In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, there is a great interpretation of the
feelings of the characters and uncertainties of the Congo. Although Africa, nor
the Congo are ever really referred to, the Thames river is mentioned as support.
This intricate story reveals much symbolism due to Conrad's theme based on the
lies and good and evil, which interact together in every man. Today, of course,
the situation has changed. Most literate people know that by probing into the
heart of the jungle Conrad was trying to convey an impression about the heart of
man, and his tale is universally read as one of the first symbolic masterpieces
of English prose (Graver,28). In any event, this story recognizes primarily on
Marlow, its narrator, not about Kurtz or the brutality of Belgian officials.
Conrad wrote a brief statement of how he felt the reader should interpret this
work: "My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written
word, to make you hear, to make you feel-it is above all, to make you
see.(Conrad 1897) Knowing that Conrad was a novelist who lived in his work,
writing about the experiences were as if he were writing about himself.
"Every novel contains an element of autobiography-and this can hardly be
denied, since the creator can only explain himself in his
creations."(Kimbrough,158) The story is written as seen through Marlow's
eyes. Marlow is a follower of the sea. His voyage up the Congo is his first
experience in freshwater navigation. He is used as a tool, so to speak, in order
for Conrad to enter the story and tell it out of his own philosophical mind. He
longs to see Kurtz, in the hope's of appreciating all that Kurtz finds endearing
in the African jungle. Marlow does not get the opportunity to see Kurtz until he
is so disease-stricken he looks more like death than a person. There are no good
looks or health. In the story Marlow remarks that Kurtz resembles "an
animated image of death carved out of old ivory." Like Marlow, Kurtz is
seen as an honorable man to many admirers; but he is also a thief, murderer,
raider, persecutor, and above all he allows himself to be worshipped as a god.
Both men had good intentions to seek, yet Kurtz seemed a "universally
genius" lacking basic integrity or a sense of responsibility (Roberts,43).
In the end they form one symbolic unity. Marlow and Kurtz are the light and dark
selves of a single person. Meaning each one is what the other might have been.
Every person Marlow meets on his venture contributes something to the plot as
well as the overall symbolism of the story. Kurtz is the violent devil Marlow
describes at the story's beginning. It was his ability to control men through
fear and adoration that led Marlow to signify this. Throughout the story Conrad
builds an unhealthy darkness that never allows the reader to forget the focus of
the story. At every turn he sees evil lurking within the land. Every image
reflects a dreary, blank one. The deadly Congo snakes to link itself with the
sea and all other rivers of darkness and light, with the tributaries and source
of man's being on earth (Dean,189). The setting of these adventurous and moral
quests is the great jungle, in which most of the story takes place. As a symbol
the forest encloses all, and in the heart of the African journey Marlow enters
the dark cavern of his won heart. It even becomes an image of a vast catacomb of
evil, in which Kurtz dies, but from which Marlow emerges spiritually reborn. The
manager, in charge of three stations in the jungle, feels Kurtz poses a threat
to his own position. Marlow sees how the manager is deliberately trying to delay
any help or supplies to Kurtz. He hopes he will die of neglect. This is where
the inciting moment of the story lies. Should the company in Belgium find out
the truth a bout Kurtz's success in an ivory procurer, they would undoubtedly
elevate him to the position of manager. The manager's insidious and pretending
nature opposes all truth (Roberts,42). This story can be the result of two
completely different aspects in Conrad's life. One being his journey in the
Congo. Conrad had a childhood wish associated with a disapproved childhood
ambition to go to sea. Another would be an act of man to throw his life away.
Thus, the adventurous Conrad and Conrad the moralist may have experienced
collision. But the collision, again as with many novelists of the second war,
could well have been deferred and retrospective, not felt intensely at the time
(Kimbrough,124). Heart of Darkness is a record of things seen and done, Then it
was ivory that poured from the heart of darkness; now it is uranium. There were
so many actual events and facts in the story it made it more an enormity than
entertaining. His confrontations as a man are both dangerous and enlightening.
Perhaps man's inhumanity to man is his greatest sin. And since the story closes
with a lie, maybe Conrad was discovering and analyzing the two aspects of
truth-black truth and white truth. Both, of which, are inherent in every human
soul.