1. Heart of Darkness (1899)
Joseph Conrad
Lecture 1
Dr. Lucy Graham
lvgraham@uj.ac.za

2. What we will cover in today’s lecture:
• Intro to the book, its context, setting, plot
• Controversy: Heart of Darkness as a critique of
imperialism -> but racist tropes and images
prevail in Heart of Darkness
• Intro to the author, Joseph Conrad
• Images of illness in Heart of Darkness
• Summary of the article “Triumphant health:
Joseph Conrad and tropical medicine”
• Writing exercise 1: Congo Diaries and Lockdown
diaries

3. Introduction to Heart of Darkness: context
• The novel was first published in 1899, in
serialised installments in Blackwoods Magazine;
• It was published at the height of “the scramble
for Africa”;
• “The scramble for Africa” (1880s to early 20th
century) was a massive “scramble” or “rush” of
the European countries to possess the resources
of the African continent;
• “The scramble for Africa” was enabled by the
Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, which cut
Africa into territories given to the European
powers. This disrupted existing social order and
communities in Africa, and has created conflict
in Africa to the present day.

4. Heart of Darkness - context
Map of “the scramble for Africa”, for possession by Europe:

5. Heart of Darkness: context
• King Leopold II of Belgium presided over the
Berlin Conference of 1884-5, as he wanted
Belgium to control the heartland of Africa,
the Congo, which was rich in natural
resources such as rubber and ivory;
• During King Leopold’s reign over the Congo,
terrible atrocities were perpetrated by the
Belgians against African people: Africans
were removed from their home areas and
forced into labour, which resulted in massive
starvation, malnutrition and disease;
Africans had their hands and limbs cut off if
they did not produce enough rubber; and
there were mass rapes and murders to
terrorise local people into submission.

6. Heart of Darkness: context
• The atrocities committed during King Leopold’s rule of the
Congo (from the Berlin conference in 1895 to the King’s
death in 1909) have been referred to as a genocide, as
millions of African people died;
• These crimes against humanity were exposed in the
bestselling book King Leopold’s Ghost, published in 1998.
The title was taken from a poem by USA poet Vachel
Lindsay, written in 1914, after the death of King Leopold.
The poet imagines King Leopold having his hands cut off
while “burning in hell”, as punishment for maiming the
Congolese by ordering that their hands be cut off:
Listen to the yell of Leopold's ghost,
Burning in Hell for his hand-maimed host.
Hear how the demons chuckle and yell,
Cutting his hands off, down in Hell.

7. Heart of Darkness - context
Trailer for a film based on King Leopold’s Ghost (click on play button)

8. Heart of Darkness - context
The scramble for Africa was about resources, or “loot” as Conrad called it.
European countries grew wealthy from taking the wealth of Africa and from of
the suffering of Africans – this followed centuries of slavery, and though slavery
was officially abolished in 1833, forced labour was a common practice during
the time of “the scramble for Africa”, 1885-1914;
This struggle over the resources of Africa continues in the present day:
Please listen to the interview with Dr. Claude Kabemba on
Blackboard.
Dr Kabemba has a PhD in International
Relations from Wits. He is the
Director of Southern African Resource
Watch, an NGO that advocates for state
transparency about resources in Africa,
and for African citizens to benefit from
their own natural resources. He is from the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

9. Heart of Darkness – setting and plot
Conrad’s novel begins with the narrator, Marlow, on a ship on the Thames in
London. He is telling stories to the crew. His narrative then goes back in time
as he tells of his trip up the Congo river, past “outer stations”, to the “inner
station” where he meets Kurtz, a mysterious European who has lost his mind
and become extremely violent. The novel ends with Marlow narrating his
visit, back to Europe, to a meeting with Kurtz’s “intended” or fiancé. It begins
and ends in Europe with images of darkness. Literally the word “darkness” is
the last word in the book, and in Marlow’s narrative.

10. Heart of Darkness – setting and plot
Marlow’s journey from Europe to the Congo river and back:

11. Controversy: Anti-imperialism and racism in
Heart of Darkness
• Heart of Darkness is deeply critical of the horrors of
imperialism, as Marlow states, for instance:
“They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force—nothing
to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident
arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get
for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence,
aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind—as is very
proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which
mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different
complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing
when you look into it too much.” (Conrad, Book I)

12. Controversy: Anti-imperialism and
racism in Heart of Darkness
• At the same time, it perpetuates stereotypes of Africa as
a primitive, dark and unknowable continent, and of
Africans as less than human.
"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the
world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An
empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest…. It was the stillness of
an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention. It looked at you
with a vengeful aspect.” (Conrad, Book II)
“It was unearthly, and the men were—No, they were not inhuman. Well, you
know, that was the worst of it—this suspicion of their not being inhuman. It
would come slowly to one. They howled, and leaped, and spun, and made
horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—
like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate
uproar. Ugly.” (Conrad, Book II)

13. Controversy:
- A century before the publication of King
Leopold’s Ghost (1998), Heart of Darkness
(1899) was exposing the atrocities and horrors
of Belgian colonialism, and of colonialism in
general;
- Yet the novel has been criticised by African
commentators for its racism.

