2. Heart of Darkness

3. GRAHAM GREENE, Journey without Maps (1936)
I thought for some reason even then of Africa, not a particular place, but a shape, a strangeness, a wanting to know. The unconscious mind is often sentimental; I have written ‘a shape’, and the shape, of course, is roughly that of the human heart.
Africa will always be the Africa of the Victorian atlas, the blank unexplored continent the shape of the human heart.

4. Factual/Historical Viewpoint
The Congo River was discovered by Europeans in 1482
No one traveled more than 200 miles upstream until 1877
Is 1,600 miles long and only impassable to water traffic between two places, creating a two-hundred mile overland trip
Matadi (the Company Station)
Kinshasa (the Central Station)

5. History of the Congo
1878 – King Leopold II of Belgium asked explorer Henry Morton Stanley to set up a Belgian colony in the Congo
Wanted to “end slavery and civilize the natives”
Actually interested in more material benefits
1885 – Congress of Berlin forms Congo Free State
This was ruled by Leopold II alone
The Congress of Berlin is referred to in the book as “the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs.”
Leopold never even visited the Congo. He set up “the Company” to run it for him.

6. Difference Between Colonialism & Imperialism
Colonialism is a term where a country conquers and rules over other regions. Imperialism means creating an empire, expanding into the neighboring regions and expanding its dominance far.
In Colonialism, one can see great movement of people to the new territory and living as permanent settlers. Imperialism is just exercising power over the conquered regions either through sovereignty or indirect mechanisms of control.

7. Africa and Imperialism

8. CONGO FREE STATE
(1885)
Henry Morton Stanley explores the region for Leopold II of Belgium
1890
Conrad’s expedition to the Congo (“Before the Congo I was a mere animal”)

9. Colonial Africa, circa 1892

10. Democratic Republic of the Congo
1908 Belgian Congo
1960 Independence
1964 People’s Republic of the Congo
1971 Republic of Zaire
1997 Democratic Republic of the Congo

11. Democratic Republic of the Congo (1997)
The name of this African nation derives from a people known as the BaKongo, first rendered as “Congo” in Portuguese chronicles of exploration in In their language, the 2,900-mile-long Congo River is called nzadi, “the river that swallows all rivers.”

12. “The White Man’s Burden”*
“King Leopold found the Congo…cursed by cannibalism, savagery, and despair; and he has been trying with patience, which I can never sufficiently admire, to relieve it of its horrors, rescue it from its oppressors, and save it from perdition.” --H.M. Stanley
*The idea that Europeans must carry the burden of civilizing Africa.

13. Different Motives of Imperialism
Some Westerners felt it was their duty to “civilize” the “savage” inhabitant of colonial lands in order to make them more “modern” and European. The English writer Rudyard Kipling displayed such an attitude in 1899 with a poem entitle “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 captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

14. The “White Man’s Burden”?
The first step toward lightening the White Man’s Burden is through teaching the virtues of cleanliness!
Pear’s Soap is a potent factor in brightening the dark corners of the earth as civilization advances, while amongst the cultured of all nations, it holds the highest place-it is the ideal toilet soap.

15. Ivory and “the White Man’s Burden”
Most Europeans in the 1890s felt that the African peoples needed exposure to European culture and technology to become more evolved.
This responsibility was known as “the white man’s burden” and the fervor to bring Christianity and commerce to Africa grew.
In return for these “benefits,” the Europeans extracted HUGE amounts of ivory.

