Kurtz's Darkness" and

Heartof Darkness*

PA
TRICK BRANTLINGER

Conrad died fifty years ago. In

penetratedto many corners of those
the world fifty years his work has
for Conradian which he saw as dark. It
is a subject meditation. - V. S.
Darkness' (1974) Naipaul, 'Conrad's
Ina
1975lecture the Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe
afDarknessas 'racist.' Joseph Conrad, Achebe attacked Heart
"the other world," the says, 'projects the image
of Africaas antithesis of Europe and therefore
of civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement
are
Eeally mocked by triumphant bestiality.' Supposedly the great
er
demystifier, Conrad is instead a 'purveyor of comforting myths' and
even 'a bloody racist.' Achebe adds: That this simple
in
truth is glossed
criticismsof hiswork is due to the fact that white racism against
Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go
completely undetected.' Achebe would therefore strike Conrad's novella
fom the curriculum, where it has been one of the most frequently
taught works of modern fiction in English classes from Chicago to
Bombay to Johannesburg.
Achebe's diatribe has provoked vigorous defenses of Heart of
Uarkness which predictably stress Conrad's critical stance toward
Tmperialism and also the wide acceptance of racist language and
egories in the late Victorian period. Cedric Watts, for example,
es that 'really Conrad and Achebe are on the same side'; Achebe
inply gets carried away by his understandable aversion to racial
Reteotyping2 Far from being a "purveyor of comforting myths,"
Watts declares, Conrad most deliberately and incisively debunks Such
myths' Acknowledging gthat Conrad.lemployed the stereotypic language
1914,Repinted from In the Rule of Darkness:
1830-
British lmperialismand Literature,
ltadha: Comell
University Press,
B
1988,pp. 255-64.
 262 PA TRICK BRANTLINGER

common in his day, Watts contends that he

racism:
nevertheless rOSe
Achebe notes with indignation that
abOve
Conrad (in the
'buck ni'Agutgerhor's
to Victory) speaks of an encounter with a
which gave him an impression of mindless Note
in Haiti
as well have noted the reference in The
Nigger
violence.
of the Achebe might.
to a 'tormented and flattened face pathetic and
'NNamirgchtistruagis'.c,
the mysterious, the repulsive mask of a nigger's soul.'brutal: the
noted, also, that Conrad's letters are sprinkled He
Semitic references. It is the same in the letters ofwith casual have
anti
his friend
Cunninghame] Graham. Both Conrad and Graham were inf R. B.
by the climate of prejudice of their times
is that the best work of both men seems to
.What is interesting
transcend such
(208) prejudice.
Their work transcends prejudice in part, Watts believes, because both
attack imperialisnm. Watts is one of the many critics who interpret Heart
of Darkness as an exposé of imperialist rapacity and violence. Kurtz's
career in deviltry obviously undermines imperialist ideology, and the
greed of the 'faithless pilgrims' the white sub-Kurtzes, so to
speak is perhaps worse. "The conquest of the earth,' Marlow
declares, 'which mosty means the taking it away from those who have
adifferent complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not
a pretty thing when you look into it too much."3 There is nothing
equivocal about that remark; Conrad entertained no illusions about
imperialist violence. But Marlow distinguishes between British
imperialism and that of the other European powers: the red parts of
the map are good to see, he says, 'because one knows that Some real
work is done in there' (10). Heart of Darkness is specifically about wnat
Conrad saw in King Leopold's African empire in 1890; it is unclear how
far his critique can be generalized to imperialism beyond the Congo.
The politics of Conrad's story is complicated bythe story's ambiguous
style. I use 'impressionism' as a highly inadequate term to characterize
the novella's language and narrative part because Fredric
structure, in
Jameson uses that term in his diagnosis of the 'schizopnte0st most
of Lord Jim. critics his
Conrad's impressionism is for some
 KURTZ's DARKNESS
AND HEARI OF
praiseworthyquality; to
others it DARKNESS 263
allowinghim to mask his
or
both.Interpretations of nihilismappears instead
or to
Heart of
armeans of
fnaintain contradictobforyuscatvaliuoes,n,
acist(andtherefore
thercfore antiracist),
imperialist), or Darkness,
inevitably as which read it as only
only
to
onlythe most obvious
said not just through
founder ant
on its
difficulty, narrativeimframe
the pre i-
ssiim
oniper
s rnia. lis t
To
land
poirt
thatis filters
Marlow but also through the everyhing
primary narrator. At what
Marlowexpresses asingle
point is it safe to
point of view' And even assume thatanonymus
Conrad/
to
speak directly for
expressed by
Conrad, does
Conrad/ M arlosupposing
w agree Marlow
with
values the primary narrator the
afDarkness
offers a powertul Whatever our
critique of at least some answers, Heart
aanerialism and racism as It smultaneously presentsmanifestations
0ethat can be characterized only as imperialistthatandcritique
Impressionismis the fragile skein of discourse which racist.
eauises -this schizophrenic contradiction as an apparently expresses -or
obole. Analysis of that contradiction helps to reveal the harmonious
ideological
nctraints upon a critical understanding of imperialism in literature
before World War I. It also suggests how imperialism influenced the
often reactionary politics of literary modernism.

