7. Explain the meaning of the title “Heart of Darkness”
NOTE! It may look lengthy but the info is from different sources so you have several options to choose from ;) Or you can write all of it during the exam ;P
A) Darkness is important enough conceptually to be part of the book's title. However, it is difficult to discern exactly what it might mean, given that absolutely everything in the book is cloaked in darkness. Africa (btw, called the Dark Continent), England, and Brussels are all described as gloomy and somehow dark, even if the sun is shining brightly. Darkness thus seems to operate metaphorically and existentially rather than specifically. Darkness is the inability to see: this may sound simple, but as a description of the human condition it has profound implications. Failing to see another human being means failing to understand that individual and failing to establish any sort of sympathetic communion with him or her
B) Literally, the continent is dark and foreboding, with an unexplored heart (the Congo) in its depths. Symbolically, the "heart of darkness," is the journey of Marlow and his companions. Their travels can be understood as a journey into the exploration of the darkness of the men's souls (sin) , reflected back to them by the "dark continent" which they explore.
Another interpretation of the title can refer to the character of Kurtz and his hunger for power which leads to his ultimate descent into madness. This concept can be related to the adage that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Kurtz was made into a god by the natives but his imperfect humanity was unable to support the weight of that obligation.
C) The title of Joseph Conrad's novella “Heart of Darkness” refers both to the depths of the “Dark Continent,” Africa, which the story's narrator Marlow penetrates looking for the mysterious trader Kurtz, and to the corrupt heart of Kurtz himself. The story's most puzzling aspect concerns the way Kurtz changes, after only a few years in the jungle, from an idealist committed to helping the African natives to a colonial just as determined to exploit them. But, as Conrad demonstrates, the changes Kurtz undergoes have as much to do with the foundations of Western colonialism as they do with the corruption of one individual man.
In all likelihood, Kurtz was sent by the company on a commercial expedition with as little preparation as Marlow received. But Marlow went with no other thought in mind than to enjoy an adventure; Kurtz went into the “Heart of Darkness” to enlighten and change an entire people. In other words, Kurtz' seriously misguided purpose was more damaging than Marlow's lack of any purpose at all. It also set him up for a profound moral disintegration.
Kurtz wanted to redeem the natives because he felt that he was in possession of the Truth, with a capital T. His preconceived notion was that the primitive Africans were somehow dark in soul as well as in skin, and they needed to be enlightened. Obviously the black people Kurtz encountered were in no need of enlightenment at all, but his unbridled power over them, combined with his cultural and spiritual isolation in Africa, unhinged Kurtz' brain and drove it into a darkness more profound than any he could ever have imagined.
D) The "heart of darkness" serves both as an image of the interior of a dark and foreign continent as well as the interior workings of the mind of man, which are dark and foreign to all observers. The literal journey into the jungle is a metaphor, or symbol, for the journey into the uncharted human soul. On another level, the voyage into the wilderness can be read as a voyage back to Eden, or to the very beginning of the world. On still another level, the actual trip into and then out of the African continent can be seen as metaphor for sin and redemption. It parallels the descent into the depths of human degradation and death (in Kurtz's case; near-death in Marlow's) and the return to the light, or life. The dying Kurtz himself, who is half-French and half-English and of whom Marlow says, "All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz," can be seen as a symbol for a decaying western civilization.
E) Quotations:
about Kurz: “the thing was to know how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own [Author ID0: at Thu Nov 30 00:00:00 1899 ]“
during the voyage up the Congo River [Author ID0: at Thu Nov 30 00:00:00 1899 ] “we penetrated deeper into the heart of darkness"[Author ID0: at Thu Nov 30 00:00:00 1899 ]
the ending “the offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading into the uttermost ends of the earth flowed sombre under an overcast sky---seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness." [Author ID0: at Thu Nov 30 00:00:00 1899 ]
it appears as though Kurtz himself is not "heart of darkness" of the entire ivory trade in all of Africa. While portrayed as a particularly powerful man, Kurtz is only a symbolic figure of a much larger concept, and that is the brutality of the ivory trade as it existed in nineteenth-century Africa[Author ID0: at Thu Nov 30 00:00:00 1899 ]. Therefore, as one can realize, all of these references---be they to Kurtz, the despotic ivory trader himself; or to more abstract or, conversely, physical (even inanimate) aspects of the work---relate to one remaining common thread: allusions to human tyranny, injustice, and brutality[Author ID0: at Thu Nov 30 00:00:00 1899 ]
In these ways then, one can begin to understand that the "heart of darkness" to which Conrad refers in the title of his acclaimed work clearly relates to the very real concept of tyranny, inhumanity, and the purveying of severe injustice to others. Further still, though, this "heart of darkness," as seen in those other than Kurtz, is an often quiet bane which can potentially dwell deep within even the most seemingly benign of people. Therefore, one must recognize the real threat of the awful potential of this human "darkness" before succumbing to its clutches and destroying not just others but, also, as seen through Kurtz, oneself.[Author ID0: at Thu Nov 30 00:00:00 1899 ]