by Neil Deo

Created on: July 15, 2008   Last Updated: August 10, 2008

Joseph Conrad is a pillar of Victorian literature, but Polish rather than English, ws his native language. Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" (1899) is a masterpiece, if not for story-telling, then at least for a first, major psychological study of Europeans and their missions abroad going awry. The controversies include speculation as to why Europeans who lived for long periods in Africa either went "native" or "mad," and the various contrasts between darkness and light.

"Heart of Darkness" is set in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) or in Conrad's day was the "Belgian Congo," which had been renamed Zaire under late strongman and anti-communist stalwart, Mobutu Sese Seko. The reader will ask during and after the reading, is the heart of darkness a geographical reference to the center of the African continent, or is it the heart of Europeans that harbor a dangerous darkness; is the darkness of the Africans better than that of the Europeans? Critics have focussed on whether Conrad intended to be critical of the western Europeans and colonialism, or only of the "noble" mission they assumed in "civilising" Africa? If there is fogginess in Conrad's approach to his theme - especially the juxtaposition of light and darkness - it may have helped the writer in the marketplace. On the other hand, Europeans, including Britons, are generally more willing to criticize themselves than are Americans. The point to be made here is that Conrad's book may well have been banned, or spurned by readers, had it been more direct in satirising the "white man's burden" in the darker parts of the globe. However, the novel does not talk about India, the jewel in the British crown, but rather about Belgium's late scramble for African colonies, thus grabbing a mostly landlocked continent-sized country, albeit with a "mighty river."

Already, both the Thames - London and Britain's commercial artery - and the Begian Congo's river by that name, loom large in the first eight pages. In the opening page, Charlie Marlow (not always the same person as the narrator) is sitting with other seamen on the "NELLIE" waiting for the turn of the tide at the mouth of the Thames River. And while lazily waiting Marlow talks not only of the dominant images, light and dark, but also about England itself having been colonized by the Roamns who must have experienced England as "one of the dark places of the earth." He is the only seaman - though atypical in many ways - who bucks the lazy sunset hours

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>