Themes of Heart of darkness

post colonial literature

1. THEMES IN HEART OF DARKNESS Presented by Presented By: Mahnoor Shabbir Ayesha Afzal Faryal Shahbaz Samia Munawar

2. Subject to discussion Introduction of Heart of Darkness Theme of Racism Theme of Deception Theme of uncertainty Theme of religion Theme of darkness Theme of Sanity and Insanity Theme of Alienation and Loneliness Theme of violence and cruelty Theme of duty and responsibility Theme of illness Theme of Evil

3. Introduction Heart of Darkness is one of the masterpieces of Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), which shows the author’s great humanity and his unreserved horror at the crimes committed by the colonists and imperialists all over the world. Kurtz, the main character in the novel, is characterized by his greed for material gain and power. The dark side of human nature is reflected in Kurtz’s cruel behaviour towards the natives, his sense of superiority to the marginalized, and his dominance in discourse over the colonial people. Along with the colonists’ crazy behaviours , there is disillusion with the modern civilization.

4. Definition Theme is a term that describes the main idea or message of a poem, story or book. A theme is usually more than one word, but is a brief description about the message that the author wants to get across.

5. Racism Conrad does not exactly want to buy the world a Coke, but he does seem to have some unconventional ideas about race -- at least, unconventional for the late nineteenth century. He seems to be suggesting that there really is not so much difference between black and white -- except that this vision of racial harmony becomes more complicated when you consider that he seems to be suggesting that black people are just less evolved versions of white people; the black natives are primitive and therefore innocent while the white colonizers are sophisticated and therefore corrupt.

6. Conti… Kurtz is writing a treatise for something called the “International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs.” This implies the existence of a worldwide movement to subjugate all non-white races. Kurtz bestows a kind of childlike quality upon the Africans by saying that white people appear to them as supernatural beings. The natives do, indeed, seem to have worshipped Kurtz as a god and to have offered up human sacrifices to him. This innocence proceeds, in Kurtz’s view, from an inferior intelligence and does not prevent him from concluding that the way to deal with the natives is to exterminate them all.

7. Deception Deception, or hypocrisy, is a central theme of the novel and is explored on many levels. In the disguise (camouflage) of a “noble cause,” the Belgians have exploited the Congo. Claiming to educate the natives, to bring them religion and a better way of life, European colonizers remained to starve, mutilate (destroy), and murder the indigenous population for profit.

8. Conti... Marlow has even obtained his captaincy through deception, for his aunt misrepresented him as “an exceptional and gifted creature.” Marlow engages in his own deception when he tells Kurtz’s fiancé the lie that Kurtz died with her name on his lips.

9. Uncertainty Marlow is obsessed with Kurtz before he even meets him, without a clear idea why. A sense of danger pervades the entire trip, and it is mostly dictated by uncertainty. The natives do not seem inherently threatening. On one occasion, they let fly a series of arrows, but these even look ineffectual to Marlow. They are threatening because they might be poisoned.

10. Conti… Similarly, Marlow has no clear idea of what the natives might do to him if Kurtz gave them free rein. Kurtz himself is an uncertain figure, ruled as he is by two separate impulses, the noble and the destructive. Above all, the idea of "darkness" expresses the theme of uncertainty.

11. Religion Although there is controversy over whether Conrad is critiquing colonialism or not, it is clear that he is critiquing religion. The two groups in the novel, the pilgrims and the natives, are linked by having religious beliefs, and the pilgrims seem at least as bloodthirsty as the natives. The rite in the woods that Marlow describes seems alien but certainly no more dangerous than the ambush. One of the seemingly admirable characteristics of Kurtz, as presented by Conrad, is that he seems just as compelled by African religion as by Christianity but seems beholden to neither.

12. Conti… Marlow genuinely admires his ability to independently critique religions. He may not agree with Kurtz's evaluation, but he respects Kurtz's ability to have his own opinions in the face of the various religious traditions he encounters.

13. Pervasiveness of Darkness Perhaps the strongest theme in the novel is that of darkness. Indeed, darkness seems to pervade the whole work. Marlow's tale begins and ends in literal darkness; the setting of the novel is often dark, such as when the steamboat is socked in by fog or when Marlow retrieves Kurtz; dark-skinned individuals inhabit the entire region, and, of course, there is a certain philosophical darkness that permeates the work. But within the tale darkness operates in several ways.

