Heart of Darkness
The numbers in parentheses refer to paragraphs in Part I.
Part I
1. Narrative Structure. In Heart of Darkness, we encounter
another "frame narrative.” That is, the initial narrative framestory, told by a first narrator (never named) establishes the
situation for and "frames" the telling of a second embedded (and
the main) story, told by a second and main narrator,
Marlow. Who are the two narrators of the novel? Describe the
situation and characters on board the Nellie. How does Marlow
differ from the other men, his audience, on board the Nellie? What
does the first unnamed narrator and the frame-story
contribute to Heart of Darkness?
2. Parallels & Foreshadowing. The unnamed first-person narrator
prepares the way for Marlow's initial meditation "evok[ing] the
great spirit of the past upon the lower reaches of the Thames" river
(6). Marlow begins his story suddenly: "'And this [England] also . .
. has been one of the dark places of the earth'" (8), "'when the
Romans first came here nineteen hundred years ago--the other day
. . .'" (11). In describing the Roman conquest of England (11-13),
Marlow suggests parallels to the main story of Heart of Darkness:
what seems to be foreshadowed? How does Marlow define
"conquerors" and what kind of "idea" might redeem such conquest
(13)? [See also Marlow's attitude toward women below.] Revisit
the opening section of Part I after you have finished Heart of
Darkness.
FORESHADOWING: "The technique of introducing into a
narrative material that prepares the reader or audience for future
events, actions, or revelations. Foreshadowing often involves the
creation of a mood or atmosphere that suggests an eventual
outcome; the introduction of objects, facts, events, or characters
that hint at or otherwise prefigure a developing situation or
conflict; or the exposition of significant character traits allowing
the reader or audience to anticipate the character's actions or fate.
Occasionally the theme or conclusion of a work is foreshadowed
by its title. . . . Although there are many methods of foreshadowing
and many reasons to use this technique, its effect is to unify the
plot by making its development and structure seem logical and
perhaps even inevitable" (Murfin and Ray 173).
3. Marlow's Story-telling. The unnamed Nellie narrator describes
Marlow at various moments in the novel. What is Marlow like?
How do the others regard him? How does the unnamed narrator
characterize Marlow's tales (9)? Marlow suggests that his audience
must "'understand the effect'" on him to construct the meaning of
this story--what the unnamed narrator calls another of "Marlow's
inconclusive experiences" (14). Later Marlow says, "It seems to
me I am trying to tell you a dream,'" perhaps an "'impossible task'"
(62, 64).
What, then, is the nature of such story-telling? Where does its
meaning lie?
4. Settings & Plot Events. Try constructing a chart, timeline, or
map identifying the key places, events, and stages of Marlow's
journey: his initial attraction to Africa, the Company's office in the
"city," the voyage from Europe to Africa, the first stop in the
Congo, stages of the journey up the Congo River to Kurtz, and the
return.
5. More Foreshadowing. Consider Marlow's account of what
drew him out to Africa. What is suggested by his likening the
Congo River to a "snake" and himself to a foolish, charmed "bird"?
Note the case of Fresleven, the river captain whom Marlow is to
replace; Marlow's comparison of the city of his employers to "a
whited sepulchre" (22); the ominous atmosphere of the Company's
office with the two women knitting black wool and "guarding the
door of Darkness" (25); the doctor ["alienist" = early psychologist]
who measures Marlow's head because he has a scientific interest in
measuring "the mental changes of individuals" who venture out to
Africa in the Company's employ (27). What type of experience,
what type of journey, do these signs seem to predict?
6. Notice Marlow's attitude toward "excellent" women like his
aunt [and later Kurtz's fiancée, the"Intended"]. Characterize
Marlow's attitude toward women like his aunt (28,29). Despite his
protest that the Company is "run for profit," note that Marlow has
been "represented"--like Kurtz before him--as "an exceptional and
gifted creature," "Something like an emissary of light" or "lower
sort of apostle," and his "excellent" aunt runs on about '''weaning
those ignorant millions from their horrid ways.'" Afterwards he
feels he is "an imposter." Compare that "too beautiful" world such
women live in, apt to fall apart at the first encounter with reality, to
the image of the blind-folded woman carrying a "lighted torch"
depicted in Kurtz's painting (58) in the room of the young
aristocratic agent at Central Station.