In Conrad and lmperialism, Benita Parry argues that by revealing the

disjunctions between high-sounding rhetoric and sordid ambitions and
indicting the purposes and goals of a civilisation dedicated to global
...hegemony, Conrad's writings are] more destructive of imperialism's
ideological premises than [are] the polemics of his contemporary
pponents of empire.' Perhaps. At least it is certain that Conrad was
Ppalled by the 'high-sounding rhetoric' used to mask the 'sordid
armbitions' of King Leopold II of Belgium,in Conrad's ultimate employer
during his six months in the Congo 1890. Heart of Darkness
recorded in his
es hot only what Conrad saw and partially began
Congo Diary' but also the revelations of atrocities whicha climax
appearing in the British press as early as 1888 and reached
scandal forcedthe
twenty years later, in 1908, when the mounting
domain. During
Belgjan 8Overnment to take controllof Leopold's private
 shall
clwho
aWoman
ims world
Congo
wasperhaps
six
been
uprooted, ofRetormapropaganda
he letter folows
the but Conrad's
Congolese King notesinvolvement
leader, Conan
Doyle
wIoteas because
beenTwain
Conrad,
universe
the minoMadoxiroleiviews
registereo
who
Swarms,
to sno
extracr.
heart whom
anthe
conscience
on
horses
trade uponin
Europe,
| in
'm
the never
of Conrad's
theFord the like the
association's Hawkins Mark the cause
reform
shared those comefind
There is
Conrad
Casement,slave visitedd of Casement
to
ofdecimated,used 'theCongo Darknessfrom had Congo. and This with
the in
and
system
from thatdown
the
today.7 account
who
work.
political
unimprovable, (1901),
co-authored of
come to
the brutalities
some as away in Congo.
fiction
have
thing The toof But
relations the
its Arthur engagement obviously
youngone were out
towardwrite
rubber' Roger state to Hawkins's
novelists of Story to
maylabor
to extraordinary
Heart
letter
Edmund
Association. backed
subject." to for of the be They look
put the given
Congo
protections moreandCrime
Soliloquy,'
agitation beautiful
to
were
tortured,by him
forced Conrad's work
persons 'redsympathetic
partly contrasting
language called Conrad
prominent nature
of Conrad Extravagant.
he and would
or rape Dimensionists
thethatthe called got ago enough.
Hunt the The encourage
other but dimnension
INGER million through Casementthe
1903 years
tolerates Reform(1904), much
in Leopold's a
meets locusts
population reformers to
quotedon Casement, called human faith one
that slight, one
written Otheras 'King morning
BRANTL was in is seventy clear
murdered established 'It legal add Congo Africa
Leopold's
association
contributed to least
littlemeaningless,
fantasy
An
beenprotagonistlike
andsays: grounds is who views King Inheritors:fourth The
as Conrad to
theintention everto association. 'had at devour
themany what Africa,
PATRICK which patronizing
Conrad littletheMorel,in letter in of revealing
have
earth.' the
periodand
as and
Association, humanitarian with
with Rulething his Congo the notes, hardly same, abhorrencemay
The expresses.
The
the
from to in
in
6darkness. Europe is
There volunteered were 9
association night:
halved;ivory met which Conrad' s from
Leopold's
powerfulthe book
for Hawkins. dying'- the
highly it thematerialise,
264 words Hueffer,
writing come
had apartwiththe Al inherit the
in of to hisbut
a to in
tly
 KURTZ's
DARKNESS AND HEAR T OF
white...
As to methods,
cheinferior races. 10 Far from
we
should be
treated as we
DARKNESS 265
being oursel
depicthetedmeek, are vmodern
es treat
day imperialists, satirically the
alternative world. Apart from as inheritors
invaders from a
character, however, no young
invaders appear in the novel,woman and spionerituother
alist
uponinmperialismis
Systemmaintained through theof portrayal
MerschandI his 'Systemfor
the alehough the satire
of the Duc
Like King Leopold, 'the
Mersch -was by way of
Regenerat ion the Arctic
foreign financier - they Regions' (46, de
de being a called him the Duc
lines. He proves to be no
and atrocious fraud' that C Conrad
phila nt
at h ropi
all, st on
philanthropist but just megal the omaniac
in The. believed Leopold to be. 'giganticis
the codeword
'the real
Inheritors
forthe Congo. The journalistGreenland
hero heips
to expose horrors the
of
Système
butchered, miserable natives, the Groënlandais - flogged,
enec' (280). The authors are notfamines, the vices, diseases, and the
even particular about the color of
. Eskimo victims: one
character says that the Duc has the blacks
murdered' (246-47).
Hueffer and Conrad write some scorching passages in The
about 'cruelty to the miserable, helpless, and defenceless' (282).Inheritors
But the
facts of exploitation in the Congoperhaps distress them less than the
ving idealism that disguises it: 'More revolting to see without a mask
was that falsehood which had been hiding under the words which for
ages had spurred men to noble deeds, to self-sacrifice, to heroism. What
was appalling was that all the traditional ideals of honou, glory,
conscience, had been committed to the upholding of a gigantic and
atrocious Eraud. The falsehood had spread stealthily, had eaten into the
very heart of creeds and convictions that we learn upon our passage
between the past and the future. The old order of things had to live
or perish with a lie' (282), For Conrad, the worst feature of imperialis
nay have been not violence but the lying propaganda used to cover
its bloody tracks.
exploitation in Hear
Conrad did not base his critique of imperialist What he
in the Congo.
of Darknes solely on what he had seen made
personally he was also
witnessed was miserable enough, and
and the conviction that his Belgian
miserable and resentful by disease
him. As he
assured Casement, however,
emplwhileoyerinsthe wereCongoexploiting
he had not
alleged custom of
even heard of
'the
 266 PA TRICK BRANTLINGER

