Heart of Darkness

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Data:	31.08.2001
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Heart of Darkness
Conrad was Polish, the son of an intellectual and patriot, that was exiled to Russia. Life was hard and his mother died soon, when the father died he goes to his uncle (probably he read Dickens, but he didn’t know English), he goes away and become a sailor for the French navy. After this period he get in touch with English culture, but his language is very different from everything. This short novel is autobiographical, when he was in the navy.
He becomes captain of a river steam and he has to recover the corpse (cadavere) of a officer that died in the jungle. It is not a political injury, but he explored the human mind and new psychological reality. In the turn of the screw we have loneliness and solitude, here there’s a new sort of corruption, generated by.
This was a terrible experience for his life, when he comes back he suffers from a fever and he was psychologically destroyed. Story of a man who has to face the solitude, theme of the double.
The narrative technique is complex, because the story opens with a first person narrator, who is not the protagonist but a listener, the true narrator is Marlow, he tells the story to three people.
MARLOW
D
LAWYER U.N. ACCOUNTANT
Marlow’s thought is complex, made of flash back, he’s the protagonist, but there’s another protagonist who is Kurtz.
1 The Nellie is a cruising yawl (iole da crociera: imbarcazione lunga e sottile), we are in November and “she” is anchored without any movement of the sails (vele), because there’s no wind. It suggests a sense of peace and loneliness, but without wind you can only wait. Idea of an immense horizon, where you can’t distinguish sky and sea, because they are like two pieces of metal welded (saldati) together. England was the centre of this empire, but something came to destroy this peaceful atmosphere, “the air was dark and seemed condensed into a mournful gloom…”.
2\5 The director is the captain, the Lawyer is older, the Accountant is playing dominoes; all these men except Marlow and the narrator are busy with ordinary things. Marlow “had sunken cheeks, a yellow complexion, a straight back, an ascetic aspect and with his arms dropped, the palms of hands outwards, resembled an idol (then he will be described as a Buddha; in many ways he resembles his alter ego Kurtz)”.
“Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth”: it’s twilight, description of the river, personification, also the seems to have a rest. The light motive of elegy, idea of the memories of the past and regret.
6 Sir Francis Drake and sir John Franklin had sailed the see to conquer the world; violence is a duty, a necessary evil for bringing the lights of civilisation to the savages. Marlow contradicts this idea.
7 “Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the SWORD and often the TORCH…”(7): the sword symbolizes violence and war; nevertheless they brought the torch symbol of civilization. Colonization was a necessary evil, people left England to other parts of the world to bring culture.
8\10 This place was a wild place, English left their soft lives to conquer one of the wildest place on the earth. People cut off from their own world is the light motive of the novel, also wilderness can change people, low instincts come to the surface, fascination of abomination. Also wilderness can provoke (suscitare) on people. The novel starts from the idea that all of this are, the double in the human soul, two sides of human personality, that are always fighting to prevail. It is something that can be extended to all human being, darkness is here.
He distinguishes between COLONISTS and CONQUERORS; as a matter of fact while colonists have an ideal, a deep belief and what saves them is the idea of administration. Conquerors only want to squeeze (schiacciare) and to subdue (sottomettere), they don’t want to bring any torch. Romans were conquerors because they didn’t have any mission of civilisation, but he justifies them, when men are isolated, cut off from their own world, low instincts prevail and they are attracted by wilderness. Marlow also says that what saves English colonialism are the deep ideals, that support their mission, efficiency, the idea of good work.
13 In the middle of 19th century Africa was still unexplored, the blank spaces, he starts his story from the fascination that maps had on him when he was a child. Few years later he sees a map of Congo in a travel agency of London: “it had become a place of darkness…the river resembling an immense SNAKE uncoiled, with its head in the sea, its body at rest curving afar and its tail lost in the depths of the land ”. It had become a place of darkness, also this was one of the darkest place. The light of colonisation in contrast with the darkness of the real effects of it. The snake is a symbol of sin, but also knowledge, he fascinates Marlow, who compares himself to a little bird.
14-15 FRESLEVEN, a Danish captain, “had been killed in a scuffle with the natives for two hens; as a matter of fact he thought himself wronged in the business, so he went ashore and started to hammer the chief of the village with a stick. He beat the old nigger, while a big crowd of his people watched him, till the chief’s son in desperation at hearing the old chap yell (grido), made a tentative jab (stoccata) with a spear (lancia) at the white man” and he killed him. He was one of the quietest creature of the world, in Congo he changed completely. Marlow wants to say that in that area of darkness and wilderness, people can loose their lives for two hens, all values are reversed, he has turned into a savage. In touch with wilderness low instincts come to the surface, instincts of propriety, greed (avidità), and subdual (sottomettere). Abomination, because he looses his own dignity.
This is an inhospitable region the river has the colour of lead (piombo), loneliness, fascination of the abomination, savagery and low instincts come to the surface, violence. A man is blood thirsty (ha sete di sangue) when he’s isolated from the rest of the world and from the social order; Freud will call it ID.