7. Europeans in Africa. Describe Marlow's first impressions of
the European presence in Africa, captured in his observations
regarding the French steamer firing into the coast and regarding the
Company's lower station (31-37). Contrast the Europeans' naming
of the Africans as "enemies" to Marlow's view of the Africans.
8. Marlow’s Devils. Consider Marlow's description of the "devils"
he has seen (38). What are the different types of "devils" he
describes? Why is he so appalled by the "flabby, pretending, weakeyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly" that he sees in most
Europeans in Africa? What does he mean?
9. Europeans in the [Belgian] Congo. Consider the Europeans
that Marlow meets at the Company's stations:
(a) the Company's chief accountant (43-44: why does Marlow
respect him?),
(b) the manager (53-54: why is such a man in command?),
(c) the "faithless pilgrims" (55: why does Marlow call them that?),
(d) the "manager's spy" (57: what kind of "devil" is this "papiermache Mephistopheles" [62]?);
(e) the "sordid buccaneers" of the Eldorado Exploring Expedition
(72-74). How does Marlow assess these men and their motives for
coming to and remaining in Africa?
10. African Wilderness as Setting & Character: How does
Marlow describe the setting: the Congo jungle--the "wilderness"
(e.g., see pp. 62, 71)? [Consider how Conrad's representation of the
physical nature differs from that of the Romantics.]
11. Marlow & Kurtz. Long before he meets Kurtz, Marlow hears
from others that Kurtz is extraordinary, "remarkable." On what
evidence do these claims seem to be based? By the end of Part I,
Marlow develops a strong curiosity about Kurtz: why?
12. Marlow’s Attitude toward Lies. Marlow sometimes leaps
ahead of his story, as when he says that he would not have fought
for Kurtz, "but I went for him near enough to lie" (62). Why does
Marlow "flashforward" in this way at times in his narrative? What
is Marlow's attitude toward lies (62)? What is the consequence of
his allowing the "young fool" to overestimate Marlow's "influence
in Europe" (62)? Here we are returned to the "narrative present" of
the narrative frame: how does the unnamed Nellie narrator feel at
this point in Marlow's narrative (67)?
13. Marlow, Work and Rivets. Analyze Marlow's statements
about his "work": why is he so intent upon wanting "rivets" (6871)? Given his surroundings, the example of the other Europeans
around him, his admission that he doesn't really like work (69)-why do you think Marlow now turns so avidly to the "battered,
twisted, ruined, tin-pot steamboat" (69)?
Heart of Darkness
Parts II and III
Numbers in parentheses refer to paragraphs
Part II
Pay close attention to paragraphs 80, 82, 87, and 104. In addition
to these questions, conduct your own careful rereading and
analysis.
1. Marlow, unobserved, overhears a conversation about Kurtz
between the manager and his uncle (76-78), and states, "...I seemed
to see Kurtz for the first time," turning his [Kurtz's] back on
headquarters and home, "setting his face towards the depths of the
wilderness..." (77). Marlow wonders at Kurtz's motive in turning
back to the Inner Station instead of returning home as he had
intended. A bit later Marlow begins to supply an answer:
"Everything belonged to him--but that was a trifle. The thing was
to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness
claimed him for their own" (104). What do you think had called
Kurtz back to his Inner Station in the "heart of darkness"?
2. As Marlow progresses on his journey upriver, he grows
increasingly "excited at the prospect of meeting Kurtz" (79); and
when he thinks Kurtz might die before Marlow gets to him,
Marlow confesses "extreme disappointment": he had looked
forward to "a talk with Kurtz" (99)--why? What do you think is the
source of Marlow's fascination with Kurtz? Why does Marlow feel
that to miss Kurtz would be to miss "my destiny in life" (100)?
