Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad, Dispense di Letteratura Inglese

Scarica Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad e più Dispense in PDF di Letteratura Inglese solo su Docsity! HEART OF DARKNESS – JOSEPH CONRAD PLOT A group of passengers is aboard a boat floating on the river Thames. One of them, Charles Marlow, recounts to his fellow an experience that took place on another river, the Congo River in Africa. Marlow is a sailor who takes a job as a riverboat captain with a trade company in Congo. As he travels to Africa and then up the Congo, Marlow encounters widespread inefficiency and brutality in the Company’s stations. The native inhabitants have been forced into the Company’s service and suffer terribly because of the overwork. When Marlow arrives at the Central Station, he finds out that his steamship has been sunk and spends several months waiting for some parts to repair it. Marlow hears stories about a man named Kurtz, a colonial agent who has to procure ivory. The general manager and the brickmaker seem to fear him. Kurtz is rumored to be ill, causing delays in the repairing of the ship. Marlow eventually gets the parts he needs to repair his ship and set out on a long difficult voyage up to the river with the manager, a crew of cannibals, and a few agents whom Marlow calls pilgrims because of their strange habit of carrying long wooden staves wherever they go. Marlow and his crew come across a hut with stacked firewood, with a note saying that the wood is for them but that they should approach cautiously. Shortly after the steamer is surrounded by a dense fog and, when the fog clears, the ship is attacked by a band of natives, who fire arrows from the forest and kill the African helmsman. Marlow and his companions arrive at Kurtz’s Inner Station, expecting to find him dead, but a Russian trader assures them that everything is fine and informs them that he is the one who left the wood. Kurtz has established himself as a god with the natives. The collection of heads adorning the fence posts around the station attests to his “methods”. The general manager brings the ill Kurtz aboard the steamer. The Russian trader reveals in secret to Marlow that Kurtz had ordered the attack on the steamer in order to make Marlow and his crew believe he was dead so that they might turn back and leave him to his plans. Then the Russian leaves by canoe. Kurtz disappears in the middle of the night and Marlow goes out in search of him, finding him crawling in the native camp. Marlow stops him and convinces him to return to the ship. Then they set off down the river the next morning, but Kurtz’s health is failing fast. Kurtz entrusts Marlow with a packet of personal documents, including a pamphlet on civilizing the savages which ends with a scrawled message that says: “Exterminate all the brutes!”. Suddenly the steamer breaks down and they have to stop for repairs. When Kurtz dies his last words are “The horror! The horror!” leaving Marlow confused. Marlow falls ill soon after and barely survives. Eventually he returns to Europe and goes to see Kurtz’s fiancée, who is still in mourning, even though it has been over a year since Kurtz’s death. She asks what his last words were, but Marlow instead of reporting the true ones, he tells her that Kurtz’s last word was her name. KEY FACTS Type Of Work: Novella Genre: Modern adventure tale, related to the colonial literature Time And Place Written: England, 1898–1899; inspired by Conrad’s journey to the Congo in 1890 Date Of First Publication: published in 1902 Narrator: There are two narrators: an anonymous passenger on a ship, who listens to Marlow’s story, and Marlow himself. The first narrator speaks in the first-person plural, on behalf of four other passengers who listen to Marlow’s tale. Marlow narrates his story in the first person, describing what he experienced providing his own commentary on the story. Setting (Time & Place): Last decades of 19th century. It opens on the River Thames outside London, where Marlow is telling the story. Events of the story take place in Brussels, at the Company’s offices, and in the Congo, then a Belgian territory. PROTAGONIST: Marlow Marlow appears in several of Conrad’s other works, but it is important not to view him as a surrogate for the author. Marlow is a complicated man who anticipates the figures of modernism while also reflecting his Victorian predecessors. As he journeys down the Congo River, Marlow encounters the reality of the inhumane treatment of Africans, which force him to reevaluate his faith in European imperialism and its civilizing mission. Marlow’s physical and psychological journey therefore stages the novella’s central theme of the moral bankruptcy of Europe and its imperialist activities. ANTAGONIST: Kurtz The primary antagonist in Heart of Darkness is Kurtz, the clearest embodiment of corruption and evil in the novella. Even though Kurtz makes his brief appearance late in the story, his specter haunts Marlow long before their encounter: Marlow learns more about Kurtz the further he travels. As a representative of a Belgian colonial enterprise, Kurtz symbolizes a more abstract antagonist: European imperialism. Marlow makes the connection between Kurtz and Europe explicitly when he reveals Kurtz’s parentage: “His mother was half-English, his father was half-French”. Kurtz’s psychology mirrors the logic behind European imperialism. Imperialism is supposedly a civilizing mission yet conducted with savage violence. Kurtz embodies the moral bankruptcy of Europe. At the Central Station Marlow observes a painting Kurtz made of a blindfolded woman holding a torch in the darkness. Kurtz’s painting clearly endorses the civilizing mission of European imperialism, which seeks to bring European enlightenment to the dark wilderness of Africa.