16-17 In Brussels streets are deserted and narrow, a dead silence, deep shadows that contrast with the idea of light and civilisation; this is strange, because we expect something different from a capital. The city is surrounded (circondata) by something sinister, innumerable windows with Venetian blinds, grass sprouting between the stones, that remind the adjective blind. Houses are untenanted (disabitate), where it is damp (umido), for that reason we can say it’s like a graveyard. “I arrived in a city that always makes me think of a whited sepulchre”: Victorian society is pharisaical, that is the world of hypocrisy, this image seems to underline the corruption of the whole system. When he speaks of “mission”, he’s ironic about the common mentality, men in Congo are worst than savages. The absence of lows can be the cause of our unexpected madness. The TWO WOMEN are knitting black wool and they seem to be the three Fates: the first weaves (tessere) the thread (filo), the second unwinds (svolgere) it and the third cuts it. We have the idea of indifference, it means that destiny is indifferent towards human destiny. The tone is ironic (“a purple patch, to show where the jolly pioneers of progress drink the jolly lager-beer”), because Conrad here wants to convey the idea that there are two types of colonialism: the english one and that of the rest of the world.
17 He’s introduced by a secretary into the “sanctuary”, “its light was dim (pallido) and a heavy writing-desk squatted (accovacciato) in the middle. From behind that structure came out an impression of pale plumpness in a frock-coat (redingote)…”.
18 “In about forty-five seconds I found myself again in the waiting-room with the secretary, who made me sign some document…”. “There was something ominous (sinistro) in the atmosphere…it was just as though I had been let into some conspiracy…I was glad to get out”. “Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes. AVE! Old knitter of black wool. MORITURI TE SALUTANT. Not many of those she looked at ever saw her again”, not very few.
19-20 He has a medical examination, the DOCTOR “was shabby (trasandato) and careless, with ink-stains on the sleeves of his jacket…with a certain eagerness asked me whether I would let him measure my head…he got the dimensions back and front every way, taking notes carefully…I always ask leave, in the interests of science, to measure the crania of those going out there…Oh, I never see them and moreover, the changes take place inside, you know …Ever any madness in your family? …It would be interesting for science to watch the mental changes of individuals…I have a theory“. Period of Cesare Lombroso’s studies on human crania to determine the temper (carattere). Deep-rooted idea there’s something in the mid that come to the surface and they do not produce any relevant modification. You must be mad to go there.
24 “It was paddled (remata) by black fellows…you could see from afar the white of their eyeballs glistening…they shouted, sang, their bodies streamed with perspiration, they had faces like grotesque masks…but they had bone, muscle, a wild vitality, an intense energy of movement…”: he has immediately this idea of loneliness, but this people are alive, niggers here are a symbol of life, instead whites are symbol of death. The traditional symbols are reversed, this is a negative connotation, they are horrible nevertheless they are alive.
25 “We called at some more places with farcical names, where the merry dance of death and trade goes on in a still and earthy atmosphere as of an overheated catacomb; all along the formless coast bordered by dangerous surf, as if Nature herself had tried to ward off intruders; in and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into the mud…it was like a weary pilgrimage (pellegrinaggio) amongst hints for nightmares”: generally (see Araby) journey ends with an awareness, maturity. Coleridge’s image, because there are situation that are a sort of life in death. Everything also nature seems to be hostile to the intruders and those, who don’t belong to this world.
26-27 “A continuous noise of the rapids above hovered over this scene of inhabited devastation…a lot of people, mostly black and naked moved about like ants (formiche)…a jetty (corvino) projected into the river…a blinding sunlight drowned all this at times in a sudden recrudesce cense of glare (abbagliamento)”: idea of death, wilderness, awareness of what they have done, like Primo Levi at the return from concentration camp, they are unable to find the energy to go back to ordinary life. Devastation of nature, who has been violated by broken pieces of machinery, in the middle there’s a RUSTY BOILER, then he sees railway-truck, symbols of neglect. While from the ship nature seemed to attract people, here we have the idea of desolation, colonists have destroyed the landscape; as a matter of fact there are only symbols of death.
27 “A slight clinking behind me made me turn my head. SIX BLACK MEN advanced in a file, toiling up the path…they walked erect and slow, balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads…I could see every rib (costola), the joints of their limbs (membra) were like knots (nodi) in a rope (corda), each had an iron collar on his neck”: they are slaves because they are criminals, but they seem unaware of what they’ve done, probably because in their code (codice) this is not a crime and we don’t know what’s happened (mystery). From the very beginning of the novel we have the idea of the tremendous effects of the colonialism. Marlow describes a war ship that comes, Whites have brought their laws, that have fallen over these savages like bullets (proiettili), “they were called criminals and the outraged law, like the bursting shells, had come to them, an insoluble mystery from the sea”.