cutting off hands among the natives, 1The conclusion that

drew was that mnost of the cruelties practiced in the
traditional but the recent effects of
Casement
exploitation. TheCongo were not
hands was a punishment for non-cooperation in Leopold'scutting off of
system and probably became frequent only after 1890. forcedlabor
as Conrad had seen little or no evidence of torture, so he Moreover,
probably
little or no evidence of cannibalism, despite the stress upon it in
just
saw
12 his
story.
It thus seems likely that much of the horror either
depicted
suggested in Heart of Darkness represents not what Conrad saw but
rather his reading of the literature that exposed
Leopold's
system between Conrad's return to England and his compositionbloody
of the
novella in 1898-99, along with many of the earlier works that
the myth of the Dark Continent. Although Conrad's 'Congo Diaryshaped
and
every facet of his journey to Stanley Falls and back have been
scrutinized by Norman Sherry and others, what Conrad learned about
the Congo after his sojourn there has received little attention 13 The
exposé literature undoubtedly confimed suspicions that Conrad formed
in 1890, but the bloodiest period in the history of Leopold's regime
began about a year later. According to Edmund Morel: From 1890
onwards the records of the Congo State have been literally blood
soaked. Even at that early date, the real complexion of Congo State
philanthropy was beginning to appear, but public opinion in Europe
was then in its hoodwinked stage. 14
The two events that did most to bring Leopold's Congo under public
scrutiny were the 1891-94 war between Leopold's forces and the Arab
slave-traders and the execution of Charles Stokes, British citizen and
renegade missionary,by Belgian officers in 1895.The conflict with the
Arabs 'war of extermination,'according to Morel was incredibly
cruel and bloody. The first serious colision with the Arabs occurred
in October 27, 1891; the second on Mav 6. 1892. Battle then succeeded
battle; Nyangwe, the Arab stronghold, was captured in January, 1893,
and with the surrender of Rumaliza in January, 1894, the
came to an end.15 Conrad undoubtedly read about campaigu
these events e
press and perhaps also in later accounts,
Hinde's The Fall of the Congo Arabs (1897). notably
Arthur Captaln
Hodister, whom
Sherry claims as the original of
Kurtz, was an early victim of the
 KURTZ 's DARRNES$"
AND HE ART OF
fghing,having led an expedition to Ka
DARKNESS Zb7
Arabe Accordingtolan
comradesthat "theit
Watt, The KatTimes
anga which was crushed by
the

