A Journey in Congo, Giorgio Trombatore takes the journey of Conrad in Deep Congo

Are there any changes of C. Marlow's Congo ?
Can Marlow be considered a 20th century man?

by
Giorgio Trombatore















“We live as we dream- alone”

Introduction

In the last fifteen years I have been working in the so called “Third World Countries”, as humanitarian officer in areas with terrible problems like famine, civil wars, floods, earthquakes: firstly as United Nations operator in the Peace Keeping Operations and later on with Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs). One of the last countries in Africa where I was employed as humanitarian expert has been Congo, the same location where the scenario of Joseph Conrad’s novel “Heart of Darkness” takes place .
I believe this was one of the reasons why I selected “Heart of Darkness” as my degree thesis, probably because I started to analyse Conrad’s Congo and asked myself whether there were similarities, events and topics between the Congo told us by Conrad and my present experience .
I worked in Congo in an humanitarian project funded by the DFID (Department for International Development) an English Government body that assisted the refugees of the war torn region of Ituri (border with Uganda) in several camps for internally displaced people.
This Thesis is divided in three chapters.
In the first chapter I analyse the main themes of Heart of Darkness, especially those referring to the ambiguous use of the word “ Darkness” and as well the role of the “River Congo” and some of the main topics such as the figure of “Mister Kurtz” or the mysterious and strong character of the “Wild woman”.
In the second chapter I start by analysing the novel and exploring the possible meaning behind the word “Darkness” that is cited so many times in the novel. Moreover I explore the reasons behind Joseph Conrad decision in 1890 to undertake a voyage into the Belgian Congo with the ship “Ville de Maceio” and with the “Société Anonyme Belge pour le commerce du Haut Congo”. Finally a critical study of the criss–crossing boundaries of imperialistic ideology and epistemology. This part aims to identify these ideologies, and see if we can further draw conclusions as to whether, and to what extent, the traveller/narrator manages to overcome or subvert them.
The third chapter is dedicated to my own personal experience in the African continent specifically in the Republic of Congo in the twentieth century. This latest part it is an effort to imagine our narrator Marlow in the same context almost one century later, in order to study and evaluate whether the problems of colonialism, slavery and “darkness” have been eradicated or whether these problems are still a reality even in the twentieth century .
Following the conclusion there is the list of the Bibliography.






1. The Discovery of the Novel

1.1 Darkness

Conrad uses the word “darkness” many times, 26 times overall. I could say that it is the leitmotif of the novel. Darkness is important conceptually to be part of the book title. However, it is difficult to discern exactly what it might mean, given that absolutely everything in the book is hidden in darkness. Africa, England, and Brussels are all described as gloomy and somehow dark, even if the sun is shining brightly, it could be also the heart of man. Darkness in this way seems to operate metaphorically and existentially rather than specifically. Darkness is the inability to see: this may sound simple, but as a description of the human condition it has profound implication. Failing to see another human being means failing to understand the individual and failing to establish any sort of sympathetic communion with him or her.
Another thing that hits you is the way of telling the story, just few words telling terrible truth without explanation and comment by the author. The innovative use of sentence structure is considered to be the prelude to the “stream of consciousness” prose used by Joyce or Beckett .

1.2 The Hypocrisy of Imperialism

Heart of darkness explores the issues surrounding imperialism in complicated ways. As Marlow travels along the Congo river, encountering scenes of torture, cruelty, and near –slavery, the scenery offers a harsh picture of colonial enterprise. In the other hand the hypocrisy inherent in the rhetoric used to justify imperialism is great and leave you astonished. The men who work for the Company describe what they do as “ trade” and their treatment of native Africans is part of a benevolent project of “civilization” mission. I think that the treatment of the natives has nothing to do with civilization but with the words “suppression and extermination” actually the white men do not trade but they rather take ivory by force with violence and intimidation.
Definitely the novel has been considered for most of the last century not only as a literary classic, but as a powerful indictment of the evils of imperialism. It reflects the savage repressions carried out in the Congo by the Belgians in one of the largest acts of genocide committed up to that time. Conrad’s narrator Marlow encounters at the end of the story a man named Kurtz, dying, insane, and guilty of unspeakable atrocities. More recently, African critics like Chinua Achebe have pointed out that the story can be read as a racist or colonialist parable in which Africans are depicted as innately irrational and violent, and in which Africa itself is
reduced to a metaphor for that which White Europeans fear within themselves . The people of Africa and the land where they live, remain inscrutably alien, that is why the titles implies that Africa is the heart of darkness .In this Heart of Darkness sometimes the whites who “ go native” risk releasing the “ savage” within themselves .
Defenders of Conrad sometimes argue that the narrator does not speak in Conrad’s own voice, and that layer of irony conceals his true views.

1.3 Nightmare

Generally when Europeans are in Africa, they are impressed by the scenery of landscape, by the colour of the sky ,the green of the bush, the red colour of the earth ,the chorus of birds or the silence all around you.
The savannah, the forest, the animals, everything is so beautiful that new comers often feel mesmerized by this land.
But despite all beauty that Africa can offer to the travellers, reading the novel Heart of Darkness there is nothing of all that, it is just like a nightmare, it remains one of the great meditations in literature, and one of the purest expressions of a melancholy temperament. The novella is a brief early modernist work which eludes simplistic readings and conventional interpretations. It uses language as a way of evoking some terrible and final truths that lie somewhere beneath the surface of things and it is left to the narrative to deliver them. Narrative does not explain, it introduces plural meanings where none had been before at the heart of darkness.