14. Conti … Moreover, darkness creates fear and conceals certain savage acts. It is too enveloping. The character who most fully embraces the darkness is, of course, Kurtz. This theme suggests that the light of civilization will someday return to darkness.

15. Sanity and Insanity Madness, given prolonged exposure to the isolation of the wilderness, seems an inevitable extension of chaos. The atmospheric influences at the heart of the African continent play havoc with the un adapted European mind and reduce it either to the insanity of thinking anything is allowable in such an atmosphere or, as in Kurtz’s case, to literal madness.

16. Conti … Kurtz, after many years in the jungle, is presented as a man who has gone mad with power and greed. No restraints were placed on him—either from above, from a rule of law, or from within, from his own conscience. Kurtz speaks of “my ivory … my intended … my river … my station,” as if everything in the Congo belonged to him. This is the final arrogant insanity of the white man who comes supposedly to improve a land, but stays to exploit, ravage, and destroy it.

17. Alienation and Loneliness The themes of alienation, loneliness, silence and solitude predominate in Heart of Darkness. The book begins and ends in silence, with men first waiting for a tale to begin and then left to their own thoughts after it has concluded. Prolonged silence and solitude are seen to have damaging effects on many characters in the book. .

18. Conti... Marlow’s predecessor, who was transformed from a gentle soul into a man of violence, and the Russian, who has been alone on the River for two years and dresses bizarrely and chatters constantly. But loneliness and alienation have taken their greatest toll on Kurtz, who, cut off from all humanizing influence, has forfeited the restraints of reason and conscience and given free rein to his basest and brutal instincts

19. Violence and Cruelty Conrad suggests that violence and cruelty result when law is absent and man allows himself to be ruled by whatever brutal passions lie within him. Consumed by greed, conferring upon himself the status of a god, Kurtz runs amok in a land without law. Under such circumstances, anything is possible, and what Conrad sees emerging from the situation is the profound cruelty and limitless violence that lies at the heart of the human soul.

20. Conti … Kurtz (representing European imperialists) has systematically engaged in human plunder. The natives are seen chained by iron collars about their necks, starved, beaten, subsisting on rotten hippo meat, forced into soul−crushing and meaningless labour, and finally ruthlessly murdered

21. Duty and Responsibility As is true of all other themes in the book, those of duty and responsibility are glimpsed on many levels. On a national level, we are told of the British devotion to duty and efficiency, which led to systematic colonization of large parts of the globe and has its counterpart in Belgian colonization of the Congo, the book’s focus. On an individual level, Conrad weaves the themes of duty and responsibility through Marlow’s job as captain, a position that make him responsible for his crew and bound to his duties as the boat’s commander. There are also the jobs of those with whom Marlow comes into contact on his journey.

22. Conti… In Heart of Darkness, duty and responsibility revolve most often about how one does one’s work. A job well done is respected; simply doing the work one is responsible for is an honourable act. Yet Conrad does not believe in romanticizing the worker. Workers can often be engaged in meaningless tasks. The Company’s Manager would seem to have a duty to run his business efficiently, but he cannot keep order and although he is obeyed, he is not respected.

23. Illness Illness is a major factor in this novel. It appears in physical and mental forms. Marlow is hired to replace a man who committed suicide, and another instance of suicide is announced by a sombre Swedish man. The first thing that Marlow does upon being hired is to the doctor, who checks both his mental and physical health and provides a very gloomy prognosis.

24. Conti… The mental health issue is particular to "Heart of Darkness", while the issue of wider health continues in the tradition of Victorian novels, in which men often travel to Africa only to come down with exotic diseases. In the end, it seems that Marlow is more mentally than physically taxed, while Kurtz is clearly both.

25. The Absurdity of Evil The novel is an exploration of hypocrisy, ambiguity, and moral confusion. It explodes the idea of the 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 to try to judge either alternative is an act of folly. The number of 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 insignificant silliness and life-or-death issues, often simultaneously.

26. Conclusion Heart of Darkness is a mixture of adventure story, psychological case study, political satire, black humour comedy. Conrad has not been able to completely shake off the influence of the European centrism and racist consciousness. That is to say, when Heart of Darkness is attacking colonialism and exposing colonialist greed and hypocrisy, it also reveals the Western racial discrimination unconsciously.

27. References Greiner, D. J. (1989). Heart of darkness: Out of Africa some new thing rarely comes. Journal of Modern Literature, 15(4), 461-474. https://gladcanlit.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/major-themes-in-heart-of-darkness

28. Thank you