his
16 This and
heads
many similar were stuck on reported
poles
of
Hodister and
ratcn and their
episodes during the war are bodies
Conrad's emphasis upon
(aNnibalism was practiced by
Congolese soldiers. both cannibalism
in Heart of probable
sides, not just the Darkness
(het
among possible models for
UDted, According
to Hinde, who mustArabs and
annibals, or rather that both sides had Kurtz,'thefact that both sadesalso be
cannibals in were
clement in our success "17
Muslims, their train, proved
they goto
will heaven only if their Hinde points out, believe
weapon fear and reprisal on
of bodies are intact. So
wasa both sides, well as acannibalism
as
ccompanimentof war among
some Congolese: traditional
societies Hinde
ofcombatants on both sides as 'human wolves' and speaks
disgusting banquets' (69). Atypical passage reads: describes numerousme
expeditions was the number of What struck
mostin these
partially cut-up
lfoundinevery direction for miles around. Some were minus the bodies
hands
andfeet,and some with steaks cut from the thighs or elsewhere: others
had the cntrails or the head removed, according to the taste of
the
mdividual savage' (131). Hinde's descriptions of such atrocities seem
tobe those of an impartial, external observer, but in fact he was one
f six white officers in charge of some four hundred 'regulars' and about
wenty-five thousand 'cannibal' troops. His expressions of horror are
what one expects of an Englishman; they are also those of aparticipant,
however, and contradict his evident fascination with every bloodthirsty
detail.
It seems likely that Conrad read Hinde's lurid account. He must have
known about the war also from earlier accounts, such as those in the
Iimes, and from E. J. Glave's documenting of "cruelty in the Congo
e State' for the Century Magazine in 1896-97. According to Glave.
estate has not suppressed slavery, but established amonopoly by
ng out the Arab and Wangwana competitors.' Instead ot a noble
war to end the slave trade, which is how Leopold and his agents
of slavery was
ustified their actions againstthe Arabs, a new system natives
InstaTe soal edpersecuted
in place that
of thethey
old. (take continues: 'Sonnetimesthe
Glaverevenge] by killing and eating their
lost twwo men killed
Ormentors. Recently the state post on the Lomami
268 PAIRICK BRANTLINGER

and eaten by the natives. Arabs were sent to punish the

women and children were taken, and twenty-one heads
were natives; many
to [Stanley Falls], and have been used by Captain Rom as a brought
round a flower-bed in front of his house. 18 Captain Rom, denocoration
must also be counted among Kutz's forebears. In
any event,doubtthe,
practice of seizing Congolese for laborers and
lab chopping
of
and heads of resisters continued, probably increasing after
the
hands
of the Arabs, as numerous eyewitnesses testify in the
grisly defeat
that form the bulk of Morel's exposés. According to a quotations
typical account
by aSwiss observer: If the chief does not bring the stipulated
number
of baskets [of raw rubber), soldiers are sent out, and the people
are
killed without mercy. As proof, parts of the body are brought to th
factory. How often have I watched heads and hands being carried
the factory."19 into