3. Marlow observes: "Going up the river was like travelling back
to the earliest beginnings of the world," a past remembered "in the
shape of an unrestful and noisy dream," amid this "strange"
African "silence, a "stillness" without "peace"--the "stillness of an
implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked
at you with a vengeful aspect" (80). They "crawled toward Kurtz"
and "penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness"
(82; emphasis mine--note this title allusion). "We were wanderers
on a prehistoric earth"--an atavistic journey into the human past-"We could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking
possession of an accursed inheritance, to be subdued at the cost of
profound anguish and of excessive toil" (82). What is this
"accursed inheritance" that Marlow envisions? Kurtz has travelled
up this river before Marlow--what has happened to Kurtz? (See
also 104.)
4. Twenty "cannibals" travel with Marlow upriver (82). Aware of
the Africans onshore, their headman advises Marlow to "'Catch
'im. Give 'im to us" so they can "Eat 'im'" (89). Marlow then
realizes that his African crewmen "must be very hungry" (89), and
meditates on the "devilry of lingering starvation, its exasperating
torment,...its...ferocity" (89). Yet these big powerful Africans
"didn't go for us [the white men on board]" and Marlow is dazzled
by the fact of their "Restraint!" (89). What is the source of such
"restraint" that earns Marlow’s grudging admiration? Compare to
Marlow's later judgment that his dead helmsman, "just like Kurtz,"
"had no restraint" (105): what is their common deficiency?
5. Describe Marlow's attitude toward black Africans. In particular,
consider the attitudes expressed on 82-83. Why does he say that
"the worst of it" is suspecting "their not being inhuman"? Why is
the thought of "remote kinship" judged "Ugly" by Marlow? What
is their "terrible frankness"--"truth stripped of its cloak of time"?
What does Marlow mean when he says: "The mind of man is
capable of anything--because everything is in it, all the past as well
as all the future"? What does it take to prove that one is "as much
of a man as these [Africans] on shore"? Marlow addresses his
listeners: “You wonder I didn’t go ashore for a howl and a dance?
Well, no—I didn’t…I had no time.” Marlow had to keep the boat
running. Why does he claim “There was surface-truth enough in
these things to save a wiser man? What things?
6. Examine Marlow's attitude toward the African "fireman" (83)
and the "helmsman" (95-96). Consider the scene of the helmsman's
death (97). Why does Marlow miss "my late helmsman awfully"
(104)? What is the helmsman's "claim of distant kinship [to
Marlow] affirmed in a supreme moment" (104)?
7. Why does Marlow consider Towson's An Inquiry into some
Points of Seamanship "an extraordinary find" (84)? Marlow judges
it "luminous with another than a professional light"-why...especially in the midst of all this madness? Later we learn
that this book belonged to the "harlequin" Russian (109-112).
Describe the Russian. What seems to be his relationship to Kurtz?
8. Marlow admits that there is "an appeal to me in this fiendish row
[the "wild and passionate uproar" of the Africans onshore]....Very
well; I hear;...but I have a voice, too, and for good or evil mine is
the speech that cannot be silenced" (83). A bit later Marlow argues
with himself about "whether or no I would talk openly with Kurtz,"
but doubts seriously whether it would matter: "my speech or my
silence ...would be a mere futility," for "The essentials of this affair
lay deep under the surface, beyond my reach, and beyond my
power of meddling" (87). Still, Marlow wants to talk to Kurtz and
he must tell his [Marlow's own? Kurtz's] story of Heart of
Darkness: why?
Consider the subject of voice(s): Marlow makes what he calls
"the strange discovery" that Kurtz "presented himself as a voice"
(102). The Russian says, "'You don't talk with that man--you listen
to him" (110). Consider Kurtz's pamphlet for the "International
Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs"--Kurtz's 17 pages
of "eloquence" and its "luminous and terrifying" postcription:
"Exterminate the brutes!" (104)--as examples of what Kurtz has to
say.
In what sense has "All Europe contributed to the making of
Kurtz" (104)? And why does Marlow feel the need to try to
"account to myself for--for--Mr. Kurtz--for the shade of Mr.
Kurtz" (104)?
9. "The approach to this Kurtz grubbing for ivory in the wretched
bush was beset by as many dangers as though he had been an
enchanted princess sleeping in a fabulous castle" (90). Does this
comparison seem ironic, accurate, or both? Is Marlow on a kind of
quest?