16. Ivory, cont. Uses of ivory in the 1890s
Jewelry and other decorative items
Piano keys
Billiard balls
From 1888 to 1892, the amount of ivory exported from the Congo rose from 13,000 pounds to more than a quarter million pounds.
1892 – Leopold declares all natural resources in the Congo are his sole property
This gave the Belgians free reign to take whatever they wanted however they wished.
Trade expands, new stations are established farther and farther away

17. The Results of Ivory Fever
Documented atrocities committed by the Belgian ivory traders include the severing of hands and heads.
Reports of this, combined with Conrad’s portrayal of the system in Heart of Darkness, led to an international protest movement against Belgium’s presence in Africa
Leopold outlawed these practices, but his decree had little effect
Belgian parliament finally took control away from the king
Belgium did not grant independence to the Congo until 1960

18. Joseph Conrad’s Life
Born Josef Teodore Konrad Nalecz Korzeniowski, in Podolia, Ukraine, 3 December 1857.
Conrad’s father and mother, Apollo and Ewa, were political activists. They were imprisoned 7 months and eventually deported to Vologda.
Apollo introduced him son to the work of Dickens, Fenimore Cooper and Captain Marryat in Polish and French translations.

19. Joseph Conrad’s Life
His father died of tuberculosis and his funeral was attended by a thousand admirers
Conrad was raised by his uncle; attended school (he was disobedient)
In 1874, Conrad went to Marseilles, France, and joined the Merchant Navy.
Gun running for the Spanish and a love affair led to a suicide attempt.
Conrad became a British merchant sailor and eventually a master mariner and citizen in His ten years in the British Merchant Marine shaped most of his stories.

20. Joseph Conrad’s Life Conrad traveled widely in the east.
He took on a stint as a steamer captain (1890) in the Congo, but became ill within three months and had to leave.
Conrad retired from sailing and took up writing full time.
Died of a heart attack in 1924.
Buried in Canterbury Cathedral.

21. Heart of Darkness
First published as a serial in London’s Blackwood Magazine in 1899
First unified publication in1902
Considered by many to be the finest short novel ever written in English
Bridges the Victorian and Modern literary periods
Modern criticism sharply divided over merit due to racist/imperialist themes

22. Heart of Darkness Background
After a long stint in the east had come to an end, he was having trouble finding a new position.
With the help of a relative in Brussels he got the position as captain of a steamer for a Belgian trading company.
Conrad had always dreamed of sailing the Congo
He had to leave early for the job, as the previous captain was killed in a trivial quarrel

23. Heart of Darkness Background
Conrad saw some of the most shocking and depraved examples of human corruption he’d ever witnessed. He was disgusted by the ill treatment of the natives, the scrabble for loot, the terrible heat and the lack of water.
He saw human skeletons of bodies left to rot - many were men from the chain gangs building the railroads.
He found his ship was damaged.
Dysentary was rampant as was malaria; Conrad had to terminate his contract due to illness and never fully recovered

24. Heart of Darkness Narrative Structure
Framed Narrative
Narrator begins
Marlow takes over
Narrator breaks in occasionally
Marlow is Conrad’s alter-ego, he shows up in some of Conrad’s other works including “Youth: A Narrative” and Lord Jim
Marlow recounts his tale while he is on a small vessel on the Thames with some drinking buddies who are ex-merchant seamen. As he recounts his story the group sits in an all-encompassing darkness.

25. Narrative Structure of Heart of Darkness

26. Contrasts in Heart of Darkness
Light vs. Dark
Heavy vs. Light
Inferiority vs. Superiority
Civil vs. Savage
Interior vs. Exterior
Illusion vs. Truth
Misogyny vs. Misanthropy
Insanity vs. Sanity
Racism vs. Anti-racism
Imperialism vs. Insularity
Evil
What makes well-intentioned people do bad things?

27. Heart of Darkness Motifs
Primitive Impulses (Kurtz, previous captain, etc.)
Cruelty of Man (Kurtz and Company)
Immorality/Amorality (Kurtz)
Lies/Hypocrisy (Marlow chooses Kurtz’s evil versus Company’s hypocritical evil)
Imperialization/Colonization (Belgian Company)
Greed / Exploitation of People
Power Corrupts
Savage vs. Civil

28. Heart of Darkness Motifs
Role of Women
Civilization exploitive of women
Civilization as a binding and self-perpetuating force
Physical connected to Psychological
Barriers (fog, thick forest)
Rivers (connection to past, parallels time and journey)