungle. Although he set out into the dark jungle with the same fears of its oppressive weight as Kurtz had, he did not sink into it to the level that Kurtz did by allowing the darkness of the jungle to metaphorically take a grip of his inner humanity as well and submerge it in darkness. Bibliography * Achebe, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays. "An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrads Heart of Darkness." New York: Doubleday, 1989, pp.1-20 * Conrad, Joseph. The Heart of Darkness * Firchow, Peter Edgerly, 1999. “Envisioning Africa: Racism and imperialism in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. Read More