10. Marlow's boat is attacked by Kurtz's natives, we learn, because
"'They don't want him to go'" (112). And at one point Marlow sees
"a face amongst the leaves...looking at me very fierce and steady;"
(96)--Kurtz's African woman. Note how she will be compared to
Kurtz's European fiancee, the "Intended."
Marlow believes that men must help keep European women
like Kurtz's fiancee and Marlow's aunt "in that beautiful world of
their own, lest ours get worse" (104). This statement follows
Marlow's proclamation: "I laid the ghost of his [Kurtz's] gifts at
last with a lie" (104). Consider the relationships among these
statements to Marlow's notion of a redeeming "idea," his earlier
statements regarding "lies," and their implications for Marlow's
actions in the final scene (the interview with the Intended) in Part
III.
11. Consider the characteristic ways that Marlow describes the
African jungle setting--the "wilderness"--in Part II: e.g., pp. 87,
104. What part does the African "wilderness" play in this novel?
Part III
12. What is the function of the Russian in the novel? What
motivates him? What is his relationship to Kurtz? Why does
Marlow consider the Russian "bewildering," "an insoluable
problem" (113)? What do we and Marlow learn about Kurtz from
the Russian? What was Kurtz doing in the "heart of darkness"?
13. What do the "heads on the stakes" reveal (116)? How do you
interpret Marlow's response to this "savage sight": he says, "pure,
uncomplicated savagery was a positive relief"--from what?--"being
something that had a right to exist--obviously--in the sunshine"
(118)? Why does Marlow scoff at the description of the heads
belonging to "Rebels!" (118)? The heads, Marlow decides, "only
showed that Mr. Kurtz lacked restraint..." (117). What is the
"deficiency" that Marlow perceives in Kurtz--the lack of "restraint"
that left Kurtz vulnerable to "the wilderness [which] had found him
out early, and had taken on him a terrible vengeance for the
fantastic invasion" (117)? Marlow claims Kurtz is “hollow at the
core”; think of the “papier-mache Mephistopheles.” Why has the
hollowness made Kurtz more susceptible to the wilderness? What
does this assessment have to do with Marlow’s claim in paragraph
118 about the heads on stakes: “After all, that was only a savage
sight, while I seemed at one bound to have been transported into
some lightless region of subtle horrors, where pure, uncomplicated
savagery was a positive relief, being something that had a right to
exist—obviously—in the sunshine”?
14. When Kurtz finally appears in the story (121 & following),
does he confirm the advance accounts that we have had of him?
Marlow describes Kurtz repeatedly as "a voice"--again (see Part II.
question #8), what is the significance of this description? What
other terms used to describe Kurtz seem to you particularly
important?
15. The African woman, "a wild and gorgeous apparition," appears
in p. 125-128. Note how she is described, the gesture she makes
more than once (e.g. pp. 146), Marlow's associations between her
and the "wilderness itself.” What is her significance?
Compare/contrast her to Kurtz's European "Intended."
16. The manager judges Kurtz's "method...unsound" (131). What
"method" and of doing what, does the manager have in mind? Why
does Marlow react the manager with such disgust? He says, "...I
had never breathed an atmosphere so vile" (131). What prompts
Marlow to turn, instead, "mentally to Kurtz for relief"--and
ultimately pronounce Kurtz "a remarkable man" (131)? Marlow
observes that he has "at least a choice of nightmares" (131): what
"choice" does he mean? (See also 137 and148, when Marlow
repeats this expression and indicates that Kurtz is associated with
Marlow's "choice.")
17. What is the source of Marlow's feeling of kinship with Kurtz?
What leads him to call himself "Mr Kurtz's friend--in a way" (132),
to confess that "I did not betray Mr. Kurtz--it was ordered I should
never betray him" (137), to take into his keeping Kurtz's personal
papers and his fiancee's photograph, and to remain "loyal" to Kurtz
to the end?