1.4 Colonialism

Colonialism is a political activity with the target of conquering vast territories and the aim to exploit the natural resources of a country keeping respective population under complete servile submission. From an historical point of view colonialism takes place with the establishment over a certain territory of a rule by a foreigner minority which impose his race and cultural superiority over the native majority . It is clear that colonialist exploit the weakness of others.
Africa affected Conrad profoundly. On his Congo expedition he came up against the real face of colonialism with its greed and corruption, and the suffering it caused native populations. He found himself repelled by the behaviour of the so-called civilized Europeans with whom he had to deal. The imagery of light and dark very clearly corresponds to the tension that is arranged between civilization and savagery. The Thames River is called a” gateway to civilization” because it connects to the civilized city of London. It is important to note that the city is always described in stark contrast to its dark surroundings, which may be water or land, they are so amorphous.
What strikes me is the way of Conrad observation of the African Congo native. The darkness of their skin is always mentioned. At first glance, Marlow describes them as “ mostly black and naked, moving about like
ants, while in the shade, dark things seem to stir feebly.” There is absolutely no differentiation between dark animals and dark people. Even the rags worn by the native people are described as tails. The constant dehumanisation of black people is almost obsessive on the author’s part . He is looking to build a very close –minded picture of the colonists ,Black shapes crawl on the ground, creatures walk on all fours to get a drink from the river. They are called shadow: reflections of humans, but not substantial enough to be real. Marlow observes the piece of white string on a young man, and he is shocked to see how much the whiteness stands out against the darkness. He cannot seem to conceive of mixing black and white.

1.5 A Wild Woman

After “dark things “ or “ black shapes” crouching on the ground suddenly the apparition of a savage and magnificent black woman is almost strange and crucial. Conrad is over-refined in his choice of words . “ The wild and gorgeous black woman walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly… she carried her head high, she was wild-eyed and superb ... Her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow …she had brass leggings to the knee, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow …innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts, that hung about her ,glittered and trembled at every step … she must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her…” Marlow frequently claims that women are the keepers of naïve illusions; although this sounds condemnatory, such a
role is in fact crucial, as these naïve illusions are at the root of the social fictions that justify economic enterprise and colonial expansion.
It is the first and the last time that the author uses for a black human being so many words and I think that the reason is to underline that ladies have always an important part in the men’s life.
She was Kurtz’s African mistress and we know that women are the beneficiaries of much of resulting wealth, and they become objects upon which men can display their own success and their status symbol .

1.6 The “ Whited Sepulchre”

The “ whited sepulchre “ is probably Brussels, where the Company’s headquarters are located. A sepulchre implies death and confinement, and indeed Europe is the origin of the colonial enterprises that brings death to white men and to their colonial subjects ; it is also governed by a set of strict social principles that both enable cruelty, dehumanisation, and evil and prohibit change. The phrase “ whited sepulchre” comes from the biblical Book of Matthew. In the passage, Matthew describes “ whited sepulchres” as something beautiful on the outside but containing horrors within ( the bodies of the dead ) ; thus the image is appropriate for Brussels, given the hypocritical Belgian rhetoric about imperialism’s civilizing mission. (Belgian colonies, particularly the Congo, were notorious for the violence perpetuated against the natives. )

1.7 Fog

Fog is a sort of corollary to darkness. Fog not only obscures but distorts : it gives one just enough information to begin making decisions but no way to judge the accuracy of that information, which often ends up being wrong. Marlow’s steamer is caught in the fog ,meaning that he has no idea where he’s going and no idea whether peril or open water lies ahead.

1.8 The Congo river

The Congo river is the key to Africa for Europeans . It allows them access to the centre of the continent without having to physically cross it ; in other words, it allows the white man to remain always separate or outside. Africa is thus reduced to a series of two-dimensional scenes that flash by Marlow’s steamer as he travels upriver. The river also seems to want to expel Europeans from Africa altogether : its current makes travel upriver slow and difficult, but the flow of water makes travel downriver, back toward “ civilization” rapid and seemingly inevitable . Marlow’s struggles with the river as he travels upstream towards Kurtz reflect his struggles to understand the situation in which he has found himself. The ease with which he journeys back downstream, on the other hand, mirrors his acquiescence to Kurtz and his “ choice of nightmares.

1.9 Mistah Kurtz

Proceeding on his journey, Marlow enters finally in contact with the mysterious Mr. Kurtz, known to be by company as “ the best agent we have, an exceptional man”. Finally once Marlow reaches the Central Station is told that he will have to take his boat to the Inner Station and bring back Kurtz who is very sick .
Kurtz , a European who had entered the African wilderness equipped with the idealism of a dedicate civil servant has achieved a semi divine power over the natives. What is strange and interesting in the novel is that everybody knows Kurtz, everybody has been impressed by him in someway and talks about the man, he is always present on the scene like Godot , the difference is that in this novel Kurtz at the end enters the scene almost dying but he is there while Godot never shows up .
Action is always undermined by Conrad’s way of telling it, so far that action comes to seem almost incidental to the true point of the story.
Marlow meditates over “ the strange rumours” of Kurtz’s unorthodox behaviour, which fascinate him to as great an extent as it embarrasses everyone else .
Under the influence of the elemental brutality of the jungle he has sunk into a state of depravity as primitive unimaginable. “In a hurried, indistinct voice he began to assure me he had not dared to take these – say ,symbols – down. He was not afraid of the natives ; they would not stir till Mr Kurtz gave the word . His ascendancy was extraordinary… details would be more intolerable than those heads drying on the stakes under Mr Kurtz’s windows . After all , that was only a savage sight, while I seemed at one bound to have been transported into some lightless region of subtle horrors…”
In his dying moments as he mutters a pitiful expression of remorse. His last words are : “ The horror ! The horror !”. As Marlow concludes his story he can produce no coherent explanation of the enigma of Kurtz. It is as though Conrad is about to deliver some final truth, but cannot or will not do so. “The mind of man is capable of anything” he says.
In Author’s world, the abyss of the void is constant and menacing presence, and that evil which lies within man unacknowledged ever threatens to destroy his integrity .
This novella is, above all, an exploration of hypocrisy, ambiguity, and moral confusion. It explores the idea of proverbial choice between the lesser of two evils. As the idealistic Marlow is forced to align himself with either the hypocritical and malicious colonial bureaucracy or the openly malevolent ,rule-defying Kurtz, it becomes increasingly clear that trying to judge either alternative is an act of folly: how can moral standards or social values be relevant in judging evil ? Is there such thing as insanity in a world that has already gone insane?
The number of ridiculous situations Marlow witnesses act as reflections of the larger issue: at one station, for instance, he sees a man trying to carry water in a bucket with a large hole in it. At the Outer Station, he watches native labourers blast away at a hillside with no particular goal in mind. The absurd involves both significant silliness and life-or-death issues, often simultaneously. That the serious and the mundane are treated similarly suggests a profound moral confusion and a tremendous hypocrisy: it is terrifying that Kurtz’s homicidal megalomania and a leaky bucket provoke essentially the same reaction from Marlow.



