What is the “Heart of Darkness”?
I am enjoying this my second reading through of Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. I am seeing a lot I missed the first time. The question that Jon Alder has pressed me on is, “What is the Heart of Darkness”? I am finding this a truly helpful question.
Of course, there is within each of us a heart full of darkness. Who can know it? I am convinced that some of what Conrad is working through in this story is how dark the heart of man truly is, especially when those things that hold back that darkness (accountability, convention, tradition, culture) are stripped away, as with someone spending a great deal of time in the bush of Africa.
And I am sure given the context, that some of the darkness Conrad is examining is at a colonial level as the “Man” seeks to do this thing to the African people.
But one of the better thoughts I have had is how powerful an image darkness is on its own merits. Physical darkness is fear inducing. Mental darkness is common to all of us, and how often we can be brought there in this world of shadows. One of the more compelling images of this early on is the slave on the coast who is unmercifully beaten and a few days later, “I saw him, later, for several days, sitting in a bit of shade looking very sick and trying to recover himself; afterwards he arose and went out — and the wilderness without a sound took him into its bosom again.”
Another great image of this darkness, its vastness physically in respect to the size of Africa, is just a few lines before the story teller says, “And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion.”
I hope the rest of you are enjoying this as well.
