Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) https://youtu.be/wYBJ8yg3gzg born Józef Teodor Conrad Korzeniowski in Russian occupied Ukraine 1874 French merchant marines, later British 1886 became British citizen 1890 traveled to Congo https://youtu.be/wYBJ8yg3gzg page 37

The Writing of Heart of Darkness Blackwood’s Magazine (1899) Three-part serial, February, March and April 1899 On 31 May 1902, in a letter to William Blackwood, Conrad remarked; "I call your own kind self to witness [...] the last pages of Heart of Darkness where the interview of the man and the girl locks in—as it were—the whole 30000 words of narrative description into one suggestive view of a whole phase of life and makes of that story something quite on another plane than an anecdote of a man who went mad in the Centre of Africa."[8]There have been many proposed sources for the character of the antagonist, Kurtz. Georges-Antoine Klein, an agent who became ill and later died aboard Conrad's steamer, has been identified by scholars and literary critics as one basis for Kurtz. The principal figures involved in the disastrous "rear column" of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition have also been identified as likely sources, including column leader Edmund Musgrave Barttelot, slave trader Tippu Tip and the expedition's overall leader, Welsh explorer Henry Morton Stanley.[9][10] Adam Hochschild, in King Leopold's Ghost, believes that the Belgian soldier Léon Rom is the most important influence on the character.[11]

Heart of Darkness (1899, 1902) Central questions: What is Conrad saying about European colonization/civilization? How are we to read his text? Should we read it at all?

Variety of Readings Modernist readers (1901—see modernist slide) Psychological Analysis (1930s/Freud and Jung) Postcolonial (1970/Said and Bhabha) Historical (1990/Hochschild)

Modernist fiction lack of causality insufficiency of language discontinuity, fragmentation attempts to represent multiple truths of consciousness & psyche rejection of outward, coherent appearance of realist conventions alienation antibourgeois first person narrator, often unreliable work by male writers

The Frame: set up of Marlow’s narrative On Thames (outside of London) his audience Marlow

What does the title refer to? How does the river play into the meaning? Look for mentions of “darkness”: London (3, 96) Ancient Britain (6-7) Africa (9, 40, 43, 84) and Kurtz (60, 85, 86, 87*, 91) and the Intended (93) Choice of “nightmares”? (17, 78, 80, 85, 87) Ending?

Characterization of Europe/Europeans Belgium, “the sepulchral city” (11, 88) bizarre/absurd behavior (16, 17) the Accountant (21) the Manager (25) The El Dorado Exploring Expedition the Pilgrims (27, 59)

Characterization of Africa and Africans Chinua Achebe: Africa as “the other world”, antithesis of Europe (lack of) language and Africans (p.49, 83) fear of “kinship” with Africans (59) lack of history (43, 50) Africa as symbolic setting dehumanization of Africans (“it” 20, fragmented 55, “not inhuman” 44) racism underlying the colonial enterprise Kurtz’s madness due to contact with Africa

Kurtz a “remarkable man” (22) painting (29-30) progress” (30) “All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz” (61) his “talk” (58) lacked restraint “the spell […] of the wilderness” (82) vs. the helmsman (62)

Characterization of women the aunt: “out of touch with the truth” (14) the mistress (75-76) the Intended (59, 92, 95)

Major works: Lord Jim (1900) Nostromo (1904) The Secret Agent (1907) The Secret Sharer (1909)