Heart of Darkness, by its name and cover alone, would simply be considered a generalized colonial novel. And probably because I've had the "pleasure" of reading some of the white man's pretentious works, the theme of this type of story did make me biased at the beginning. But after a morning of uninterrupted reading, I felt that this is more like a collection of reflections than a novel, and that the reflection on human nature, which originated in the colonial but transcends the historical context, is the real capital of the book's survival.
Heart of Darkness, like Frankenstein,?unfolding in the way others tell stories. We sit as listeners on a Nellie boat moored in the Thames, listening to the author in the guise of Marlow as he tells us about his journey in the Congo.
Before entering the story, I would like to compliment the author Joseph Conrad's contrasting and attractive writing, which is so magnetic that it creates a framework for the story that is impossible to escape. The contrast in the text through allusion and analogy brought me no less shocking than the red, white and black contrast in "Medicine"(novel wrote by Lu Xun ). The words seem to come to life under his pen, ?have a “l(fā)ife force”. Just like this line describing the river.
“in and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened into slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair.”?
The corruption and humidity revealed by the tropical jungle rivers squeezed out of the words like a river, like a scroll spread out in front of my eyes. Even reminded me of the sludge-covered river god in "Spirited Away".The words have a special flavor when chewed carefully. Therefore, this article will quote a lot from the original text, trying to restore the "high fever" brought by the impact of the senses again and again.
The theme of "Heart of Darkness" is depravity, and this is reflected in the depravity of Kurtz. The author uses Marlow's trip to the Congo hinterland to tell the reason for Kurtz's fall. It is also Conrad's attempt to express the idea that civilization and darkness are not opposed to each other, but rather they are attracted to each other. Under the skin of civilization, the heart of darkness keeps beating.
Now, then, let's enter the world of Conrad.
“The air was dark above Gravesend and, further back still, seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless over the biggest, and the greatest, town on earth.”
As a young man, Marlow had joined the colonial trading company with the mood of an explorer and came to the African colonies with the ship. And in the colonies, Marlow first encountered, but also the most can touch the reader's nerve, the contrast between the colonial blacks and whites:?
“They weren’t enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing but earthly now——nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation.”
“When near the buildings I met a white man, in such an unexpected elegance of getup that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision. I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. 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.”
Humans satisfy their material pleasures by squeezing their own kind, while dehumanizing them to fill their spiritual guilt.
In the colony, Marlow first hears the great name of Kurtz through his accountant. In the accounts of others, we imagine Kurtz as a Promethean figure - carrying the fire of civilization deep into the darkness in an attempt to illuminate the ignorant people of the earth. It is not difficult to imagine that Marlow must be sympathetic to such a "freak" like him, so Marlow came to the terminus and waited for the steamer to be ready to go deep into the Congo hinterland to meet this "freak".
In the process of moving forward, Marlow learns more and more about Kurtz. He is the agent who provides the most ivory in the Congo, but Kurtz has asked the company not to send new employees there, so the outside world has no idea what Kurtz is up to now. He's like a Mecca in the distance, drawing Marlow onward.
But strangely enough, the closer Marlow found to Kurtz's territory, the more bizarre the scene became. On the shore, he sometimes saw dilapidated trading posts where white men ran out of their crooked shacks to greet him.
Here is already the last node between man and the real darkness, only one step away from the real darkness. Madness is the last door to the Deepest, to endure the madness within oneself in this long, ominous river, in this primitive, lonely wilderness. And Kurtz, does he cross this door?
“You remember I told you I had been struck at the distance by certain attempts at ornamentation, rather remarkable in the ruinous aspect of the place...
they were expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbing -- food for thought and also for vultures if there had been any looking down from the sky...
those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house. Only one, the first I had made out, was facing my way...”
Kurtz did not go through the door, he did not enter the darkness within, but the darkness within took over him. He became Ann, Ilir, Enki, Ninhusag, Shiva, Ares, Seth, he became "Prometheus" ...... he became their "God" ......
In fact, what Marlow does not know is that Kurtz's end is already written at the beginning of the journey.
“I rose. Then I noticed a small sketch in oils, on a panel, representing a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. The background was sombre -- almost black. The movement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister.
It arrested me, and he stood by civilly, holding an empty half-pint champagne bottle (medical comforts) with the candle stuck in it. To my question he said Mr. Kurtz had painted this”
This is undoubtedly the true picture of Kurtz's heart: he comes from the civilized world, holding the light of civilization, but deep into the wilderness, surrounded by boundless darkness; blinded by darkness, he still tries his best to maintain the etiquette and posture of the civilized world, but his heart is already being eaten by darkness, revealing the primitive evil.
It is ironic that Kurtz, a self-proclaimed "civilized man", has created a kingdom where "pure savagery" is the religion. We can believe that Kurtz was indeed Prometheus at the beginning. He thought he could bring modern civilization to the enlightened natives by transporting ivory, but as he went deeper and deeper, he found that what the colonists were doing was just looting and atrocities under the shame of civilization, and the natives not only did not benefit from modern civilization, but also became "waste products" under the yoke of modern civilization.
"In a few days the Eldorado Expedition went into the patient wilderness, that dosed upon it as the sea closes over a diver. Long afterwards the news came that all the donkeys were dead. I know nothing as to the fate of the less valuable animals.”
Kurtz has fallen, the self-proclaimed "enlightened" man has become the "tyrant" of the jungle. But in a different way, it is not a liberation, he passed through the winding Congo River, deep into his inner darkness. A butterfly named "Fallen" breaks through the chrysalis of civilization.
“I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror -- of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision -- he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:
‘The Horror! The Horror!’”
What is the "Horror" that Kurtz said before he died? Perhaps it is the heart?of?darknessof the people that lies dormant under civilization, beating strongly; or the infinite darkness that swallows itself up.?Like a drowning man, his whimpering cry for help before his throat fills with water ......
What kind of person is Kurtz, I think he is more like a Sisyphus hero than Prometheus - the boulder called "civilization" makes him gradually fall into despair, and when the despair subsides, all that remains is madness and absurdity! ......?
