Realist and Imperialism in Heart of Darkness

Professor: Dr. Kaffash Zadeh

Sahar Ilkhani
Department of English language and literature, faculty of foreign language and literature,
Kosar University of Bojnurd, Bojnurd, Iran, E-mail: sahere77ss@gmail.com
Abstract:
Discovering the nature of every human being is not an easy task, we in literature deal with
the subtle layers of every story and novel and understand their nature and character, in the
novel The Dark Heart written by Joseph Conrad, all the facts and days it depicts the dark and
bitter of colonialism. This novel is a very valuable historical document, in addition to a
fascinating story, it depicts a source of terrible activities and imperialist powers. In this
article, we intend to address the hidden layers and the concept of British colonialism in Africa
and show the facts of Africa and the oppression that the British suffered in Africa. The
British enter Africa for colonialism to extract ivory. , The leader of this personal group is
Kurtz, who greatly influenced Africans and was loved by blacks. Britain sent Kurtz to
England, she was an influential person in the black community, but Kurtz gradually became
corrupt, forgot her fiancé who was in Britain, and in Africa, the Congo, befriended a black
lady, all this to extract more It was ivory. By studying the critique of this novel, you will
understand that with the passage of time and the progress of science, human beings become
wild and move away from the essence of their humanity. Marlowe, who was on his way from
England to the Congo to bring Kurtz back to England, arrived in the Congo after a long
journey and enduring hardships, but found Kurtz in a bad condition. He was alone in a hut on
his way back due to illness to die. The last words he uttered at the time of his death were
horror, a sign of the height of British colonialism and oppression of blacks.
Introduction:
Heart of Darkness, novella by Joseph Conrad that was first published in 1899 in
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and then in Conrad’s Youth: and Two Other Stories
(1902). Heart of Darkness examines the horrors of Western colonialism, depicting it as a
phenomenon that tarnishes not only the lands and peoples it exploits but also those in the
West who advance it. Although garnering an initially lackluster reception, Conrad’s
semiautobiographical tale has gone on to become one of the most widely analyzed works of
English literature. Critics have not always treated Heart of Darkness favorably, rebuking its
dehumanizing representation of colonized peoples and its dismissive treatment of women.
Nonetheless, Heart of Darkness has endured, and today it stands as a Modernist masterpiece
directly engaged with postcolonial realities. Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad
Korzeniowski, Polish: [ˈjuzɛf tɛˈɔdɔr ˈkɔnrat kɔʐɛˈɲɔfskʲi] (About this soundlisten); 3
December 1857 – 3 August 1924) was a Polish-British writer regarded as one of the greatest
novelists to write in the English language. Though he did not speak English fluently until his
twenties, he became a master prose stylist who brought a non-English sensibility into English
literature. Conrad wrote stories and novels, many with a nautical setting, that depict trials of
the human spirit in the midst of what he saw as an impassive, inscrutable universe. This
article shows the realities of British and African society.(Wikipedia)
Keywords: Joseph Konrad, Mr. Kurtz, Heart of Darkness, Realism, Imperialism
Discussion:
Joseph Conrad was an English novelist and short-story writer of Polish descent. He is best
known for writing the novels Lord Jim (1900), Nostromo (1904), and The Secret Agent
(1907) and for the novella Heart of Darkness (1902). Behind the name lists Cord/Kord &
Kurt as traditional nicknames for Konrad/Conrad. Conrad as Modernism writer. It is this
shifting narrative style, which resists the simple linear development of the popular realist
novels of the preceding century that has marked Conrad out as a distinctly Modernist author
within an accepted literary canon. One of Conrad's most important voyages occurred in 1890,
when he sailed a steamboat up the Congo River in central Africa. … During this voyage,
Conrad witnessed incredible barbarity, illness, and inhumanity; his recollections of this trip
would eventually become the basis of his most famous work, Heart of Darkness. JOSEPH
CONRAD was a phenomenon. Born to polish parents in 1857 in a part of the Russian empire
that is now Ukraine, he was christened Joseph Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski. French was his
second language, and he did not come to Eng useland (or speak a word of English) until he
was.
Language in Heart of Darkness is English, The mood of the entire novel is dark and
somber. It is night-time on the Nellie when Marlow's tale is being woefully told.Charles
Marlow, the narrator, tells his story to friends aboard a boat anchored on the River Thames.