1.10 Madness and Imperialism

Madness is closely linked to imperialism in this book. Africa is responsible for mental disintegration as well as for physical illness. Madness has two primary functions. First, it serves as an ironic device to engage the reader’s sympathies. Kurtz, Marlow is told from the beginning, is mad. However, as for Marlow and for the reader, it begins to form a more complete picture of Kurtz; it becomes apparent that his madness is only relative, that in the contest of the Company insanity is different to define. Thus, both Marlow and the reader begin to sympathize with Kurtz and view the Company with suspicion. Madness also functions to establish the necessity of social fictions. Although social mores and explanatory justifications are shown throughout Heart of Darkness to be resolutely false and even leading to evil, they are nevertheless necessary for both group harmony and individual security. Madness, in Heart of Darkness, is the result of being removed from one’s social context and allowed to be sole arbiter of one’s own actions. Madness is thus linked not only to absolute power and a kind of moral genius but to man’s fundamental fallibility.

1.11 Observation and overhearing

Marlow gains a great deal of information by watching the world around him and by overhearing others conversations, as when he listens from the deck of the wrecked steamer to the manager of the Central Station and his uncle discussing Kurtz and the Russian trader. This phenomenon speaks to the impossibility of direct communication between individuals : Information must come as the result of chance observation and astute interpretation. Words themselves fail to capture meaning adequately, and thus they must be taken in the contest of their pronunciation. Another good example of this is Marlow’s conversation with the brick maker, during which Marlow is able to figure out a good deal more than simply what the man has to say.

























