Heart of Darkness
“Do not look into the abyss or the abyss will look into you.” Nietzsche
Narratology
Kernel metaphor-  how to read HoD
Reader is told “yarn” teller is as important as the tale (the teller is the “not within the shell part”)
An analogy to headlights in “haze”- things come and go depending on perspective
the reader must be more active/ a participant in order to make text palpable
Western Philosophical Assumptions
Truth is good; there is a connection between self-knowledge and liberation (ie Matrix)
CONRAD REVERSES THIS
Rousseau/Locke- man fundamentally good; optimistic perspective
Marquis de Sade/pessimists/sadists- man an animal, bestial, seeking to satisfy lusts; society is the only restraints
Dopplegangers (dark doubles)
London/Brussels (London is where the boat is, Brussels where the story beginning takes place)-   represent the heart of civilization
Marlow/Kurtz-  described in similar terms, their journeys mirror each other (journey into the darkness)
Ways to read Conrad
Freudian Id, Ego, Superego (parts of the psyche)
Id:  uncontrollable urges
Ego: self
Superego: moral force
Quest Story (a la Holy Grail)
A story about the evolution/devolution of man within civilization and outside
A critique of colonialism
Marlow
Marlow is the true center of the tale
Conrad goes to great lengths to draw attention to narrator and the telling of the tale
common way of layering narrative (Moby Dick, Frankenstein)
narrator is a survivor, other characters are destroyed; likens the narrator to us
We (readers) are privy to his experiences
Narratology
Kurtz-Marlow-? (the narrator)-reader
The reader should be safe b/c of the distancing, but in hearing the story, people seem to catch what afflicts Kurtz (impatient, need for violent action)
Kurtz is devoured by the darkness, Marlow is consumed with the memory of the tale, the narrator is transfixed by the ‘Buddha,’ we are fascinated by the tale
The story is like a psychocounseling; Rime of the Ancient Mariner an similar genre/convention

What goes wrong with Kurtz: gratification of lusts
There is a magnetic attraction between Kurtz and Darkness (just as there is between Kurtz and Marlow; Marlow and those hearing his tale)
Kurtz is an Everyman figure; archetypal memory- he traces the development of man from the bestial
primitive, pre-civilized self= id 

Setting
The River Thames is imposed on the Congo to draw parallels
evokes dark history of England
Gloom appearing over London sets a somber, foreboding mood
Mood becomes overwhelmingly dark until it saturates the text and permeates all
Links/connections to question notion of civility
Civilize- Meaning unfixed (What does this word mean???)
Marlow undergoes a series of debriefings
Women knitting black wool an ominous sign
Death of Fresleven-  who are the bestial ones?
Sarcasm of “noble cause”
Now strikes him as unremarkable that a man goes bonkers…  shows his paradigm
The Middle-Ground
Man -o-War ship  “a touch of insanity in the proceeding”
Out of sheer tension/anxiety the ship fires away
In this world, not everything makes sense- return to instinctual;  experience makes Marlow more accepting in retrospect
other examples of displacement: train removed from utilitarian value, boiler w/out function
The Big WHITE lie
The lie: imperialism is about religion
Marlow’s aunt naively believes this
is it a criticism or a commendation of women
Satire/sarcasm about Belgians and Africans
Belgians pillage the land 
Kurtz is meant to be an emissary of cultural enlightenment: he is a humanitarian, writer, painter, orator, intellectual
-implication: if darkness gets HIM, it can get anyone
Does this make him more susceptible, paradoxically?
The Remedy: Work
Marlow is consumed by what enlightenment he receives
Conrad offers an antidote: work
“The reality, I tell you- fades”-  Marlow deludes himself that salvation comes from industry
Superficial distraction fends off angst
Provides a slightly different and more civil reality
Restraint/discipline offered through industry

Lies
Marlow hates lies, not moral aversion to them, though
Buddha- figure of enlightenment ostracized; once the truth is known, the consequence is alienation
he wants to act in accordance with the truth, but can’t live with the truth (A FEW GOOD MEN: “YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH”)
Conradian paradox:  People can only live with the lie as the truth is destructive
Cannot live with the truth b/c self-destructive
Cannot embrace a lie as it is appalling
The ultimate lie
Women are sheltered by versions of the truth, isolated and protected; Victorian notions of the household angel
Contrast to Kurtz’s mistress- sexual energy and power (men fear her)
She is self-assure, a jungle cat pacing with men subject to her; she is “proud” and “superb” in her leopard-like walk
What do we make of Kurtz’s preference? Absence of truthful intimacy in civil world

Cannibals show restraint (ironic); Marlow admires restraint
disaster lies in conflict between society and reality, not primitivism
in their lack of artificiality, the natives are more real and thus more advanced, in a way
Wordsworth’s Romantic ideals of nature: nature is transformed by humans, domestication is not improvement
Kurtz’s last words
A commentary on his life:
the horror of his actions
the horror of the truth
the fact that darkness is irresistible and fascinating (a sign of our fallen state)
we are all hollow at the core; a dark epiphany
Passage Analysis
“Going upriver” fights a natural process
is it going back in time (the return to the primal/primitive)
Atmospheric, psychological, social: all are depicted in the passage
A man trying to avoid delving into the human heart; does not want to probe yet struggles against the desire to know