Book #92: Heart of Darkness

Book #92: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

June 18, 2014

I actually finished this book a few days ago, but have been putting
off writing this blog post. Why? Because quite frankly, I do not know
what to make of this book.

When I was subbing long-term at a high school last year, I had a tiny
class of AP English students. For their final book assignment, their
teacher gave me two options: this, or The Scarlet Letter. She
applauded my choice of Hawthorne, admitting that she doesn't really
like Heart of Darkness. In truth, I made my decision based on which
one I'd read; that seemed obvious. But I was intrigued by her comment;
why didn't she like this book?

Well, I can maybe see where she was coming from. But if I had the
chance to make the choice again, I'd probably go with Heart of Darkness. As far as being a "challenging" book, this one certainly is; among motivated students, it could spark some fascinating discussion. The big question that I have is, what was Conrad's message in this
book?

Okay, so the book was published over 100 years ago, at a time when
Europeans were raping Africa of its resources and brutalizing its
people. That was essentially my frame of mind as I read this book. I
actually found the narration to be very interesting; the first couple
of pages didn't pull me in, but once Marlow started his story, I was
along for the ride. Marlow is recalling a trip he'd made to the center
of Africa as a hired captain of a small delivery boat. He was employed
with some greedy-ass company; the people who worked for it were either
lazy or insane.

I could interpret Conrad's message in a few different ways. I would
guess that he felt like whitey had no place in Africa, and he
describes it as breaking down those men who went there to seek their
fortunes. Kurtz loses his mind from greed for ivory, but he's also
described as having immersed himself into the culture of the native
peoples...which, apparently, is a bad thing. Africa had brought out
the darkness of HIS heart.

That's where things get a little dicey. The native Africans are
described in not very flattering ways; the "n-word" is used often, and
a tribe of "savages" attacks Marlow's river boat at one point. The
cannibals who work for Marlow aren't treated much better in the
narrative; the best that can be said about them is that they didn't
eat the white men on the boat, even as they were starving. I did
appreciate the descriptions here, of the white men putting their own
greedy interests above the basic needs of these other men. That's
where I connected most with the book, and felt it to be most true.

I recently made a flippant comment in a conversation that "Africa is
scary." It sounded stupid and racist, and I should have explained that
it is what has been DONE to Africa that makes it such a scary place.
Apartheid, AIDS, diamond mining, political turmoil...all that shit
stems back to Europeans infecting the mother continent. In truth, I
have a respect for Africa, and for people who go there to try to HELP
people, those who are lacking in natural resources or the means to
produce them. I have a respect for African people (in general; Africa
is a huge, various continent), and for the fact that their cultures
are so very different from my own.

Conrad, in this book, is making some of those connections, but overall
he doesn't seem to have moved past the idea that "Africa is scary." Is
this book racist? Totally. I think it presents an interesting
HISTORICAL perspective on Africa and Western society's influence on
it, but it definitely needs to be viewed through a modern lens.