2. Ideological Boundaries

2.1 Analysis of the Novel

The logical point to start analysing this story is to study the title to of the novel. “ Darkness” as I said before, is a problematic word with several meanings. Initially in the novel it is referred to the context of map places and on those locations of darkness that have been coloured in after exploration carried out by colonialists. The idea of a map is an important symbol. They are guides and records of exploration. They have dual purposes in which they unlock mysteries by laying out the geography of unknown lands. They create more mystery by inspiring curiosity about unknown lands on and off the map. The river is another important symbol. Always moving, not very predictable, the gateway to a wider world, it is an excellent metaphor for Marlow’s life. Marlow says that since he was a child he always had a “passion” for maps, for the “glories of exploration”. Although this description seems very positive, it sounds ominous. The tone is of one who recalls childhood notions with bitterness and regret. The reader can extrapolate these ideas simply by taking into account the first description of Marlow. The sallow skin and sunken cheeks do not portray him as healthy or happy. He has had the chance to explore, and apparently the experience has ruined him in some aspect. This is Conrad’s way of arranging the overall structure of the novel. The audience understands that it is to be a recollection, a tale that will account for Marlow’s presently shaky, impenetrable state. The author is also presupposing knowledge of colonialism. The bitterness of Marlow’s recollection demonstrate Conrad’s own strong bias against colonialism, which he wants to share with the reader. The imagery of light and dark very clearly corresponds to the tension that is arranged between civilization and savagery. The Thames River is called a “ gateway to civilization” because it connects to the civilized city of London. It is important to note that the city is always described in stark contrast to its dark surrounding, which may be land or water ,they are so shapeless. The vivid language of maps becomes more interesting when we consider that the word darkness still retains its traditional meaning of evil and dread. The fact that Marlow applies the concept of darkness to conquered territories once again indicates his negative view of colonialism. He clearly states that colonists are only exploiting the weakness of others . The spreading over the world is no more noble than other types of violence and thievery. On the map, places that are blank and devoid of outside interference are apparently the most desirable. Darkness has another application, a colour of skin . Much of one chapter is spent discussing Marlow’s primary encounter with natives of the African Congo and the observations that he made upon them. The darkness of their skin is always mentioned .
As ignorant as Marlow’s perceptions may appear to our modern reading, it is crucial to realize that even before he experienced the African jungle, he existed in a class of his own, separated from everyone else. It is not accidental that he is the only person on the Thames boat Nelly who is named, all the other are presented as titles of their occupation. He is distinct from them because he has no category that fits him. He is a man “who does not represent his class” because he crosses boundaries. His reaction to the African natives may not be sensitive by our modern standards, but he is more kind than the other officers at the stations. The chief accountant dismisses the cries of a dying black man as annoying. Clearly he has no respect for the lives of the Africans. The offering of a biscuit to a young boy with the white string is a nice gesture with deeper meaning. It appears to be somehow considerate, but it is also degrading. Marlow does this because he can think of nothing else to do as he looks into the boy’s vacant eyes. The action is analogous to giving a dog some meat ,that he might be content and retreat back to his corner. Marlow means well, but he is definitely a product of the society in which he was raised. Immediately following the encounter with the young boy, he meets the chief accountant who is perfectly dressed with collar, cuffs, jacket, and all the rest. He refers to him as “ amazing” and a “ miracle” We observe at this moment the distinction between savagery and civilization, at least through Marlow’s narrow definitions. The diction demonstrates a type of hero to worship for this man. His starched collars and cuffs are achievements of character, and Marlow respects him on this basis. Taking into account the colonialism factor, however, creates bitter irony to the author, because those who look the most civilized in this novel are actually the most savage. Indeed, the institution of colonialism is referred as a “ flabby , pretending ,weak-eyed devil” .
Conrad purposely flies over certain events while he examines others in minute detail. He does this in order to build suspicion about the place to which Marlow has committed himself. Often there are conversations that involve the unseen character Kurtz .Thus begins Marlow’s consuming obsession with this man . At the moment, it is more or less inactive, and does not inspire fear. Perfectly placed leading questions such as the one about a history of family insanity have the desired effect of alerting readers to a rather fishy situation. The fact that Marlow ignores all of this warnings creates some dramatic irony, it will take him longer to arrive at the conclusion which the reader has already reached. One level of speech and communication in this novel exists in the fact that Marlow is telling a
story. His recollections have a hazy, dreamy quality. The narrative is surely an examination of human spirit. As all stories are subjective, we have to question how trustworthy both narrative and speakers are. The outside narrator only refers to what Marlow says and does all others ignored. There is a definite selection of fact that occurs. Marlow’s perception of the African environment, which develops into a larger theme, illustrates this idea .
As far as Kurtz is concerned, there is an incomplete communication, Marlow and the reader know him, even though not in the reality. He obviously painted him as a sinister character. People discussed him in a hushed sense ,always complimenting him. However, the fact that nobody has anything negative to say about him is suspicious, as if everybody is terribly anxious to stay on his good side. The portrait of the brick maker, of the first agent’s room, of the blind woman holding a torch, suggests the failing of Kurtz: that has blindly travelled into such situation and become absorbed in it, much as the woman is absorbed into the darkness of the painting.
It is important to see that even in this chaotic jungle, it exists a contorted sense of morality. As the Manager and his uncle discuss Kurtz, they are willing to do anything that will get him or his assistant the Russian hanged, that the trading field might be levelled to their advantage, since “anything can be done in this country”. They both still retain a sense of law, but the most base components of the personalities control all their intensions ; therefore the civilized law of the European continent is discarded for a more vigilant existence. The revealing of such predatory nature points to the theme of instilled savagery.
The Congo has a metamorphic effect on the Europeans . The land is a living entity, that has the potential to create evil. The inferiority of the natives is a threat that runs throughout the story. About the fireman on his ship, Marlow remarks “ he was there below me …to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches .” The physical position of the body corresponds to a mental and social state. The author creates a sense of what might be termed inherent inferiority of the blacks , in all possible aspects they are subservient to the white man ,and even seen them wear pants amounts to no more than a warped joke. The one time a native actually speaks is when the ship approaches the bush, right before the attack, and all he has to say is that any prisoners should be given to the crew as a meal. More than anything the comment is comic. An attack is about to occur, and this man is concerned about eating ? It is Conrad’s hidden means of demonstrating the simplicity of the natives. The narrator cannot understand why the white men were not eaten. He cannot credit the blacks with any intelligence beyond instinct. During the battle, one native is shot, meanwhile Marlow and the Manager are watching : “ I declare it looked as though he would presently put to us some question in an understandable language, but he died without uttering a sound”. There is never a comprehension of blacks. They are always evaluate and silenced before they can speak. Marlow does feel a real kinship to his savage crew, which places him above all other whites. However, he has also shortcomings, his appreciation of the helmsman after he died seems more appropriate to a machine than a person.
The figure of Kurtz grows more enigmatic in this chapter, and we return to the theme of voices and communication.
Communication fails when Marlow cannot decipher the book and when the note has an incomplete warning. Marlow’s obsession with Kurtz has reached its height. Talking to this has become the entire reason for Marlow’s passage through this jungle. The fact that authoritative, unpleasant figures such as the Manager dislike Kurtz make the reader more receptive to liking him. We should notice that Marlow and Kurtz are the only two characters in the entire story who are named. Everyone else is titled, detached and therefore dehumanised.
This is an effective mean of drawing a relationship between the two characters before they even meet each other. As soon as Marlow believes that Kurtz is dead, his presence begins to dominate him more vividly, Marlow hears his voice, sees him in action. Kurtz is even stronger than dead. The reason Kurtz affects Marlow so deeply is that he has turned his back on his roots and essentially become native. This demonstrates that there is much more Marlow ‘s personality than what appears. He is not the average European. The reader understands that we will receive the most accurate portrait of Marlow through his interaction with Kurtz .
While Kurtz is certainly consumed with his search for ivory (his face and body are described in terms of this precious resource), Conrad does not provide any evidence that he is concerned with the material aspects, his house and existence are extremely simple, despite all the ivory he has recovered. If money and fame were the only important entities, he could have returned to England long ago. The Russian states that Kurtz “ would
lose himself among the people”. The staked heads around his home demonstrate a lack of restraint in the gratification of various lusts. They are necessary for a man with a bog appetite .
The image of Kurtz in his deathbed, opening his mouth wide, gives him a “ voracious aspect “ as if he wants to absorb and swallow everything. His need to plan and consume ,however , has consumed his mind and spirit.
The “horror” he pronounces on his deathbed is a judgement upon how he has lived in his life. We can definitely see Kurt’s demise as a possible end for Marlow had he not left the Congo. As it was, the wilderness was certainly creeping and merging into his psyche, there was a moment when he could not tell the difference between a drum beat and his own heartbeat. He appears to have escaped in time. Marlow’s lie at the end of the story is both cruel and compassionate. While the Intended woman is comforted, she will have to continue believing in an illusion. She will never know what Kurtz was become. As Marlow states, the truth is “ too dark” to tell. Truly his terrible decline is vain if no one learns from it. This is completely the reason why Marlow is telling the tale to the people aboard the Thames river ship Nelly. The river, which once led to civilization, now leads into darkness .

