1. Jospeh Conrad Heart of Darkness Jospeh Conrad Heart of Darkness

2. The British Empire

3. British Colonialism ► Economic penetration  East Indies Company ► Military support ► Control of local rulers  creating anglophile class

4. Jingoism We don’t want to fight but by Jingo that we do, We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, We’ve got the money, too!

5. Rudyard Kipling The White Man’s Burden Take up the White Man’s burden Send forth the best ye breed Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captive’s need; To wait in heavy harness On fluttered folk and wild – Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half devil and half child.

6. French Colonialism ► Military occupation ► Algeria is part of France  1962: Liberation  1.5 million dead

7. Belgian Colonialism ► King Leopold owner of Congo (47 times the size of Belgium) ► Brutish treatment of natives ► 10 million dead (half of the population)

8. ► Noble mission to develop civilization ► Fight sanguinary customs ► Teach people to work  Labour tax

9. Josep Conrad ► Polish origin ► Sea captain ► 1890: mission to Congo ► 1895: Almayer’s Folly

10. Conrad’s exoticism ► Not simply adventures ► Extreme situations and isolation ► Revelation of real nature of characters

11. Heart of Darkness (1902) Anonymous narrator On the Nellie Marlow’s tale Other stories

12. The Thames “And this also,” said Marlow suddenly, “has been one of the dark places of the earth”

13. The narrator ► Non-omniscent = Partial knowledge (see Henry James) ► Blanks in the narrative ► The reader must work out the meanings

14. “Unspeakable” ► Conrad uses many words to point at what he cannot communicate: UnimaginableInscrutableNameless ► Impossibility to describe this reality ► See Marlow and Kurtz’s Intended

15. Marlow ► Traditional hero: tough, honest ► Modern man: broken, weary, skeptical ► Intermediary position between Kurtz (primeval instincts) and the Company (society, rules) ► Knows the darkness but is not overwhelmed ► Destined to repeat his story

16. Marlow = Ancient Mariner ► Similar narrative pattern ► Extraordinary experience ► Risks to die ► Acquires a knowledge ► Must tell his story

17. A Journey into the self ► Who is a savage: the Company or Kurtz? ► Marlow meets his primitive self (instinct) ► Kurtz finds the horror and cannot survive

18. The double ► Many parallelsand oppositions Thames – Congo Fog – darkness Marlow - cannibals Kurtz – Company White – black Light – darkness Europe – Africa Kurtz and Marlow: parallel or opposition?

19. Kurtz ► Gifted but evil (see Faustus) ► Grandiose vs flabby devils of the Company Company ► Empty, hollow (see Eliot: The Hollow Men “Mistah Kurtz – he dead!”) “Mistah Kurtz – he dead!”) ► Honest?

20. Imperialism ► Against hypocrisy of imperialism ► Kurtz breaks loose from the conventions No one will accept to understand him No one will accept to understand him ► Colonies are just a background

21. Chinua Achebe on Heart of Darkness ► “offensive and deplorable book” ► Does not provide good information ► Africa is just a foil to Europe

22. Imperialism and Madness ► Africa produces mental and physical disintegration ► Actions with no sense ► In isolation one is the only arbiter of one’s actions ► Absolute power and fundamental fallibility

23. Darkness ► Brutality? ► Instinct? nature vs. “nurture” nature vs. “nurture” ► Africa, London and Bruxelles are all gloomy

24. References ► http://www.cliffsnotes.com http://www.cliffsnotes.com ► http://www.sparknotes.com http://www.sparknotes.com