Heart Of Darkness didn’t live up to the hype for me. I got
far more out of a study of the themes, background, and historical significance
than I did out of an enjoyment on the first read. There were quite a few
outstanding lines, but the narrative is maudlin and slow. I’m sure it was very
progressive for its time in provocative content and style, especially for tying
in psychological observation and analysis, and I’m sure that’s why even its form,
which now has been repeated and surpassed, is so appreciated by many to this
day. It is one of those books which I believe now belongs, stylistically at
least, to early 20th century literature, although the message is
still going strong.
In it, Conrad called out European colonialism, narcissism,
and conventional morality for what it was: an arrogant illusion of sanity and
progress. Heart Of Darkness was a
mordant accusation against western modernism which pretended to be able to tame
what is wild in humanity and what is unknown in the universe. It shows how
flimsy is our pretense of appearing to be in control and in ‘the know’. We
aren’t. We will always be far from understanding the universe if only by virtue
of the fact that we are ‘in’ it, and cannot distance ourselves far enough from
it and ourselves to achieve complete comprehension of our situation. We are thralls
to mystery and the eternal unknown within which we lie buried, and which will
forever expand itself through the cosmic wormhole running straight through the
center of our being.
Conrad uses this novella as a set-up for exploring the dark
and cognitively unassimilated parts of our psyche and existence, and this is
what he calls the “Fascination Of the Abomination.”
“The utter savagery had closed
round him—all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest
in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There’s no initiation either into
such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is
also detestable. And it has a fascination, too, that goes to work upon him. The
fascination of the abomination…”
What we can’t understand, what we can’t fathom, fascinates
us, draws us; and yet it is deep within us the inescapable and uncharted
territories of the human soul and unconscious mind. The civilized person
recoils at the thought of the natural world as an untamed force, but Conrad takes
us far inland, into the jungle, where large-framed pictures can’t hide the
holes, and aerosol disinfectants can’t mask the rank, bacterial growth of the
inhumane, intractable, and inscrutable features of Nature.
What can save one from despair in the face of this abominable
incomprehension? Conrad mocks the pseudo-answers of habits and custom. “Mind,
none of us would feel exactly like this [lost]. What saves us is efficiency—the
devotion to efficiency.” This idea of custom as the salve to our angst is
echoed later in the play by Beckett, Waiting
For Godot, who wrote that “habit is a great deadener” which stifles thoughts
and questions about life’s meaning which cause us distress. The great unknowns
of 1) foreign minds and powers in the universe that threaten to cause one harm,
and 2) the post-modern search for the purpose and meaning of life, may appear
like two different things, but each one causes a certain amount of anxiety,
and both are responded to by developing
methods and customs that help us feel like we belong and have a handle on
things. An interesting moment in the narrative comes when Marlow comes across a
book in a shelter in the dark, usurping jungle which was written on the banal
subject of nautical methods; and finds that the “singleness of intention” and
“honest concern for the right way of going to work” makes him “forget the
jungle and the pilgrims in a delicious sensation of having come upon something
unmistakably real.”
The whole point of this story is for the sailor in Conrad to
pistol-whip his safe, landlubber-readers with the question: how thin is the so-called
‘veneer of civilization’? He exposes culture as a thin coating which peels in
the heat of privation and conflict, and quickly flakes away leaving only the
real, bitter, and irreducible ‘hungers’ of the carnal instincts. “No [moral] fear
can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out, disgust simply does not
exist where hunger is; and as to superstition, beliefs, and what you may call
principles, they are less than chaff in a breeze…It’s really easier to face
bereavement, dishonor, and the perdition of one’s soul—than this kind of
prolonged hunger. Sad, but true.” His infrared scope identifies the vital
organs for the kill when he refers to modern man as “stepping delicately
between the butcher [food] and the policeman [safety].” Shot through the heart,
and Conrad’s to blame!!
There certainly appears to be some Victorian misogyny and
probably some racism infecting the fin de
siècle psychical baggage Conrad carries with him, but I do agree with Joyce
Carol Oates who wrote in the introduction that he was much more advanced than
others in is era, and did much to bring to consciousness the shortcomings of European
imperialism and bias. Specifically he challenged the moral-spiritual squalor of
Victorian decorum and opulence, and the tendency of Europeans to believe that
they were morally superior to the rest of the less developed parts of the world
by right of privileged birth and by dubious evidence of material success.
Conrad was intrigued with the contrast between the
bewitchment of the untamed wild (the “fascination of abomination,” and the
“horror” of Mr. Kurtz), and the cavalier complaisance of domesticated and
dissociated society (European greed, and the melodrama of Mr. Kurtz’s fiancée).
As an author he may have been experimenting with the idea of how to get back to
the raw primordial forces of nature and the unconscious without sacrificing the
discipline and stability of reason and community. The Wild is not as safe as it
is powerful. “I wondered whether the stillness on the face of the immensity [the
dark jungle] looking at us two were meant as an appeal or as a menace… Could we
handle that dumb thing, or would it handle us?” And in the end, Marlow returns
to his society, to his people and his customs and his habits. As if nothing
ever happened. But the spectacle of his
conscious duplicity is made very explicit in his final conversation with Kurtz’
fiancée-widow which caricatures the European attitude so wonderfully and magnifies
Conrad’s disgust for upper-class theatrics and hypocrisy. A year after Kurtz’s
death his engaged is still melodramatically woeful about her loss. She
practically swoons all over the place in front of Marlow boasting of Kurtz’s fine
modern ideals and righteous superiority, and begs of Marlow to corroborate her
convictions about her husband’s worth. Marlow
watches her histrionics and finally decides to play to them. Instead of
revealing to her that he saw the transmogrification of Kurtz and had witnessed
his final words in which he acknowledged the deep and writhing darkness that is
life—“Horror! Horror!”—he instead dumbs down the climactic ending of Kurtz and
tells instead that he died whispering her name to the very end. Isn’t that
nice. But he’s shocked and obviously disappointed that the ceiling doesn’t cave
in on him, or more importantly, on anyone else for lying the civilized lie of
hypocrisy and egocentrism. “The heavens do not fall for such a trifle.”
Did Conrad desire a peeling away of civilization’s mask, and
a return to the freedom, mystery, and power of the wild in some sense? Yes and
no. I think he saw in it, as did many modern psychologists and philosophers, a
raw, unharnessed force that could potentially help to enhance creativity and
vigor; or it could be very destructive. Mr. Kurtz went feral, to his own demise
and to the demise of others around him, but he successfully escaped the cheap
substitute of being a decent citizen
which couldn’t quite satisfy the primal instinct for adventure, mystery, and
power. Then again, he killed and died. So, there’s that. Tipping the scale
either way brings extreme ennui, angst of meaninglessness, suffering, or death.
And for anyone who doesn’t know, anything Conrad can do,
London can do better, and with less words. Jack London wrote The Call Of the Wild and The Sea Wolf on this same topic, and his
authorial execution of the ‘return to the wild’ theme, which was his specialty, is much more muscular and sportive in
nearly all of his works. Conrad is much more wordy and formal in his narrative,
while London lets loose with a cunning, creativity, and pompous confidence that
makes his words cut to the quick and soar above careful writers like Conrad.
Search your feelings Luke. You know it’s true. Just my
humble opinion. But I’m right.
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