2.2 Conrad’s Journey to Congo

I want to remind that Joseph Conrad himself in 1890, while he was the sole Polish-born captain in the British Merchant Marine, undertook a voyage into the Belgian Congo with the ship “ Ville de Maceio” and with the “ Société Anonyme Belge pour le commerce du Haut Congo” in the same locations of Marlow ‘s journey and he could observe with his own eyes the cruelties and the horrors done by the Whites Europeans over there. Conrad himself tells his publisher that the story he was writing was about “ the criminality of inefficiency and pure selfishness when tackling the civilizing work in Africa”. The political and historical contest of Conrad’s voyage is the so called Scramble for Africa, in which the imperial powers of Europe, foremost among them Belgium, Britain, France, Germany and Portugal divided up a whole continent into respective spheres of influence. These undertakings were accompanied by aggressive imperialist rhetoric, which sought to justify colonial exploitation on the grounds of the inferiority of the Africans, who were regarded as a separate, lower race. The kind of rhetoric conveyed an image of Africa as a place where savage ruled supreme, and where the white European hero or super-man was called upon to implement the rudiments of civilization with the help of his omnipotence, which was based above all on superior weaponry. In their perception of Africa and Africans , European travellers were inevitably influenced by these images and their concomitant ideology. Indeed, as Edward Said points out “ in the closing years of the nineteenth century, imperialist ideology was at the same time an aesthetic, politics, and even epistemology inevitable and unavoidable” .