18. Amid drum beats and "weird incantation" dying in the night, "a
strange narcotic effect" coming over him, Marlow discovers Kurtz
missing. Then Marlow experiences "a sheer blank fright," an
"overpowering" emotion induced by "moral shock...as if something
altogether monstrous, intolerable to thought and odious to the soul,
had been thrust upon me unexpectedly" (136). The sensation lasts
"the merest fraction of a second"; then Marlow follows Kurtz's trail
into the darkness. What "moral shock" has Marlow experienced,
do you think?
19. When Marlow finds Kurtz, it is the "moment, when the
foundations of our intimacy were being laid" (140). Marlow tries
"to break the spell--the heavy, mute spell of the wilderness--that
seemed to draw [Kurtz] to its pitiless breast"--and understands
what "had driven him out to the edge of the forest...towards...the
throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations;...beguiled his
unlawful soul...beyond the bounds of permitted aspiration" (141).
What is driving Marlow into this terrible "intimacy" with Kurtz?
Here, in the heart of darkness, Marlow proclaims: "Soul! If
anybody had ever struggled with a soul, I am the man" (141).
Kurtz's soul, "Being along in the wilderness,...had looked into
itself, and by heavens! I tell you, it had gone mad. I had--for my
sins, I suppose--to go through the ordeal of looking into it myself"
(141). Interpret this moment of crisis--for Kurtz and for Marlow.
20. On board the boat, moved by the "brown current...swiftly out
of the heart of darkness" (148), that soul "that knew no restraint, no
faith, and no fear" (141), still continues to struggle. What opposing
forces do you believe struggle within Kurtz? What "diabolic love
and...unearthly hate of the mysteries it had penetrated" contend for
"possession of that soul satiated with primitive emotions, avid of
lying fame, of sham distinction, of all the appearances of success
and power" (149)?
21. To what do Kurtz's final words, "The horror! The horror!" refer
(155)? It is because of Kurtz's last words, finally, that Marlow
affirms, "Kurtz was a remarkable man" (160). Why does Marlow
call these words "an affirmation, a moral victory" (160)? and why
does Marlow later lie to the Intended (p. 197) when she asks for
Kurtz's final words? In paragraph 161 Marlow also compares
himself to Kurtz: “True, he had made that last stride, he had
stepped over the edge, while I had been permitted to draw back my
hesitating foot.” What does Marlow mean by this comparison?
22. When Marlow returns to Europe and "the sepulchral city," why
does he find it so profoundly "irritating" and "offensive" (161)?
23. Marlow goes to see Kurtz's Intended--whether out of
"unconscious loyalty" or "ironic necessit[y]," he's not sure (162).
Why do you think he goes?
24. The final scene (165 to end) between Marlow and Kurtz's
fiancee is charged throughout with verbal and dramatic irony:
that is, when the speaker's implicit meanings differ from what he
says, and/or the readers share with the author or character
knowledge of which another character (i.e. the Intended) is
ignorant. Identify some instances of such ironies in this final scene.
25. Revisit the opening section of Part I, from "when the Romans
first came here" to "What redeems it is the idea only...an unselfish
belief in the idea--something you can set up, and bow down before,
and offer a sacrifice to..." (13). Consider the parallels
foreshadowing what you now know happens to Kurtz, and to
Marlow, in the heart of darkness. Reconsider also Marlow's
allusion to a redeeming "idea" in relation to the Intended's "mature
capacity for fidelity, for belief, for suffering" (165), "the faith that
was in her,...that great and saving illusion" before which Marlow
bows his head (174)--and which Marlow preserves by telling a lie.
26. The novel concludes by returning to the narrative frame, set
aboard the Nellie: the tide is now turning; the unnamed narrator
observes that "the tranquil waterway [the Thames]" seems now "to
lead into the heart of an immense darkness" (199). Marlow is
described as sitting "apart...in the pose of a meditating Buddha":
do you think Marlow has achieved some sort of enlightenment?
Have you? Now that you, too, have experienced Marlow's story,
revisit and reinterpret the unnamed narrator's description of where
the meaning lies of one of Marlow's tales at the end of paragraph 9.
What, for you, seem to be the meaning(s) of Heart of Darkness?