II

When Marlow declares that 'the conquest of theearth. .. is not apretty

thing,' he goes on to suggest that imperialism may be 'redeemed' by
the 'idea' that lies behind it. In the real world, howeve, idealism is
fragile, and in Heart of Darkness, except for the illusions maintained
by a few womenfolk back in Brussels, it has almost died out. In going
native, Kurtz betrays the civilizing ideals with which supposediy he
set out from Europe. Among the 'faithless pilgrims' there are only false
ideals and the false religion of self-seeking. "To tear treasure out of the
bowels of the land was their desire,' says Marlow, 'with no more moral
purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe'
(31). The true nature of European philanthropy in the Congo is revealed
to Marlow by the chain gang and the 'black shadows of disease and
starvation, left to die in the 'greenish gloom,' whom he sees at the
Outer Station (16-17). Probably these miserable phantoms accurately
depict what Conrad saw in 1890; they may also
learned about Leopold's forced labor system. In represent what ne
any case, trou
moment he sets foot in the Congo, Marlow is clear about
of 'the merry dance of death and trade' (14). It thus makes the
perfectmeaiuu
sense
to interpret Heart of Darkness as an attack on imperialism, at least as
it operated in the
Congo.
 KURTZ's

In the course
of DARKNESS
this attack,
AND HEART OF
something, in
hovwever , DARENE 269
before, andMarl o w's
dols-
all ideals
down
words,
ow
in part by
offer
sacrifice to' (7). youContadcant anstsetotup,m intoand
a which
darkness
descibethe era unitheversalizing fetishism unverof sernpiaizetre
of
when the Scramble for AfricaMarzist critics
one

mOst
014
as
intense, a thesis that 'commodi ty fetishi sn'
decay of heroic complements Conrad's capitalinrn was
of lateroughiy 1880 t
n
the

dshonorable commercialism, 20 adventure, eroded by conservative beihef

natives intheirtedarkness
an
upas
jdol; the Europeans
The
worship ivory, money,
chnol ogy and a
set Kurtz
joins the natives in their
'uMarlowpower,
nspeakablhimself
e rites,' worshipinreput
g hisatown
ion.
Kutz
unrestrained power and lust.
do,sitting on shipdeck with folded legs and
assumes the pose of an
fuddha. And Kurtz's Intended is perhaps the
palms outward like a
greatest
dolzing herimage of her fiance. Marlow's lie leaves fetishist of all,
shroudedin the protective darkness of her Kurtz's Intended
One difficulty with this illusions, her idol worship.
ingenious inversion, through which ideals
become idols, is that Conrad portrays the moral bankruptcy of
imperialisn by showing European motives and actions as no better
than African fetishism and savagery. He paints Kurtz and Africa with
thesame tarbrush. His version of evil - the form taken by Kurtz's
Satanic behavior -is going native. Evil, in short, is African in Conrad's
tony.if it is also European, that is because some white men in the
beat of darkness behave like Africans. Conrad's stress on cannibalism,
his identification of African customs with violence, lust, and madness,
is metaphors of bestiality, death, and darkness, his suggestion that
taveling in Africa is like traveling backward in time to primeval,
nantile, but also hellish stages of existence these features of the
Kory are drawn from the repertoire of Victorian imperialism and racism
tat painted an entire continent dark.
ebe is therefore right tocall Conrad's portrayalof Africans racist.
white-
Une can as does Benita Parry, that Conrad works withthe
argue, dichotomies of racist fantasy to subvert
iend-m,bbut
lack,she a
light-and-darkness
sthat thesubversion is incomplete:
'Although
acknowledges
hOnnces of white are rendered discordant
black and dark

