Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness

[Music] you welcome to EPG party salah i am dr. PB&J kumar from school of distance education University of Kerala today we will discuss heart of darkness by Joseph Conrad which comes in the paper twentieth century English literature heart of darkness as everybody knows is a phenomenal novel written by Joseph Conrad which introduced some of the concepts related to modernism in English literature so Joseph Conrad who was born out of England he was actually born in Ukraine in 1857 and his family his father and mother they were arrested as they fought against the invasion of Poland by Russia Russia and Australia his father was arrested for his anti Russian activities in 1861 followed by his mother he was arrest in 1862 so actually Joseph Conrad became an orphan at a very early age as he lost both his parents and contrast interests in journeying or in travel actually was a result of his interest in novels he read the novels of Charles Dickens and Captain Frederick my artists are dangerous novels and these novels introduced a new world of a dangers in front of him and it was under the influence of these novels that he had the inclination to join the Merchant Navy and he joined the French Merchant Navy in 80 1874 and after some time in 1886 he became a mariner but actually his travel from France to England was because of his problems of adjustment with the French Mariners and eventually he became a citizen of England and he was a steamer captain in 1890 in the Congo and this experience actually moved him not and writing of the novel heart of darkness was a result of this shocking experience that he had in Congo and after a few years he retired from sailing and became a full-time writer so his experiences traveling to the Congo resulted in the novel heart of darkness the heart of darkness is a novella which is a short novel or a long short story the term novel a-- is derived from the italian term novel novella which means new heart of darkness is intended as a novel and it presents one particular experience in the life of a person it is not as kind of a realistic novel which presents the story of a man from the beginning to the end he tries to present one particular experience in the life of a person and was deep into that experience the novel heart of darkness is a foundational novel of colonialism because it discusses the impact of colonialism in Africa in a very picturesque manner it is true that Joseph Conrad was not a person who criticized the colonialists in the manner which was necessary but at the same time we find the depiction of the disastrous experience of the African people the blacks in Africa as a result of colonial innovation in the novel even more significant is the way in which he breaks the narrative conventions of the Victorian novel adopting a new style of writing connecting the Victorian with the modernist narrative so the novel the heart of darkness at the same time combines the values of the Victorian period as well as the modern period so the novel heart of darkness in every sense of the term is a heartbreaking novel which bridges the Victorian period with a modern period the novel has different levels of meaning it has a literal meaning as well as symbolic means literally the novel explains the experiences of Marlowe in the dark continent that is Africa but at a symbolic level it also discusses the explorations of the human mind the human psyche so it at one at the same time it is a novel that discusses the experiences of a journey through Congo and the experiences of a journey through the mind of man the Congo River which goes in a zigzag fashion certainly is symbolic of the human mind which also moves in a very sick sank fraction so the novel to a great extent portrays the mind of man as well as the experiences of the African colonialism the novel also has been subject for a film Apocalypse Now directed by Francis Ford Coppola the Congo is a Belgian colony in Africa in 1960s and Congo was captured by the Belgian ruler king leopold ii and named it as attache independent do Congo and it refers to the Congo Free State but in the novel we find that Marlow refers to Congo as a snake and it presents the shape of the river like looking like a snake at the same time the river is emblematic of the civilization and culture of Africa which the whites failed to come to terms with post colonialism is an academic and intellectual response to the cultural legacies of colonialism and as a rule of interpretation post colonialism is used to analyze the texts from former colonies of Britain France etc and what is discussed in these texts are the experience of colonialism and the way in which the white looked up looked at the natives as the other the famous theorists like homi Bhabha gayathri Chakravarthy Spivak and edward sage tried to foreground the culture and civilization and the experiences of the colonized people and they tried to interpret these texts from the point of view of the colonized post-colonial theory which is widely different as far as these theorists are concerned now tries to read the text from the point of view of the natives and they tried to interpret the text in a way which justifies the experiences of the natives rather than the words so in one sense it is a kind of a reaction to the intellectual invasion of the colonial power over the natives rather than a kind of a political movement against colonialism so far we have been discussing the novel and its general features and now we will look at the characters Marlowe is the protagonist