Shedding a Light on Imperialism; Heart of Darkness Essay

How chaotic it would be if one morning the sun were to hurdle into the sky, in an instant

replacing night with day, unaccompanied by sunrise to gradually announce its coming. On a less

drastic scale, the same is true, or at least similar, of life-changing truth; in Joseph Conrad’s Heart

of Darkness, Marlow cannot communicate the harsh reality of his experiences, so he uses

darkness as a medium to recount his horrific tale, leaving behind the direct light of clear

perception, opting instead for murky ambiguity comparable to the subtle hints of dawn. A few

dim rays of light illuminate shapes and shadows, but Marlow strategically omits or discounts his

own knowledge and opinion, leaving his audience with muddy images to interpret for

themselves. He does so by using darkness as a motif, a word unpinned by definition because of

its several connotations. Darkness is used throughout the book in reference to skin color,

ignorance, literal darkness of the jungle, as well as blackness at the heart of imperialism and

anarchy.

The following passage, in the words of Marlow, embodies multiple shades of darkness,

“I turned to the wilderness really, not to Mr. Kurtz…it seemed to me as if I also was buried in a

vast grave of unspeakable secrets. I felt an intolerable weight pressing my breast, the smell of

the damp earth, the unseen presence of victorious corruption, the darkness of an impenetrable

night.” Comparison is the primary function of the dark jungle; Marlow uses it to express

emotions, feelings, and ambiguous ideas that are too difficult to share otherwise. The quote

above is a prime example of the way he uses the jungle to compare other forms of darkness. He

compares the pressing darkness of the jungle to the feeling of keeping secret the atrocities he has

witnessed on his journey. He uses the jungle as a barrier between himself and his listeners, as if

by comparing everything to the murky wilderness the jungle is telling the story instead. The
jungle makes it possible for him to begin to bring listeners out of the shadows of ignorance, by

bringing to dim light the true nature of the dark moral detachment in the Belgian Congo that

allows for the frivolous lifestyle of those outside.

As Marlow journeys he has multiple encounters with the dark-skinned natives of the

Belgian Congo, from the atrocious exploitation resulting in the horrific fates of the natives in the

grove of death, to his dismay when he finds the natives dancing in the jungle to be “not

inhuman.” He could not bring himself to say that these dark-skinned natives were human like

him, so he expressed his ideas in a roundabout way, as he does through much of the novella. His

description of the natives, however, shows that he feels these dark-skinned people to be victim to

a more menacing type of darkness. This overpowering darkness is destroying the jungle at the

same time it is extinguishing the natives and leaving the rest of the world in the shadow of

ignorance. This overpowering darkness is the greed and liberation of moral standards that lead

to horrible things, namely the exploitation that Marlow witnesses in the jungle. Thus the

relationship between these connotations of darkness, they aid in bringing this overpowering

darkness to light.

Kurtz represents, at least a part of, this overpowering darkness. Marlow says he turned to

the jungle rather than Kurtz; indicating that the two are similar places to turn, both dark in a way.

People like Kurtz are the cause of the victorious corruption mentioned above. This victorious

corruption, or moral disconnection, is made possible because of the jungle being out of sight

from the rest of the world. It is in the darkness in this way; leaving people like Kurtz free to do

as they please.
 By throwing away his morals Kurtz begins to overcome certain conceptions about race.

He is romantically involved with a native woman, this relationship goes against the ideas of

racism during the time period, but there is hardly anyone to judge him, no one there to regulate

racism and keep it intact. At the same time he uses the natives as a means to meet his greed for

ivory. Of all the moral-lacking ivory traders in the novel, Kurtz moral-free actions are the most

appalling. He, alone, is responsible for the massacre of countless natives. Marlow, however,

shows that the bloodshed is prevalent throughout the jungle, not just in the deepest darkest part

where Kurtz is found; he encounters the grove of death in the beginning of his journey; it lays the

black foundation he needs to reach “the heart of darkness,” Kurtz, and the anarchy and lack of

morality he represents.

Kurtz’s consuming presence and his seemingly omnipotent voice hauntingly linger, even

after his death. Kurtz’s lasting dark impression coupled with the gloomy jungle locale prove

almost too much for Marlow, the pressing secrets “intolerable,” the bleak jungle night

“impenetrable.” Kurtz is the blackest part of Marlow’s tale. Others killed and exploited

natives, worked them until they could work no more, then left them to die in the grove of death.

Kurtz’s actions were darker still, spawned from the cavernous core of his being where his morals

did long ago reside before the lawless jungle stripped them away. Kurtz proves completely

amoral compared to others in the book for several reasons. He saw a hint of humanity in the

natives, as Marlow did, while the other ivory traders remained blind. Kurtz was romantically

involved with a native woman, so he at least glimpsed her humanity, or was mad enough to

become intimate with something he viewed as animal. So he knowingly killed fellow humans,

and not animals as most believed, but his morals were too far gone to care. He proves his

amorality in the meaningless sadistic way he chooses to slaughter the natives, beheading them
and placing their heads on sticks, creating a gruesome parade of décor. Marlow glimpses a

reflection of himself within Kurtz. This realization paints Marlow’s encounters with Kurtz far

more darkly than the man’s amoral actions alone could have; it makes the story applicable, and

consequently the darkest part of the gloomy tale.

There is a certain allure, to Marlow as a late nineteenth century British man, in the way

Kurtz lives his life doing whatever he pleases, leading the world in ivory trade. His glorious

voice adds to this allure. Marlow vaguely implies a myriad of his own contradictory thoughts

regarding Kurtz. Sometimes it seems that Kurtz reflects his inner desires, sometimes he abhors

Kurtz, or at least his actions, at times, it seems, he respects Kurtz, and occasionally all of the

above. Marlow voices one thought, retracts it, and then says something to the opposite effect.

This leaves confusion; it is nearly impossible to uncover Marlow’s true feelings.

Marlow’s whirlwind thought process, strategically or chaotically, spins from one opinion

to the next; he never stops on a single thought long enough to point his audience in the direction

of his true feelings. He either did not have the words, or believed his audience lacked the

understanding needed, for him to purposefully divulge the true nature of his thoughts. The

wicked truth is not unveiled at once, but gradually like the beginning of a sunrise, leaving

listeners better able to interpret the tale in murky increments. Marlow was made privy to these

chaotic atrocities in a similar manner; the truth was handed to him indistinctly, piece by piece, as

he journeyed down the Belgian Congo, the interpretation left to him. The novella entertains the

idea that there is no universal truth, only the truth of individual perception. By muddying his

own opinion unrecognizable, Marlow leaves his audience to find the truth for themselves, thus

the necessity of the novella’s inherent ambiguity.