Megan Mulder

Notes for HEART OF DARKNESS

Cool Stuff Cool Quotes

Setting of the story: “the air was dark above Gravesend, and farther
back still seemed condensed into a mournful
gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and
the greatest, town on earth.” (3)

“and this also,” said marlow suddenly, “has been

one of the dark places of the earth.” (6)

River into the congo – snake (imagery, symbolism The river “resembling an immense snake uncoiled”
of snake in garden of eden, piercing paradise and (10)
bringing hardship, bringing the knowledge of evil
into the world and destroying innocence.)

Example of conrad’s symbolism; fates knitting The two women “guarding the door of Darkness,
knitting black wool as for a warm pall” (15)

HOW TO DESCRIBE MARLOW A man, to Marlow: “You are of the new gang – the
gang of virtue.” (37)

Link to Gatsby: Nick is “the only honest person I “You know I hate, detest, and can’t bear a lie, not
know” because I am straighter than the rest of us, but
simply because it appals me. There is a taint of
death, a flavour of mortality in lies” (39)

We are the stuffed men “It seemed to me that if I tried I could poke my
We are the hollow men forefinger through [the manager], and would find
Leaning together nothing inside but a little loose dirt, maybe.” (38)
Headpiece filled with straw.
T.S. Eliot
M. first appears as a devil who makes a wager with
Faust, a character in German folklore. He is not a
devil who searches for souls to corrupt; instead, he
collects the souls of those already damned.
In greek, name means not-light-lover
In Hebrew, name means liar-destroyer
On existence, and meaning
The nature of the world marlow finds himself in –
it is Africa, and its elusive quality is attractive,
pulling men in. It attracts hollow men, and fills
their cavities with hidden evil and lurking death.
Link with Gatsby: Gatsby wants to repeat the past.
Conrad uses the imagery of traveling up a river to
symbolise going back into the past. Fighting
against a current is symbolic of fighting against
time. Time keeps running out, and only fools – or
humans – attempt to row upstream.
The physical intensity of the African landscape
keeps Marlow occupied, and he says that if he had
not had that to deal with, he might have gone the
way of Kurtz, and let the darkness inhabit him, too.
What was his goal? Kurtz, and Kurtz only.
The manager: “a papier-mache Mephistopheles”
“it is impossible to convey [...] its subtle and
penetrating essence. [...] we live, as we dream –
alone” (40)
“‘trust to this.’ i saw him extend his short flipper of
an arm for a gesture that took in the forest, the
creek, the mud, the river – seemed to beckon with a
dishonouring flourish before the sunlit face of the
land a treacherous appeal to the lurking death, to
the hidden evil, to the profound darkness of its
heart.” (49)
“Going up that river was like travelling back to the
earliest beginnings of the world” (49)
“we were wanderers on a prehistoric earth. [...] we
could have fancied ourselves the first of men taking
possession of an accursed inheritance,” (52)
“When you have to attend to things of that sort, to
the mere incidents of the surface, the reality – the
reality, I tell you – fades. The inner truth is hidden
– luckily, luckily.” (50)
“For me, it crawled towards Kurtz – exclusively”
(52)
“you can’t breathe dead hippo waking, sleeping,
and eating, and at the same time keep your
precarious grip on existence.” (61)
Kurtz, who believes he possesses everything, is in
fact, possessed.
Kurtz – represents Europe, and the “civilized
countries”
On the hollowness of Kurtz
Support for the “veil renting” interpretation, that
the horror he sees is a final self awareness of his
true condition, not as a god of ivory or Africa, but
as a used mortal with a heart of darkness.
Link to Gatsby: Daisy as a disembodied voice, as
a voice of money, as an abstraction. (Kurtz as a
voice of power, a voice of temptation)
Kind of like the wizard of oz, the little man behind
a curtain. Both voices offer so much, and in
actuality can give so little.
To describe Kurtz’s mistress
Contrast with Kurtz, who is only ever truly
described as a voice; she has no voice, instead is
physically present, rooted to the ground, regal
because of presence, not because of the idea she
offers.
Africa as a regal, destructive woman.
“My ivory” Oh yes, I heard him. “My Intended, my
ivory, my station, my river, my - ” everything
belonged to him. [...] but that was a trifle.”
“all Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz”
(74)
“I went a little farther,” he said, “then still a little
farther – till I had gone so far that I don’t know
how I’ll ever get back. Never mind. Plenty time. I
can manage.” (82)
“Mr Kurtz lacked restraint in the gratification of his
various lusts, that there was something wanting in
him [...] whether he knew of his deficiency himself
I can’t say. I think the knowledge came to him at
last – only at the very last.”
“a voice! A voice! It was grave, profound,
vibrating, while the man did not seem capable of a
whisper.” (91)
“a wild and gorgeous apparition of woman” (91)
“she was savage and superb, wild-eyed and
magnificent; there was something ominous and
stately in her deliberate progress.” (91)
As opposed to Africa, who had no choice in the
colonization, as opposed to the intended, who had
no choice in Kurtz’s death.
NB! He didn’t choose Kurtz, instead, “I had turned
to the wilderness really, not to Mr Kurtz” (94) and
he was lumped with K because his methods were
unsound, that is, he said that K was a remarkable
man. But what is K? K is the wilderness, the wild,
untameable, regal woman of Africa, the river which
swims from the depth of the land towards the
ocean, like time, ebbing out never to be regained.
Marlow chose the nightmare of Africa over the
nightmare of colonization. For that, he is marked.
Link to Gatsby Nick is loyal to G.
Kurtz is floating in space with no centre of gravity,
nothing to orient himself, and so he is “utterly lost”
Link to Gatsby can be paired with last line of book
to show similarities of river symbolism, similar
theme of time/past
Biblical allusion to renting of veil in temple after
Jesus’ death: reconciliation between his soul and
his consciousness.
“My hour of favour was over; I found myself
lumped along with Kurtz [...] but it was something
to have at least a choice of nightmares.” (94)
“I did not betray Mr Kurtz [...] it was written I
should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.”
(97)
“He had kicked himself loose of the earth. [...] He
had kicked the very earth to pieces.” (100)
Kurtz’s soul “a soul that knew no restraint, no faith,
and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.”
(100)
“the brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of
darkness, bearing us down towards the sea with
twice the speed of our upward progress: and
Kurtz’s life was running swiftly too, ebbing, ebbing
out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time.”
“a veil had be rent [...] the horror! The horror!”
(106)
Marlow, like Nick, is the character left over, the “I remained to dream the nightmare out to the end.”
one left to pick up the pieces. Both show a (106)
tremendous loyalty: Nick, to Gatsby’s dream, and
Marlow, to his nightmare.

TO DESCRIBE THE INTENDED “such a look of awful desolation came up on her

face that I perceived she was one of those creatures
that are not the playthings of Time.” (112)

“i shall see her, too, a tragic and familiar Shade”

(115)

On his lie “the heavens do not fall for such a trifle” (117)

Final lines. “we have lost the first of the ebb [...] the tranquil
The ship is waiting for the tide to go out (ebb) so waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth
that she can sail. In the telling of the story – in the flowed sombre under an overcast sky – seemed to
journey into the past – the ship has lost the first lead into the heart of an immense darkness”
chance to journey into the future. But what does the
future hold if the future is the heart of an immense
darkness?