of the novel and he is the narrator who presents before us the various scenes of Africa which is shocking to the eye of a foreigner Kurtz is another very important character he is the chief of the inner station and Kurtz though white man has to a certain extent become one with the African culture he looks at the world from a very different point of view he's a very complex character who at one at the same time behaves as if he is part of the African natives and at the same time he uses his influence to take away the riches of the nation then the general manager of the company who is the chief agent of the company in Africa is another very important a character in the novel the chief accountant pilgrims the Russian trader hence man then Curtis African mistress Curtis Intendant aunt and person when they are the other important characters in this novel as well as the story is concerned it has two different aspects one is Marlowe's narration of his experiences in Africa and the other is Curtis story which we kept which is to a certain extent an inner narrative within the novel so Marlo what a position in the company as a captain of the ship and he travels to Africa and he finds the white traders treating the African natives cruelly and he he feels pity for them at the same time he is also shocked by the the violence of the natives and he meets curse in the inner station and he has the he has great desire to bring him back to Europe and so finally he was able to bring Kurtz back to Europe at the same time we find that on the way in the boat in the steamboat he dies Herts dies so Marlow returns to England as a changed man and he was terribly shocked by the experiences in Africa it was not just a mental shock it was also a physical shock for him and in England he was nursed back to health he meets curses intended the lady who was supposed to marry Kurtz and she was still mourning for clothes and Marlow doesn't tell her about the real additional Kurds in Africa so the story brings before us a kind of experience that Marlo had during the early period of the colonial invasion of Africa and the novel discusses some of the important themes like alienation which is celebrated by the modernists in the in the novels that came after heart of darkness alienation certainly is one of the important themes that are that is discussed in the novel in the beginning we find that the there is a very silence the the novel begins on the board of a ship and there everybody is silenced and in the end also you find a silence so the novel begins and ends in silence and this indicates the kind of experience that Marlowe had in Congo he was actually cut off from the humanizing influences of European civilization and his experience in Congo actually raises questions in his mind about the worth of European civilization and he exposes the thinness the thin layer that is the civilization as far as human beings are concerned so his effort was to go into the darkness within his own mind and that is unrivaled through the novel to a certain extent this journey is also the journey undertook by Conrad himself who tried to unravel his ambivalences as far as the colonial invasion of Europe is concerned racism is another important topic that is connected with this novel racism has become a very important topic of discussion in the contemporary period but heart of darkness actually brings forward certain aspects of this experience in the novel the normal presence the Africans as criminals cannibals and savages and the natives are portrayed as inferior people when compared to the Europeans the colonial prejudice towards the Africans is shared by the narrator as well so the white man's in AIDS right to conquer other nations is to a certain extent supported by the narrator so Kurds who is the central figure in this novel is worshipped as a God by the natives and at the same time Kurtz observes that his aim in Africa is to exterminate all groups from this we understand how Kurds look at the natives even though he is worshipped by them so this colonial prejudice towards the natives is one of the elements of racism that we can find in this novel on the other hand the novel also tries to present the European efforts to civilize the natives the so-called white man's burden is shared by Marlo the narrator he looks at the natives as uncivilized people and he considers his duty to civilize the natives so this purely this approach is purely another example of racism in this novel colonialism is at present discussed as part of literary studies as well as cultural studies and post-colonial approach is one of the most influential approaches that we have in the contemporary literary studies heart of darkness is considered to be a kind of canonical text which can be used to discuss the post-colonial approach towards literature because this particular novel discusses the European control and exploration of Africa and it tries to portray the kind of experiences that natives had under colonial rule so the colonial attempts to invade the nation and exploit the nation is clearly portrayed in this novel even though the narrator did not share many of the experiences of the native still it is very evident in this novel that colonialism has destroyed the culture civilization and the life of Africa in a dangerous fashion so we have so far we have discussed the important themes in the novel now let us look at the structure of the novel because the novel is also significant because of its structure as I told you before it is a kind of a bridge between the Victorian novel and the modern novel the novel is divided into three chapters and the three chapters discusses the kind of experiences of Marlowe Kurtz and again Marlowe back in England there are three central characters in this novel one is Marlowe now there is Kurtz and then the narrator there are three stations in this mentioned in this novel the outer station the central station in the station so we can at least comment that it has a tripartite structure and the novel as well as the narrative is concerned the novel is considered to be a framed narrative a frame narrative is one in which there is a narrative within a narrative it is a kind of a literary technique which enables the writer to present different perspectives within one story so it is a story within a story the first generator sets the scene and the first narrator in this novel is Marlow he introduces the second narrator and that is Kurtz so the rest of the novel is about Kurtz so the novel has a circular structure so at one at the same time it adopts the traditional kind of narrative realistic narrative and at the same time it also presents the complexities the complex pattern of the experiences of the characters through an inner narrator so an outer story and an inner story helps the novelist to present the complexity of modern life while at the same time connecting himself with the traditional kind of narrative the major motif of the novel is darkness that the title itself presents the darkness as a an image and the darkness in this novel is not only the darkness connected with the continent Africa that is Africa is considered to be a dark continent that is referring to the lack of education lack of civilization and lack of knowledge etc at the same time the darkness also referred to the primitive character of Africa so the African continent is presented here as the dark continent in one sense and in another sense it also refers to the darkness of the mind of the colonialists because we find that though they are presented as civilized people they try to use violence and horror to capture the money and wealth of Africa so that refers to the darkness of the mind of the colonialists so darkness as a motif actually refers to different aspects of the experience described in the novel heart of darkness and it is a kind of a personification of the unconscious another important topic that that has to be discussed in connection with the novel is the team of quest Marlowe's journey into the Dark Continent can also be seen as a quest towards an unknown land it is a literal journey to the jungle to the Dark Continent and to the inner landscape so just as we see in many of the novels of quest it also symbolically referred it also symbolically referred to the journey of man into his own unconscious so we find that Marlowe refers to his associates in the ship as pilgrims so that kind of reference indicates the double meaning that it has it is an but one at the same time a journey physical journey into the Dark Continent and at another level it is a journey into the mind of man just like in other cost novels we find lot of impediments on the way and finally the narrator overcomes all those impediments and comes back to his own native land being a canonical text the heart of darkness has been interpreted in wide variety of ways by critics one of the most important interpretations is by the post-colonial writers they look at heart of darkness as a novel that looks down upon the African people they alleged that Joseph Conrad has a racist view towards the blacks so actually it was considered to be a novel that look at the African people as the other the antithesis of European civilization the Africans are the uncivilized uneducated uncultured other to the educated civilised and cultured European people another important interpretation of this novel is related to the moral ambiguity of the white actually the title of the novel as we discussed earlier presents the darkness of the mind and the darkness can be connected with the sin the sin and the idea of redemption is also connected with this novel so the exploitation of the pilgrims through the dark jungle symbolizes the journey of the pilgrims through the darkness of the mind and when they finally come back to the room land it is actually a sign of the redemption so it can also be seen as a novel that depicts the conflict between the good and the bad and in in ephraim looking from a moral point of view it presents the moral ambiguity of the white in relation to the experience of colonialism and how they tried to overcome this ambiguity so Conrad's attempts from that point of view is to come out of that moral ambiguity that the Europeans faced during the imperialist ages so far we have discussed the various aspects of the novel the theme the various topics and the various interpretations of the novel and the title and its relevance and the way in which it has revolutionized the writing of the novel and for further further information you can look at some of the texts mentioned in the further reading part you can also find a lot of materials on the novel from the radius size mentioned in the section and it is always important to look at the novel from a new perspective if you if it is possible for you so the heart of darkness is a text which is so rich because of the various interpretations that are possible in the text so as such we have to understand the text from very different points of view so thank you very much

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Length: 29min 50sec (1790 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 07 2016