Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is a story about a man who is obsessed by the search for meaning in everything. Marlow finds himself on a foreign continent and is overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity of his surroundings. Marlow is unable or unwilling to see the meaning in his surroundings. Marlow’s story demonstrates how meaning and words can be separated and even reversed.

Heart of Darkness begins in the first-person, by Charlie Marlow. It is then filtered through a third-person perspective. Marlow is still learning from his experiences and sometimes has difficulty understanding the meaning of his stories. According to Marlow, a seaman at sea “generally…finds [the continent’s secret] not worth knowing.” The yarns of seamen are simple…Marlow wasn’t typical…he thought that an episode had to be outside like a kernel, but inside. His story’s meaning will then be as hard to understand as a “misty veil” (7). His story does not contain any moral or illuminating truth. It starts with his mentions of “one dark place on the earth” (6), and ends with the words “it would have to be too dark” (131). He starts at sunset and ends at midnight. The “heart of dark” often refers either to the darkness or “darkest Africa”, but it also means the darkness and ignorance of incomprehension. Marlow’s tale, like that of the Romans, is about “men going to it blind-as would be very appropriate for those, who tackle a dark” (9). Marlow is looking for understanding, but instead finds confusion, deceit and futility on Africa’s continent. Africa is a vast mystery. Its coast is “like thinking about an enigma” (19); its natives are “hidden from sight somewhere” (21); Marlow’s chip captain informs Marlow that a Swede anonymously hanged himself. (23) Why. Marlow fails to communicate with his fellow passengers to get a better understanding of the situation. The station manager’s distinctive trait is his inscrutability. 35) He didn’t give that secret away. Marlow mentions a spy to whom he avoids ordering rivets in order to repair the steamer and save Kurtz. This spy is determined to make Kurtz’s death his manager. The steamboat’s original wreck was “too stupid…to seem entirely natural” (33). Marlow is only able to extract bits of truth. He must then find out the rest. Marlow feels sucked in by the camp’s atmosphere. Marlow’s camp has another antipathetic aspect, which is purposelessness. They wait for Kurtz’s death and then they hang around waiting (39). Marlow is unable to say whether he saw any roads, or how they were maintained. However, a man walking along a grassy path “look[s] at] the upkeep of it” (32). Convicts dig holes and mine with “objectless blasting” (24)

Marlow’s love for truth and meaning is what drove him to leave camp to hear Kurtz. “The man presented itself as a voice…of all the gifts he had, his greatest gift was his ability to speak” (79). Kurtz’s speech acts as the medium to convey all of his ideas. The Russian disciple of Kurtz he made him see things-things (93)-no indication on what types of things. Kurtz has “elevated feelings” (116), ideas (116), and intense plans (111). However, we only see a glimpse of his report for the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs. It states that “we can exert an unbounded power for good” (84). Kurtz’s loyalty to his ideas seems a little absurd considering how far he has come from them, and that it is not something we can grasp. However, Kurtz’s ideas matter. They are attractive to people and give him great power. Kurtz “would’ve been a magnificent leader of an extremist party…anyparty” (123).

His substance doesn’t matter. Marlow refers the conquest of earth as “the taking from those who are different” (9). He describes it as a thing redeemed through an “idea…something you can put up, bow down to, and offer a gift to” (9). Marlow’s end sentence refers to Kurtz’s example, where he treated an idea like a divinity.