2.3 Marlow’s Journey: Criss-crossing the Boundaries of Imperialist Ideology and Epistemology

The way we perceive and know the world is not universal and unchanging, but is informed, possibly even determined, by the dominant ideologies of a particular time ,place and culture. Accounts of voyages lend themselves exceptionally well to study of the interrelation between
epistemology and ideology ,because the way a traveller/ narrator attempts to conceptualise and describe the experience of a foreign reality throws into relief the ideologies which constitute the boundaries of his/her perception and understanding . By identifying these ideologies, we can further draw conclusions as to whether, and to what extent, the traveller/narrator manages to overcome or subvert them .
In the following I would like to explore the question of whether Marlow, in the way he perceives and conceptualises Africa and the Africans on his voyage, simply reproduces the stereotypes of imperialist ideology, or manages to critique, or even subvert, the latter by developing new ways of seeing it. From the very start it is clear to Marlow that this will not be an ordinary journey : he feels “as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth” . Indeed, as the African coast glides away Marlow realizes that he is being confronted with a reality that will severely tax, maybe even overthrow his habitual ways of decoding and making sense of the world :
“ Watching a coast as it slips by the ship is like thinking about an enigma. There it is before you –smiling, frowning , inviting, grand , mean, insipid , or savage , and always mute with an air of whispering . Come and find out . This one was almost featureless , as if still in the making , with an aspect of monotonous grimness . The edge of a colossal jungle, so dark-green as to be almost black , fringed with white surf , ran straight ,like a
ruled line , far away along a blue sea whose glitter was blurred by a
creeping mist” .
Marlow compares his feeling of alienation to being “ within the toil of a mournful and senseless delusion”, which is exacerbated by his first glimpses of imperialism in practice at the Company’s Outer and Central Stations. His observations directly contradict the basic tenets of imperialist ideology and rhetoric. One such tenet, for instance, was that the colonizers brought progress to backward areas which – on the
station Marlow just discovers “inhabited devastation “Although the implements of most basic level – meant economic development. Instead of a flourishing trade progress are visible ,they have been abandoned: “ a boiler wallowing in the grass, an undersized railway truck lying [ … ]on its back with its wheels in the air ,scattered about other pieces of decaying machinery ,a stack of rusty nails” , work going on, it seems not just inefficient but without any purpose, the exact opposite of how work was defined in imperialist rhetoric :
“A heavy and dull detonation shook the ground , a puff of smoke came out of the cliff, and that was all . No change appeared on the face of the rock . Thy were building a The railway . The cliff was not in the way or anything; but this objectless blasting was all the work going on ”.
In Marlow’s description work and building a railway have become ironic
expressions of contempt – nothing of the kind is happening. The white people in charge of the station are certainly no “ superior beings” or representatives of a “ master race” as suggested by imperialist propaganda. To Marlow they appear as “ flabby , pretending , weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly” . Instead of fulfilling their vaunted philanthropic mission to civilize and humanize the natives, they treat Africans like slaves, brutally exploiting their labour power and inventing excuses to punish or torture them. By noting the glaring contrast between imperialist rhetoric and the reality of colonialist practice, Marlow seems to develop an awareness of the way his construction of reality has been informed by imperialist ideology. Because he feels revolted by what he observes the Europeans to be doing in Africa, he distances himself from and maybe even take a distance from his own culture. Thus he manages to step outside imperialist ideology’s totalizing world-view, and frees his mind for new way of seeing.
He turns with sympathy to those suffering the most from the Europeans’ “fantastic invasion” , the Africans. In his delineation of the atrocious treatment of the blacks at the Outer and Central Station Marlow’s emphasis is on the Africans’ misery and humanity rather than on their alleged inferiority. The description “ the grove of death” , is well described in the following paragraph :
“Black shapes crouched ,lay , at between the trees , leaning against the
trunks , clinging to the earth , half coming out , half effaced within the dim light , in all the attitudes of pain , abandonment , and despair.[…]
They were dying slowly ,it was very clear . They were not enemies , they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation , lying confusedly in the greenish gloom” .
By establishing a direct causal link between the dying Africans and the imperialist “ work “ going on in the background, Marlow leaves no doubt as to whom he blames for what he calls an “ inferno” . From this perspective it is the Europeans who appear as “ brutes” ,and not the Africans. Marlow thus not only subverts, but reverses the binary opposition between the savage and the civilized as inscribed in imperialist ideology. In the grove of death, Marlow spontaneously offers “ one of my good Swede’s ship’s biscuits I had in my pocket” to one of the dying Africans. This act of compassion, in which he sympathetically reaches out to the Other , is symbolic of the way Marlow engages with the Africans. Instead of adhering to the ideologically constructed gulf between the white imperialist and the “degenerate savages”, Marlow builds bridges simply by being curious and asking questions about Africans and their culture. When, for instance, he observes a “bit of white worsted” tied round an African’s neck, he wonders : “ Why? where he did he get it ? Was it a badge ,an ornament, a charm ,a propitiatory act ? Was there any idea at all connected with it ?”
Later on he will marvel at what prevents the apparently cannibalistic and starving crew members on board his steamer from going for the whites, whom they outnumber thirty to five :
“Restraint ! What possible restraint ?Was it superstition, disgust patience, fear or some kind of primitive honour ?No 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” .
The crewmembers’ restraint is all the more remarkable as this is a quality which the Europeans -foremost among them Kurtz-lack : they are consumed by voracious greed for ivory and use every opportunity to torture or kill the natives. Marlow also demonstrates his capacity for empathy when the occasionally attempts to imagine how he must look to an African. For instance, he explains the reactions of an African guard who hoists his weapon because he mistakes Marlow for a white official as “ simple prudence , white men being so much alike at a distance that he could not tell who I might be” . As Anthony Fothergill puts it , even
though “ there must still be something ethnocentric in what Marlow for a white official attributes to the guard “,he nevertheless possesses a self-distancing capacity”, which enables him “ to imagine what it must be like
to look at a white if you are not one.” Marlow seems to regard the Africans as his equals : “ I looked at them as you would on any human being, with a curiosity of their impulses, motives, capacities, weaknesses[…]”
This maxim sometimes leads Marlow to anticipate a surprisingly modern position of cultural relativism. For instance, at one point Marlow speculates about similarities between drumming and European church bells :
“ on some quite night [ I heard ] the tremor of far-off drums , sinking , swelling , a tremor vast , faint ; a sound weird , appealing , suggestive , and wild-and perhaps with a profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country” .
Marlow here suggests that seemingly different manifestations of culture are in fact variant expressions of the same tribal or social needs, so that the terms superior and inferior cannot be applied. In another feat of cultural relativist thinking, he tries to bring home to his listeners why the African villages along the river Congo are deserted. He inverts the roles of colonizer and colonized, and asks his English audience to imagine what it would be like to be subjected to an imperialist invasion : Well , if
a lot of mysterious niggers armed with all kinds of fearful weapons. suddenly took to travelling on the road between Deal and Gravesend, catching the yokels right and left to carry heavy loads for them , I fancy every farm and cottage thereabout would get empty very soon .
Given the above examples, it is not surprising that critics such as John Griffith, who have analysed Heart of Darkness from an ethnographic perspective, have detected in Marlow’s desire for interpretive knowledge of African native culture the “ anthropological urge –to understand and interpret.” James Clifford has referred to Marlow’s manner of narrating his journey as “ a paradigm of ethnographic subjectivity “ .