Joseph Conrad wrote the book in English and immortalized it so that later TS Elliott
borrowed a word from the book and those men were empty. The heart of Darkness novel the
greatest short story of the twentieth century due to European cultural reality, convictions of
colonial methods, overnight Christian…
He experience as a mariner and addressed profound themes of nature and existence, he best
novelist, Josef Conrad wrote short stories and novels like Lord Jim, Heart of Darkness and
the secret Agent, which combined his experiences in remote places with and interest in moral
and dark side of human nature.
Seafaring year: through an introduction to a merchant who was a Friend of his uncle,
Conrad sailed on several French commercial ships, first as an apprentice and then as a
steward. He traveled to the West Indies and South America, and he may have participated in
international gun smuggling, he rose in rank and became a British citizen, and his Voyages
around the world_ he sailed to India, Singapore, Australia, and Africa.
Kurtz the chief of the Inner station and the object of Marlow's quest. Kurtz is a man of
many talents _ we learn, among other things, that he is a gifted musician and a fine painter_
the chief of which are his charisma and his ability to lead men.
Kurtz is a man who understands the power of words, and his writings are marked by an
eloquence that obscures their horrifying message. Although he remains an enigma even to
Marlow, Kurtz clearly exerts a powerful influence on the people in his life.
His downfall seems to be a result of his willingness to ignore the hypocritical rules that
govern European colonial conduct: Kurtz has "kicked himself loose of the earth" by
fraternizing excessively with the natives and not keeping up appearances; in so doing, he has
wrath of his fellow white men.
Kurtz's Intended _ kurtz's naïve and long _ suffering fiancee, whom Marlow goes to visit
after Kurtz's death. Her unshakable certainty about Kurtz's love for her reinforces Marlow's
belief that women live in a dream world, well insulated from reality. Kurtz's African Mistress
_ a fiercely beautiful woman loaded with jewelry who appears on the shore when Marlow's
steamer arrives at and leaves the Inner Station. She seems to exert an undue influence over
both Kurtz and the natives around the station, and the Russian trader points her out as
someone to fear. Like Kurtz, she is an enigma: she never speaks to Marlow, and he never
learns anything more about her.
Heart of Darkness tells a story within a story. The novella begins with a group of
passengers aboard a boat floating on the River Thames. One of them, Charlie Marlow, relates
to his fellow seafarers an experience of his that took place on another river altogether—the
Congo River in Africa. Marlow’s story begins in what he calls the “sepulchral city,”
somewhere in Europe. There “the Company”—an unnamed organization running a colonial
enterprise in the Belgian Congo—appoints him captain of a river steamer. He sets out for
.Africa optimistic of what he will find

But his expectations are quickly soured. From the moment he arrives, he is exposed to the
evil of imperialism, witnessing the violence it inflicts upon the African people it exploits. As
he proceeds, he begins to hear tell of a man named Kurtz—a colonial agent who is
supposedly unmatched in his ability to procure ivory from the continent’s interior. According
to rumour Kurtz has fallen ill (and perhaps mad as well), thereby jeopardizing the Company’s
entire venture in the Congo, Marlow is given command of his steamer and a crew of
Europeans and Africans to man it, the latter of whom Conrad shamelessly stereotypes as
“cannibals.” As he penetrates deeper into the jungle, it becomes clear that his surroundings
are impacting him psychologically: his journey is not only into a geographical “heart of
darkness” but into his own psychic interior—and perhaps into the darkened psychic interior
of Western civilization as well. Kurtz dies on the journey back up the river but not before
revealing to Marlow the terrifying glimpse of human evil he’d been exposed to. “The horror!
The horror!” he tells Marlow before dying. Marlow almost dies as well, but he makes it back
to the sepulchral city to recuperate. He is disdainful of the petty tribulations of Western
civilization that seem to occupy everyone around him. As he heals, he is visited by various
characters from Kurtz’s former life—the life he led before finding the dark interior of himself
A year after his return to Europe, Marlow pays Kurtz’s partner a visit. She is in Africa
represented—as several of Heart of Darkness’s female characters are—as naively sheltered
from the awfulness of the world, a state that Marlow hopes to preserve. When she asks about
Kurtz’s final words, Marlow lies: “your name,” he tells her. Marlow’s story ends there. Heart
of Darkness itself ends as the narrator, one of Marlow’s audience, sees a mass of brooding
clouds gathering on the horizon—what seems to him to be “heart of an immense darkness.
The novel Heart of Darkness is in fact journey of your journey of your journey As a weak
human determination and geographical location of Africa where you can ask your human
beings to bring you the illusion and their greed.