Kurtz isn’t the only one to see this difference between meanings and content. Marlow must sign an accord before he can leave, promising to not disclose trade secrets (15). “I will not divulge any trade secrets” (97), Marlow promises. He describes the shrunken heads that surround Mr. Kurtz’s home, showing how much his factual trade secrets and those of Kurtz have in common. Similar to Marlow’s experience with An Inquiry into Some Points of Seamanship, the book he finds in an empty house is “unmistakably genuine” (63) and his relationship to it is like “an old, solid friendship” (63), owing to its concrete, everyday “talk of purchases and chains” (63). While the author is not eloquent Kurtz (63), the book is more simple. Marlow’s most important interest in the book are the marginal comments, which look like cipher and transform it into an “extravagant mystique” (63). Marlow cares much more about the context, which Marlow describes as a remnant of English civilization found in Africa. The book also has strange markings. The possible meanings of the book are more important than its literal meaning. Marlow discovers the “cipher” in the book is Russian. The owner of the book accidentally left it behind and Marlow finds out this, which is somewhat disappointing. Unsolved mysteries are far more atmospheric than solved mysteries. The more meanings you can find, the less atmospheric a mystery becomes.

Marlow is well aware of his limitations. He can’t hope to fully comprehend Kurtz and the foreign culture that surrounds him, the mystery in the jungle. To, it would be like Kurtz was part of it. Two worlds are clearly separated by lines of incomprehension. Marlow’s steamer fireman maintains the boiler filled with water. He knew that the evil spirit in the boiler could get mad at him for his great thirst, and take a terrible revenge (61). The native can use the boiler. However, his ideas about the process are influenced heavily by his culture. Europeans may exploit Africa’s indigenous people to steal their ivory. Marlow says that Marlow can see Africans “howling” and “leap[ing]”, while Marlow believes they are “sp[inning]” or “leaping[ing]” (59). Marlow is able to see only the show of the Africans. He cannot, as can those who are watching him fix ships, know the true meaning of the ship’s contents (47). Only because he is surrounded by natives, the meaning of his surroundings can be grasped by him. Marlow never travels native.

Kurtz is the only European who can understand Africa. Kurtz has the ability to speak and control the language of the indigenous people, which helps to prevent them from attacking. Kurtz’s disciple is Russian. Kurtz is able to see the mystery where Marlow can’t. Marlow and Kurtz are watching a native ceremony. Kurtz smiles at Marlow and says, “do not I?” (114). He hears the jungle’s “whisper” (98). Kurtz’s final understanding of the jungle, whatever it might be, is beyond Marlow. Kurtz cries for “some vision.”

(118) Marlow doesn’t see, and cannot only wonder: “Did he live again…during the supreme moment in which complete knowledge was possible?” (118). Marlow claims that Marlow does not believe that Marlow is able to see the “complete knowledge” and that it may be because the “all truth …[is] compressed within that…time in the which we cross the threshold of invisible” (122). Kurtz crossed the threshold that separates Africa from Europe, and he is referring to his death. He can only speak anything when he is dead. Marlow’s intuition about the moment when truth will be revealed is confirmed by his experience with death. Kurtz’s followers killed the helmsman and left no trace of him (78). However, Marlow said that he died without making any sound (78), as though he was reacting to “some sign we couldn’t see, or some whisper we couldn’t hear”, (78). Kurtz isn’t the only one to be granted a vision upon his death. However, he is the only one who can put the truth into words, put meaning and language together because he is an African mystery scholar and has the gift of eloquence.

Marlow does not have the ability to sustain this link between meaning and language. Kurtz’s friend, Marlow, kept interrupting Kurtz’s conversation, rearranging each other’s sentences with phrases that they don’t agree with. Marlow tells Kurtz that he will always be remembered. “You know how vast his plans were” (129) Marlow replies. She is unaware of the futility of these plans. Marlow’s deceptive words turn into outright false ones when he tells his Intended Kurtz was his last words. He cannot tell her truth because it would be too dark in a country where there is no “dark plac[e] on the earth”. There is a meaning in Africa’s darkness. He can tell her the truth, but he cannot travel to a country where “people could not possibly know [Marlow] the things he knew” (98). An island without mystery is an island that has no people. It is a difficult topic to face, as Kurtz’s final words or the truth about his own life that he discovered. Marlow’s story is only possible because he understands Kurtz’s relationship with the Africans.

dylanwest

Dylan West is a 33-year-old education blogger and traveler. He has a degree in education from the University of Texas and has been blogging about education since 2009.