Which he defines as “ a coherent position of sympathy and hermeneutic engagement” expressed in an” ironic stance of participant observation” Although to us in the twenty-first-century, Marlow’s responses to Africa may still appear inadequate, Eurocentric and patronizing, in the context of his time and place they are certainly unusual, transcending imperialist ideology. There is no doubt that the other whites Marlow encounters in Africa, who often appear as if they were conscious automata , unthinking, brain washed products of empire machine, are utterly incapable of any sort of dialogue with other. As Anthony Fothergill puts it, they cannot “ even imagine imagining the other “ .
As shown above, Marlow’s natural capacity of sympathetic imagination his confrontation with a completely unknown Africa reality, and his shock at colonialist practice in the Congo allow him to transcend the epistemological limits set by imperialist ideology. A problem with this reading, however, is that Marlow does not display this enlightened, antiracist and anti-imperialist response to Africa during the whole of his journey. Especially in the course of his trip up the Congo river towards Kurtz’s Inner Station, Marlow reacts differently to his surroundings and seems to revert to a perspective of Africa determined by imperialist ideology. For instance, he imagines himself to be a “ wanderer …on a prehistoric earth “, and regards Africans on the shore as “ prehistoric man…cursing us ,praying to us welcoming us “ He thereby invokes the pseudo-scientific idea that the Africans, from a European point of view, represent an earlier stage in evolutionary development. This idea of a hierarchy of races, with the Europeans on top and Africans at the bottom, was a central part of imperialist ideology. It is consistent with Marlow’s apparent return to an epistemology circumscribed by imperialist ideology, that in the pages dealing with his approach to Kurtz’s station he describes Africans in what is –to the modern reader at least – a dehumanising and racist manner. Marlow infamously compares his fireman to a dog in a parody of breeches and feather hat, walking on his hind-legs, and he refers to his “fool-helmsman” as “ lifting his knees high , stamping his feet, champing his mouth, like a reined-in horse” , It is passages such as these which prompted Chinua Achebe, in his controversial essay “ An Image of Africa : Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness”, to call Conrad – whom he does not distinguish from Marlow –“ a thoroughgoing racist ” Although my intention is not to white-wash Marlow, his decision to stop engaging sympathetically with the foreignness of his surroundings may become understandable if we regard it as psychological reaction to the mental, and indeed physical, strains of his voyage, which increase the closer he gets to his destination, Kurtz ‘s Inner Station . His observation of the genocide dimensions of white imperialism in Africa have led him to doubt the nature of European civilization, of which he is a product himself. Furthermore, the enigma of Africa has proved recalcitrant to his decoding endeavours, and has destabilized his habitual ways of making sense of the world. Finally, Marlow becomes increasingly obsessed with the figure of Kurtz, who seems to absorb all of his mental energies. To save himself from a breakdown, Marlow seeks refuge in the exigencies of the work ethic. That is, he flees from an engagement with the challenge of African reality by concentrating on the task at hand, navigating his steamer. As he says himself “ I don’t like work –no man does –but I like what is in the work ,the chance to find yourself . Your own reality for yourself, not for others – what no other man can ever know. ”
Marlow realizes that this is a mere defensive strategy, the use of what might be called “ the ostrich factor ” ” When you have to attend to things of that sort , to the mere incidents of the surface ,the reality-the reality, I tell you – fades . The inner truth is hidden –luckily , luckily. ” On an epistemological level this strategy expresses itself in a reversion to a perspective of Africa circumscribed by the stereotypes of imperialist ideology. This reversion, however, is by no means complete, and although it has become more difficult to detect Marlow’s “anthropological urge “and capacity for sympathetic imagination are still extant. For instance, at the same time as Marlow posits an evolutionary gulf between advanced Europeans and “ prehistoric” Africans, he also attempts to comprehend the latter by discovering – albeit patronizingly- a remote kinship with his wild and passionate uproar [ on the shore ] and “ an appeal [to him ] in this fiendish row”, which he interprets as expression of basic human emotions which all of humanity share : “ joy ,fear, sorrow , devotion , valour , rage” . In other words, he perceives “ truth-truth stripped of its cloak of time : ” When Marlow first describes the cannibal crew on board his steamer , he notes that “ they were men one could work with, and I am grateful to them . ” This is a high compliment from someone who places such importance on the work ethic and the duty to a task. The Europeans on board are people Marlow certainly does not want to work with. Similarly, just before the steamer is attacked, Marlow talks to the headman of his African crew “ just for good fellowship’s sake, ”but is not interested in speaking to his fellow whites, who disgust him. Although he has painted a disparaging picture of his helmsman, he later asserts that : “I missed my late helmsman awfully…Well, I don’t you see, he had done something, he had steered ; for months I had him at my back-a help – an instrument .
It was a kind of partnership .He steered for me –I had to look after him, I worried about his deficiencies, and thus a subtle bond had been created, of which I only became aware when it was suddenly broken” .
There is no sense here that Marlow regards the African as his inferior or as a hardly human “ living fossil”, as contemporary anthropology had it. Marlow is also concerned with disposing of the body as quickly as possible by tipping it overboard, in order to save it from cannibals. Finally, Marlow states retrospectively that he is “ not prepared to affirm that [ Kurtz ] was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him” The reference is to the helmsman .
We can conclude that Marlow’s perspective of Africa and the Africans is ambiguous and contradictory, sometime reaffirming imperialist and racist
stereotypes ,sometimes transcending and even subverting them. The way Marlow constantly crisis –crosses the epistemological boundaries set by imperialist ideology has been recognized ,albeit somewhat grudgingly, by recent critics. While Edward Said, in Culture and Imperialism, claims that Marlow’s Africa and his Africans com “ from a huge library of Africanism, so to speak” he nevertheless avers that, because of Joseph Conrad’s own position as a cultural hybrid, he manages to endow Marlow with the self-consciousness of an outsider, which allows him to “ comprehend how the [empire ] machine works ,given that [ he ] and it are fundamentally not in perfect synchrony or correspondence .” In her influential study Conrad and the Imperialism, Benita Parry, also starts out by noting how Marlow’s epistemology is determined by imperialist ideology. She notes that what Marlow observes on his journey “ belongs not to history but to fantasy”, and is in a fact a: Mythological cosmos, an invention essential to imperialism’s rationale, which fascinates Marlow and as the lurid images from colonialism’s gallery take possession of his vision these, in the absence of a dissenting discourse, come to occupy the fiction’s space .
Later on in her study, however, Parry comes to the conclusion that Marlow does respond to “the dislocating effects of a foreign mode on a mind formed by the western experience and devoted to its forms” thus recognizing “ intimidations of other [ than imperialist ] meanings manifest in a landscape he can only perceive metaphorically” . Although Marlow is often on the very threshold of new ways of seeing
“ he draws back from the dangers of too much reality to the boundaries of that restricted consciousness he had ventured to criticize.”
On the one hand, Marlow manages to overcome its epistemological boundaries through his willingness to engage sympathetically with an unknown Africa reality, which is partly the result of his shock at colonialist practice in the Congo. On the other hand, he seeks the comforting shelter of an imperialist world –view when he is under psychological pressure and fears the dissolution of his identity. The way that Marlow neither manages to completely transcend the imperialist perspective nor wholly submits to it would confirm the theories of critics such as Raymond Williams or Edward Said, who underline the perniciousness and ubiquity of ideology but nevertheless admit possibilities for critique and subversion.











3. A Journey in the Congo of the Twenty Century

3.1 Conclusion

The first time I read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness it was during my high school period. At that time I guess I could not really fully understand one of the novel that so much affected the literature of the last two centuries in the world .
I believe that I did not have any particular thoughts about the novel, except probably the possible relation with the Francis Ford Coppola famous movie “ Apocalypse now “that describes the horror of the Vietnam war based on a re-writing of the plot of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
It was long time later when I was appointed as Project Manager in a project funded by DFID ( Department for International Development )in the war-torn Ituri region, that spontaneously came up to my mind hints of the novel. The Ituri region located in the Eastern part of Congo on the border with Uganda and Kenya suffered a brutal etnhic fighting between the Hema and Lendu tribes which used to cohabitate without any problems: a less famous tribes, but similar in cruelty in the ethnic clashes that saw Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda killing each other few years earlier. Following the withdrawal of the Ugandan troops on May 2003, the fighting spread all over the region living behind thousand of people killed and approximately 100.000 people living totally dependent on humanitarian assistance, especially for food, security, health, drinking water, sanitation and accommodation.
Many of them had to escape through the jungle, sometime running away for up to three days without nothing to eat. Most of this Internally Displaced People ( IDP ) found rescue in the small village of Eringeti, where up to 50.000 people were camped in make-shift shelter in a narrow area. With the rainy season the situation in the camp became unsustainable , with diseases as malaria, typhus, tuberculosis among the children and with the fear of possible outbreak of cholera. This was the Congo that I found in 2003, not very different from the villages, just few days trip from the Kinshasa found by Marlow one century before.
As described in the novel Marlow was sailing up with his steamer the river Congo and all around him he witnessed indigenous dying of famine, diseases and especially from the cruelties and abuses inflicted by colonialists.
For three months I have been working in this camp, among desperate Congolese that cued up in order to receive a bowl of rice and some maize struggling to survive in this crowded camp amid dirty water, mud and corrupted local officials.
On the other hand I was the “ Foreigner”, the “ white man” that was bringing help to the local natives : I could see in their eyes respect, and everybody were seeking my attention hoping to get their life out from that hell.
Reading heart of darkness one of the aspects that disturbed early critics was that Conrad was often referring to the local natives with words that later on were depicted as “ racist thinking”.
I perfectly understand those critics, but I do also believe that the inhumane condition of those dying people and their attitude toward life might possibly create among outsiders a feeling of distance and superiority. Conrad described how the blacks were dying like flies and many of them , when they understood they had no more chances to live, chose to die. He described as well savage rites and acts of cannibalism.
Frankly speaking this kind of environment may sound familiar to those people that still nowadays, for any particular reason, have spent their lives in some of Africa war torn countries (as Angola, Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, Mozambique, etc..).
People working in the humanitarian agencies in order to implement projects for relieving Africans from the famine and the poverty caused by the civil wars, are fully aware that Marlow’s depiction of 19th century Congo is still a dramatic reality caused nowadays by different motives but with the same results.
What I am trying to say is that killing of innocent people is still wide spread, and slavery is far from being history in many African regions.
Countries like Niger, Sudan are still facing slavery related problems due to the various differentiation of local tribes.
Moreover the cannibalism mentioned by Marlow in Heart of Darkness, described in the novel during the attack to the steamer nearby the Inner Station, when the local crew asked permission to eat the prisoners, may sound a shock to western critics.
But no matter how horrible it is to speak of cannibalism for Marlow, we have to remind ourselves that in 2004 factions fighting in the devastated Ituri regions were carrying out acts of cannibalism on prisoners.
The hearts of enemy tribes where taken out and ate by the Militia in order to gain power. This was happening in the 20th century in Africa.
As far as the concept of “slavery” is concerned, often mentioned in the novel, I witnessed myself in 2004 the presence of black slaves in the villages of Darfur on the border with Chad , under the strict surveillance of Arab nomads.
The relation between “ blacks” and “ whites” described in the novel is even more than ever actual. In many African countries “white people” continue to dominate the society exploiting the land and the people.
Often this “new colonialism” is carried out under silent agreement with local corrupted business men, and most of the time the price for this illegal activities is charged directly to those more ignorant tribes , as the case of the Pygmies in Congo.
They are repeatedly subjected to fraud and theft. I personally witnessed in Congo, the suffering of the Pygmies located nearby Eringeti district (Ituri region bordering with Uganda) perpetrated by the local corrupted authorities. The area where the Pygmies used to live resemble the inner forest described by Marlow, where Kurtz was stocking enormous quantity of ivory. The Pygmies were constantly deprived of their land so that foreign companies could export the precious log causing the deforestation and as well forcing the Pygmies to leave their eco-system for centuries their natural habitat. Often the civil war and the turmoil in this country are safe-heaven for companies so far from their “ civilized countries” conduct policies of exploitation and destruction that sometimes are even worst than the most terrible colonial period.
As I mentioned above, these uncertainties are the primary condition for these companies in order to continue with their illegal activities, exporting logs, diamonds, protected species and all free of tax and control whatsoever.
Kurtz inner station, can be found nowadays in Xindhanane a village located in Somali coast (between Mogadiscio and Hobyo) where pirates are operating undisturbed, or in Kidingir a place located in Darfur under control of guerrillas fighters. Recently, the media reported that in March 2006 a boat from the United Nations has been hijacked and all the crew held for more than one month until ransom was paid.
The pirates, thanks to the fifteen years of Somalia civil war, are operating
undisturbed along the coast piling up all their theft.
These histories mentioned above are only few of the unfortunate situations that many countries are still facing.
A 20th century “Darkness” that has got its roots in centuries of slavery, colonialism and tribalism.
The same word “Darkness” that is cited so many times in the book, reveals the dark side of human beings ,whether it is revealed in the heart of the jungle or in the cosy apartment in Bruxelles.
About the mysterious figure of Kurtz, it is common to find in these countries personages that abandoned the “civilized world” and live among the indigenous people as Semi-Gods.
The third world nations are full of these mercenaries, businessman, dreamers, poachers and smugglers that make profits out of unstable society and primitive cultures. Their presence is equally spread in countries such as Cambodia or in the forests of the Borneo, going through the Saharan dunes till the southern forests of South America.
On 2003 during the Ituri ethic war in Congo, I met Greek businessmen that were benefiting from the instable and insecure situation in order to make profits out of their smuggling activities of precious stones. Usually this modern Kurtz are accompanied by a group of thugs, merely youngsters that are bought for few dollars and act as faithful dogs for these poachers and smugglers.
The media recently has showed us the images of maimed people in Sierra Leone and Liberia where ,behind cruel civil ethnic wars ,there were as well these obscure figures that smuggled the revenues of the diamonds often hiding themselves in the middle of the forest.
I believe Conrad was one of the first of his time to reveal and to depict the tragedy of the colonial experience, through an extraordinary journey made by Marlow.
This journey is still taking place.








APPENDIX
Main Works from the Author

1895 Almayer’s Folly
1896 An outcast of the Islands
1897 The Nigger of the “ Narcissus”
1899 Heart of Darkness
1900 Lord Jim
1901 The Inheritors
1902 Typhoon
1903 Romance
1904 Nostromo
1907 The Secret Agent
1911 Under Western Eyes
1913 Chance
1915 Victory
1917 The Shadow Line
1919 The Arrow of God
1920 The Rescue
1923 The Nature of a Crime
1923 The Rover
1925 Suspense




BIBLIOGRAPHY

Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
Achebe Chinua, “ An Image of Africa : Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness “, in Heart of Darkness, ed. By Robert Kimbrough, London: Norton, 1988
James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Giunti Classic edited by Luciana Pirè, Gruppo Editoriale Firenze, 2001
Anthony Fothergill, Heart of Darkness. Open Guides to literature, Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1989
John Griffith . W. Joseph Conrad and the Anthropological Dilemma: “Bewildered Traveller” , Oxford : Clarendon , 1995
Benita Perry, Conrad and Imperialism: Ideological Boundaries and Visionary Frontiers, London: Macmillan, 1983
Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, London: Vintage, 1994
Cedric Watts, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: A Critical and Contextual Discussion, Milan : Mursia International, 1977