Heart of Darkness

How to Study a Conrad Novel

Reader ResponsePages 3-5

1. What word dominates pages 3-42. Who are the five people on the deck of the

Nellie?3. Quote the description of Marlow given on page

4. On page 5, who “had all gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearing the spark from the sacred fire”? What is the narrator talking about here?

4. According to Marlow, what has also “been one of the dark places on the earth”?

Pages 7-9

1. What is the gist of Marlow’s discussion of the “Romans first (coming) here”?

2. Marlow talks about the “fascination with the abomination.” What does this expression mean to you?

3. The passage at the bottom of page 8 that begins “The conquest of the earth . . .” and ends at the end of the paragraph is both controversial and central to an understanding of the novella. What do you think Marlow means when he says “What redeems it is the idea only.”?

Pages 10-121. What is Marlow’s first name?

2. Who gets Marlow his appointment?

3. Who is Fresleven?

4. How did he look when Marlow encountered him?

5. What do the women knitting black wool suggest to you?

Pages 15-17

1. Why is Marlow’s cranium measured?2. What does Marlow’s aunt say that makes him

uncomfortable?3. What is his reaction to her comments?4. What is your reaction to his comments about her

comments?

Note: “I felt as though, instead of going to the centre of a continent, I were about to set off for the centre of the earth.”

Pages 18-20

1. Personify the coast. What does it ask of Marlow/us? 2. What is the “touch of insanity” Marlow discusses?3. What does Marlow say watching a coast is like? 4. What happened to the Swede about whom another Swede tells

Marlow? (This is an example of a stylistically challenged sentence)

In a Conrad novel you should always be able to discover an opposition between ideals and reality at the core of the text

Bringers of Light?

“I came upon a boiler . . . indifference of unhappy savages.” (21)

Think about what the extract is showing us. What are Marlow’s first impressions of life in and around the company station?

What is the central tension in the passage?

Hollow Men – Men of No Vision

Company’s Chief Accountant – “a hairdresser’s dummy” (26)

Company Manager – “a chattering idiot” (33)

Brickmaker – a “papier-mâché Mephistopheles” (38)

Eldorado Exploring Expedition – “To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.” (45)

Marlowe’s Contemplation of Vision

“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. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it, not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea – something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifice to. . . .” (8-9)

Hollow Men – Men with a Terrible Vision

Dick Prosser – “He came from darkness. He came out of the heart of darkness, from the dark heart of the secret and undiscovered South.”

Guy Fawkes – The Gunpowder Plot of 1605

Mr. Kurtz – Find details from the novel to explain what that vision, his “method” is

Col. Kurtz – Find details from the film that explain what his “method” is

The Jungle = Truth

“Going up that river was like travelling 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.”

* Note the scene in Apocalypse Now when Willard and Chef go into the jungle looking for mangoes

Things Fall Apart

“What I really wanted was rivets, by heaven! . . . can never tell what it really means.” (41-43)

If we continue this idea of the central opposition being between idealism and reality, support this interpretation with specific details from the text.The idealized reality that Marlow was confident of when in Europe has been seriously challenged now that he is in Africa. Support this interpretation with details.

Women

“It’s queer how out of touch with truth women are! They live in a world their own and there never had been anything like it and never can be. It is too beautiful altogether.” (17)

Consider how Marlow thinks about women. How does his attitude change by the time he meets the Intended?

Symbolism

“Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman draped and blindfolded carrying a lighted torch.” (36)

Kurtz painted this. What does the painting suggest to you? What might its symbolic purpose be?