 This story is in the form of form and Marlowe shows all the facts of British colonialism in
symbolism , colonial literature, adventure tale, frame story ( a literary technique used ،Africa
to contain an embedded narrative , a story within a story) , almost a romance in its insistence
on heroism and the supernatural and its preference for the symbolic over the realistic.
Ambivalent: Marlow is disgusted at the brutality of the company and horrified by Kurtz's
degeneration, but he claims that any thinking man would be tempted in to similar behavior.
Why did Joseph Conrad write the Heart of Darkness? The novella was written at a time
when there was a growing protest movement regarding the inhumane barbaric manner which
the native population of was being treated by the employees of the corporation owned by
king Leopold of the Belgians.
What literary period is Heart of Darkness? Indeed, no literary movement emerges without
roots, which can be traced back to characteristics developing in earlier in this case, later 19 th
and early 20th century literature Joseph Conrad's heart of darkness is considered a work of
"Early Modernism" by many literary critics.
Why is it called Heart of Darkness? Joseph Conrad's most read novella HOD has double
meaning in its title: one dictionary meaning is that the title refers to the interior of the Africa
called Congo. Another hidden meaning is, the primitiveness that every person possesses in
his or her mind and heart.
Literary realism is a literary movement that represents reality by portraying mundane,
everyday experiences as they are in real life. It depicts familiar people, places, and stories,
primarily about the middle and lower classes of society. Literary realism seeks to tell a story
as truthfully as possible instead of dramatizing or romanticizing it. Literary realism is part of
the realist art movement that started in nineteenth-century France and lasted until the early
twentieth century. It began as a reaction to eighteenth-century Romanticism and the rise of
the bourgeois in Europe. Works of Romanticism were thought to be too exotic and to have
lost touch with the real world. The author himself traveled by sea and went to the Congo and
saw the effects of colonialism up close, and this book shows all the truths of society.
The central figure in the novel is Kurtz who stands for many things. Firstly, He symbolizes
the extreme greed and the commercial mentality of the whites. Secondly, he represents the
white man's excessive love of the power to lead others, thirdly, he stands for the influence of
the savages on the civilized man. And finally, he is the epitome of the repentant sinner.
The transformation of Kurtz into the cruel, savage barbaric self ironically states that every
civilized self has the primitiveness within. If it is not controlled, it would rise and start
governing the civilized self and there remains he civilized one but the real primitive one.
In Heart of Darkness, light doesn't necessarily symbolize pure goodness or pure
enlightenment. In fact, Conrad's vision is so dark that we're not even sure he fully trusts light.
Evil and good don't really apply to Heart of Darkness, because everyone in the novella is
somehow complicit in the atrocities taking place in Africa.
Imperialism is a policy or ideology of extending the rule over peoples and other countries,
for extending political and economic access, power and control, often through employing
hard power, especially military force, but also soft power. While related to the concepts of
colonialism and empire, imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of
expansion and many forms of government.
Imperialism: one of the major themes of Heart of Darkness is imperialism. Imperialism is
actually European Colonization of countries from Asian and African continents for resources.
However, it was hidden in the slogan of spreading civilization. Marlow accepts taking
Africa's land from the people is not right. Kurtz is in Congo pretending to civilize the people
and was engaged in the ivory trade and involved in horrific ancient rituals of sacrificing
humans to appease the native Africans. Marlow describes the ravages of imperialism during
his journey to the heart of Africa.
Colonization means establishing control over the indigenous people of a country or a place.
This theme also runs parallel to diverse other themes in Heart of Darkness. In one of the
situations, Marlow, the spokesman of Conrad, clearly states that conquest of the earth means"
taking it away from those who have a different complexion.
Conclusion:
The people of the mighty European countries thought to be the first race of the world. With
new inventions like new ships, printing weapons, Europe was superior to the other continents.
Driven by the church's idea of mission, the need resources and greed for Gold, first the
Spanish and Portuguese, later all important countries started to take over and exploit less
developed countries. The thought of being the superior race played an important role. Many
scenes and dialogue in" Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad". He shows of the imperialist
exploitation of a backward. Conrad's treatment if the theme of white imperialism was
influenced by his own visit to the Congo and his exploration of that dark country and his
rendering of Marlow's conscious. In this article you will see all the facts in Congo. By the
heart of darkness is meant the height of darkness and misery and oppression that whites have
against Africans.
Reference:
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness: Debunking the two Basic imperial clichés , Tamador
Abu_ snobar
Heart of Darkness , Taylor and Francis _ M Foley_ JJ Lennon _ 1996
The Colonialistic Blas of Heart of Darkness Jstor_ FB singh _ Conradiana, 1978
Joseph Conrad, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad