Savage Lands & Inner Demons (Part I): Heart of Darkness

This book was one of those featured in Part 1of the IBA Literary Society's 'Literary Discussion Series' Event entitled 'Savage Lands & Inner Demons' held in IBA Main Campus on November 25, 2010.

Title: Heart of Darkness
Author: Joseph Conrad
Year of Publication: 1902
Genre: Novella, Colonialism & Morality
Available at the IBA Library? Yes
Available Online? Yes, here

“[The episode] seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about me—and into my thoughts. It was somber enough too—and pitiful—not extraordinary in any way—not very clear either. No, not very clear. And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light.”         - Heart of Darkness

Are questions of morality ever clear? What is not governed by rules must be open to interpretation, must it not? Because every man’s morality is different from everyone else’s. So how does one decide what is right and what is wrong? Especially when one resides in a society where no laws shackle one to any determined code?

“[It was] not very clear” is how Joseph Conrad refers to this subject in his book Heart of Darkness (1902) and he does that by telling us a story which according to him is also “not very clear” but is meaningful for readers just the same. The story is of Charles Marlow, a captain of a steamboat who is commissioned to travel to the very ends of the Congo River, surrounded by the wilderness of dark jungles and savage societies, on a mission for the company he works for. The savagery that he witnesses is, however, not performed by the native cannibals, but by the representatives of the so-called civilized European societies sent there to ‘enlighten the natives’. These Europeans found themselves unregulated by any governing body and consequently made use of this freedom to act in all sorts of barbaric ways imaginable. Revolted by what he witnesses, Marlow puts all his hopes into a meeting with Kurtz, an ivory dealer whom it is part of his mission to fetch from his station. Kurtz is known to be a genius, an enlightened man, sent to the colony to in turn enlighten the natives and deliver them from their state of degeneration. Marlow desperately longs to meet this enlightened Kurtz, but is in for disappointment, and is forced to reassess his own values.

Heart of Darkness superbly illustrates how selfishness, greed and lust for power can overcome any nobler ideas, if left unchecked by the lack of a society or a strong code of ethics.

Azma Humayun

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