serve in the equivalences for the savage and unredeemed,

he corrupt and text as ... the cruel and atrocious. Imperialism itself
degraded
 BRANTLINGER
PATRICK
270
dark within Europe. Yet despite
fictionmoment o us
the
is perceivedas traditional European usage .. the
back from practice, registering the view of two incompatible
to established
departures gravitates
Manichean universe,'21 The imperialist
orders within a
works withthe. Manichean, irreconcilable
itself, Parrysuggests,
ideology. Achebe states the
imagination
epolarities
issue more succinctly:
common toall racist
with niggers.
'Conrad had a problem the be
jdentifying specific sources tor Conrad's knowledge of
of Leopold's regime is less important than recognizing that SOurces
through the 1890s. Conrad s
were numerous,swelling in number
light of these sources
his firsthand experience of the Congo in
emphasis on cannibalism in Heart of
Darkness probably derives fron
tha
Conrad's reading about the war between Leopold's agents and
rivals of tha
Arabs. Yet he does not mention the war - indeed, Arab
absence. The
Belgians are conspicuous in the story only by their
omission has the effect of sharpening the ight-and-dark dichotomies
the staple of racism; evil and darkness are parceled out between only
two, antithetical sides, European and African, white and black
Furthermore, because of the omission of the Arabs Conrad treats
cannibalism not as a result of war but as an everyday custom of the
Congolese.
In simplifying his memories and sources, Conrad arrived at the
Manichean pattern of the imperialist adventure romance, a patten
radically at odds with any realist, expose intention. Heart of Darkness
appears to express two irreconcilable intentions. As Parry says, to
protter an interpretation of Heart ofDarkness as a militant denunciation
and a reluctant affimation of imperialist civilisation, as a fiction na
|both) exposes and colludes in imperialism's mystifications, 15
recoghise its immanent contradictions' (39). However, the notion th¥t
Conrad was consciously anti-imperialist but unconsciously orcarelessly
employed the racist terminology current in his day will not stand "
Lonrad was acutely aware of what he was doing. Every
and light-dark contrast in the story, whether corroborating wng
orsubverting
racist assumptions, is precisely calculated for its effects both as aunit
in a scheme of imagery and as a focal point in a complex web of
contradictory political
Conrad knows that hiands story
moralis ambiguous:
values. he stressestthatambiguty
 KURTZ's * 271

opportunity,so
an8tisfactory as that
d condemni
the contradictions
it also
in the n ltextabelfoting beitheng neselia anty
g it
lhes tacint The
haracters(not to
antagonist, ment
betw een lies
het w een
critic,ionandthe Contad and betMahrtr acfM ad
impe
fae rialus
inet is
for
Yurt and,
as
al
admirer, his anonymous primary his
utz's
chadow and
filloffetishists and devil doubl potee,ntial redeemer narOt rahetor ambiMatgusste
finally one mote Kutzs pale is is
greatcare, wor s
but he just ashi p Conrad poses thesedolatot in a rory
vàsion, and the carefu l y
ambiguities it tefrains from questions wth
reification
underlying both generat es, answertheing thempatte rnsThatok
reflect
modernism the
politicaljudgment atdel
theiberat
be ends in
e
heart
commodi
ambi
of an guity ty andfet is hi sm and literary
refusal moral and
of
that seem to
and stories with th emsel v es, im
contours smoothed, produci pre ssi o
nni
g s m and a
finely wl
crafted l-to -sty le
bitsof ivory art itselE as the
ultimate polished, like
ccaareful y artutacts
acsthetic worship and
consumption. commodi ty, object of a scul pte d
rarefied
Notes

Chinua Achebe, 'An Image of

(Spring 1978), 1-15. See also Atrica, Research in Afican Literatures 9
Supplement, Chinua Achebe, Viewpoint Times
1 February 1980,113.
2. Cedric Watts, "A Literary
Bloody
Yearbook of English StudiesRacist": About Achebe's View of Conrad.
13
Hunt Hawkins, "The Issue of (1983), 196-209. For another defense see
14:3 (1982), 163-171. Among Racism in Heart of Darkness,' Conradiana
critics who support Achebe see Susan L
Blake, 'Racism and the Classics:
Teaching Heart of Darkness,"' College
Language Association Journal25 (1982),
"Kacism, or Realismt Literary Apartheid, 396-404, and Eugene B. Redmond,
or Poetic License Conrad's
Burden in The Nigger of the Narcissus,"in Joseph Conrad, The Nigger
of the
68. 'Narcissus,
'ed. Robert Kimbrough (New York: Norton, 1979), 358-
AchebeNazareth,
see Peter is, however,
'Outinof a Darkness:
minority even among
Conrad
nonwestermwnters,
and Other Third World

JoWisephters)
3. Conradiana 14:3 (1982), 173-87 (New York:
Conrad, Heart of Darkness, ed. Robert Kimbroughparentheticaly
inNort
theon,text.
1963), 7. Page numbers fromn this edition are given
4. Iredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as aSocialy Symboic
Act (Lthaca: Cornell University Press, 1981), 206-80. See also lan Watt's
Conadin the Nineteenth
discussions of "impressionism' and 'symbolism' in