28 Digression because he stops narrating the facts to say that he’s not a tender man; as a matter of fact he’s a sailor and he has had a very hard life, he saw violence, greed (cupidigia). Bitter irony with the word “philanthropic desire”: “I avoided a vast artificial hole somebody had been digging (scavato) on the slope (declivio), the purpose of which I found it impossible to divine…it was just a hole…it might have been connected with the philanthropic desire of giving the criminals something to do”.
29 “But so sooner within than it seemed to me I had stepped into the gloomy circle of some INFERNO”: this is a psychological journey through suffering and pain, a process of renewal (rinnovamento) thanks to other characters that will gradually change him.
“The rapids were near and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong, rushing noise filled the mournful stillness of the grove…with a mysterious sound as though the tearing(vorticoso) pace (roteare) of the launched earth had suddenly become audible”: comparison with Brussels and the first apparition in the turn of the screw, stillness is not only an image of peace but much more terrible. These encounters have also the function to prepare the encounter with Kurtz, he’s the apex of awareness and the apex of bad aspects that colonialism can produce.
30-31 A mass of BLACK SHAPES “in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment and despair”, these are some helpers or workers with a forward contract (contratto a termine), they have been brought from the coast to build the new railway station. They have been trapped in a system that is unfamiliar for them, the laws and food of Whites, because they ate rotten hippo meat (carne di ippopotamo imputridita) but now they are obliged to throw it into the river and to eat beef. They die because they cannot adapt themselves to this food, so they ask the captain to capture a savage and eat him, they become cannibals. They are victims because they cannot feed themselves, they get Whites’ illnesses, so they are not able to work, but they have the right to die in silence. This is the reason why he calls his journey Inferno, because he establishes a comparison with these lost souls and the lost souls that Dante meets in his journey. “The man seemed young but you know with them it’s hard to tell…I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good Swede’s ship’s biscuits I had in my pocket”.
32 “I met a white man in such an unexpected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision. I saw a high starched (inamidato) collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clear necktie and varnished (verniciati) boots. Hair parted, brushed, oiled under a green-lined parasol held in a big white hand. He was amazing and had a penholder behind his ear”: another extraordinary man the CHIEF ACCOUNTANT, because he’s dressed in white, immaculate, we could think to an angel, but he seems to come from nowhere. Marlow will call it a dummy (manichino), a sort of vision as artificial as a dummy, an affected (leziosa) person. His main concern (rapporto) is to have taught a woman to sew up linen (cucire la biancheria). He seemed not to like his job and to be futile, because he seems to refuse the idea to keep the eyes opened and become aware of the Inferno in which he lives, he goes on with the life that probably led (conduceva) in his country. Also his books are perfectly apple-pie ordered, but on the other hand Marlow seemed to appreciate him, because “in the great demoralization of the land he kept up his appearance. That’s backbone“: he has a sort of dignity, because he has not lost himself in the darkness.
33-34 “Everything else in the station was in a muddle-heads (confusione), things, buildings. Strings (file) of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed; a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass-wire set into the depths of darkness and in return came a precious trickle (rivoletto) of ivory”. Contrast with the surroundings (dintorni), what determines the process of abomination is first the contact with nature and second the ivory (greed).
One day “in the interior you will no doubt meet MR. KURTZ…he was a first class agent…he was in charge of a trading post in the true ivory-country…sends in as much ivory as all the others put together“: it’s the first time that the name of Kurtz appears, every character will tell Marlow about K. in the same words, always appreciating him, he has conquered his position thanks to ivory. He has also a great reputation among the natives, from this station M. goes to the other where there’s his ship.
38\40 “The manager was commonplace in complexion, in feature, in manners, and in voice…he was of middle size and of ordinary build…his eyes were perhaps remarkably cold…”: the MANAGER was a remarkable man, the adjectives convey the idea of a common man. Nevertheless this man has something very particular, he has a good health, he has no internal entrails, he’s another dummy an hollow (vuoto) man. He has nothing inside, he’s completely devoted, any feelings or emotions, no qualities, he’s the responsible of the decay of the station, he’s too intriguing.
40\42 The ship is sunk but nobody knows what’s happened. The manager has destroyed the ship because he wants that K. dies; as a matter of fact he’s seriously ill and there’s no way to move him. The manager tries to speak of K. with a kind attitude, they are in a hurry to save him, but on the other hand they had to wait. The manager will do his best to delay the arrival of few tools (attrezzi), the rivets to repair the leak (falla). They arrived few months later because the manager hopes that K. will die in the jungle, the reason is ivory, that becomes a sort of black death, plague (peste). K. is the best agent of the holding, because he’s able to catch a lot of tusks (zanne), the manager is jealous because K. is famous and he has got benefits.
All these people are defined by their function in the system of colonialism, they are not important like individuals, but they become symbol of evil, they are milestones that help Marlow during his journey.

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