14. Controversy: racism in Heart of Darkness:
• Nigerian author and intellectual Chinua
Achebe (1930-2013) in particular has
criticised racism in the novel. In An Image
of Africa (1975), available on Blackboard,
he stated that:
“The point of my observations should be
quite clear by now, namely that Joseph
Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist. That this
simple truth is glossed over in criticisms of
his work is due to the fact that white racism
against Africa is such a normal way of
thinking that its manifestations go
completely unremarked.”
We will return to debates about his essay.

15. Controversy: stereotypes of Africa
• In his short essay, “How to write about Africa” (available on
Blackboard), Kenyan writer and intellectual Binyavanga
Wainaina (1971-2019) mocks a European tradition of writing
about Africa that includes Heart of Darkness:
“Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. Subtitles may
include the words ‘Zanzibar’, ‘Masai’, ‘Zulu’, ‘Zambezi’, ‘Congo’, ‘Nile’, ‘Big’, ‘Sky’,
‘Shadow’, ‘Drum’, ‘Sun’ or ‘Bygone’. Also useful are words such as ‘Guerrillas’,
‘Timeless’, ‘Primordial’ and ‘Tribal’.”

16. Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
- Born in Poland as Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski
- He had an unsettled childhood, his father was a political activist
for Polish independence, and Joseph was orphaned at the age of
11, then raised by an aunt and in orphanages. He was a sickly
child, plagued by psychological and physical illnesses. His life-
long ill health, combined with his passion for sea travel and
geography, resulted in his writing career. Most of his novels are
drawn from his seafaring career.
- At the age of 16 he began a career at sea, working first for the
French merchant marines and then for the British merchant
marines.
- In 1890, Conrad was the captain for a Belgian steam ship that
travelled up the Congo River. During this time he kept diaries,
that have been published as The Congo Diary. Heart of Darkness
was inspired by this trip.
- In 1894, aged 36, Conrad gave up sailing because of his ill health,
and began a career in writing. He chose to write in English. He
was trilingual in Polish, French and English, and was also
proficient in German, Russian, Dutch and Malay.

17. “Triumphant Health: Joseph Conrad and Tropical Medicine”,
by Lorenzo Servitje, 2016
Available on Blackboard
• The article starts off by noting the images of illness in Heart of Darkness,
and that Conrad’s literary career started as the result of his own illness.
• This interdisciplinary journal article combines health studies and literary
studies to argue that tropical medicine was implicated in colonialism
(used to enable colonial agents to overcome tropical diseases like malaria
and sleeping sickness) and in spreading disease in Africa (for instance the
article notes that the exploratory excursions of Henry Morton Stanley, who
many believe to be real life inspiration for Kurtz in Heart of Darkness,
resulted in the spread of “sleeping sickness” in Africa).
• Instead of reading the novel as showing Africa to be a diseased
continent, Servitje argues that:
The novella challenges notions of European health and even its own textual
constructions of naturalized African insalubrity by implicating European colonials as
pathogenic agents causing what I refer to as coloniopathy; that is to say, the physical
sickness in the Congolese is caused by colonialism (p. 132).

18. Writing exercise 1
"Congo Diaries and Lockdown Diaries”
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899) is based on his journey up the Congo
river, into “unmapped” terrain, as documented in his Congo diaries.
As observed in the article “Triumphant health: Joseph Conrad and tropical
medicine”, the novel is partly about health and illness. In fact, Conrad turned
to a career in writing because of his own life-long ill health.
Write a paragraph about how the "unmapped" and
unpredictable terrain of the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting you.
You can include details about: where you are, what you have
observed, how you have felt, what challenges you are facing, what
you may have learnt about yourself or the world, and how your
studies and life have changed because of this pandemic.
You can write offline and hand in on Blackboard in the folder for Heart of
Darkness lecture notes under Writing exercise 1 - “Lockdown diaries”. Please
try to complete this short writing exercise by 4 May 2020. Also, don’t stress
about the exercise – it is an opportunity for you to participate in lectures and
write about your experiences.