Darkness of the Heart

In the preface of his novel, The Nigger of The “Narcissus”, Joseph Conrad wrote, “My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel – it is, before all, to make you see… If I succeed you shall find there … that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.” He succeeded in this task in his following novel, The Heart of Darkness, as well. Through the character of Mr. Kurtz, Conrad exposes the inherent malevolence which still lingers in the hearts of men.

The Darkness of Heart media project, created by Jordan Hansen, Elijah Hinsch, and Shèri Leveille-Rensch, makes use of Conrad’s storyteller, Charles Marlow, to present evidence proving Conrad’s fictional “darkness” is all too real. The project consists of a series of "private" blogs all linked to the blog of Charles Marlow. Marlow describes how, throughout his travels of the world, he has come across people who remind him of Mr. Kurtz. As Marlow mentions a person, he explains why they remind him of Mr. Kurtz and provides a link to said person’s blog. Each blog was written by members of the Darkness of Heart project team in an attempt to provide a factual history of the real world character from that character's perspective. Some creative license was taken with respect to personality and voice. The subjects profiled were: Mr. Kurtz, Idi Amin, Joseph Kony, Saddam Hussein, Mao Ze Dong, Kim Jung Il, Fidel Castro, and Uncle Sam (The United States Federal Government).

In The Heart of Darkness, both Mr. Kurtz and Charles Marlow are both recommended to the continental trading society they worked for, known simply as the Company, by the same group of people; people interested in sending missionaries to Africa. “It appeared, however, I was also one of the Workers, with a capital – you know. Something like an emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle” (Conrad, Heart of Darkness 25). In reality, trading companies advertised a dual purpose for expanding into new territories, that of obtaining new resources and the second for bringing civilization to the indigenous population. The latter reason brought them widespread public support. Privately, the agents of the Company were simply seeking profit in the form of ivory. “The word ‘ivory’ rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it… The only real feeling was a desire to get appointed to a trading-post where ivory was to be had, so that they could earn percentages. They intrigued and slandered and hated each other only on that account” (34-35). The character of Mr. Kurtz likewise has a dual motive. Having been presented to the Company by the same referring agents as Marlow, it is publically assumed Kurtz has gone to Africa with a missionary goal, as Marlow discovered in his first conversation with the brick maker, “You are of the new gang – the gang of virtue. The same people who sent him specially also recommended you” (36). However, Mr. Kurtz had taken a position with the Company simply for financial gain. “He had given me some reason to infer that it was his impatience of comparative poverty that drove him out there” (76).

Many of the subjects mentioned in the Darkness of Heart project publically presented motives designed to increase popular support while privately, their motives were less than altruistic. Idi Amin claimed to be “just a soldier with a concern for my country and my people” while he confiscated the property of his murder victims and misappropriated millions of dollars of military funding (Harris). Fidel Castro was originally part of a political group whose primary aims were economic independence and social reforms. Yet, when he gained control of Cuban politics, he quickly reverted to a Communist form of government (A&E Television Networks, LLC). According to former Cuban officials, Castro had been skimming from the profits of state-owned businesses for years. Forbes magazine listed him on their list of wealthiest rulers in 2006, though Castro himself insisted that his “personal net worth is zero” (Kroll)

Joseph Kony is responsible for hundreds of thousands of child abductions in Uganda. He kidnaps the youth in order to train them into becoming violent soldiers or, for many girls, sex slaves. Kony claims that his mission is to establish unity and peace throughout African countries, specifically Sudan and Uganda. However, the acts he forces his child soldiers to perform are not in line with those of any other military force. Hence, it can be inferred that Joseph Kony is trying to create intense fear among the people of central Africa in order to someday gain power as a political leader (BBC News).

Even Uncle Sam claimed to be trying to provide Native Americans a place where they “could live free from white harassment” and be “free to develop at their own pace” to “ensure the survival of the Native American cultures” (Digital History), when in fact the primary reason for the relocation of the Native American people was to provide more land for white Americans to settle.

Aside from a duality of purpose, another trait the Darkness of Heart subjects possessed in common with Conrad’s character was a healthy dose of narcissism. This trait manifested in Mr. Kurtz in both his charismatic charm and his grandiosity. Mr. Kurtz was charming. “He had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated witchdance in his honour” (Conrad, Heart of Darkness 56). He was eloquent. “The point was in his being a gifted creature, and that of all his gifts the one that stood out pre-eminently, that carried with it a sense of real presence, was his ability to talk, his words – the gift of expression, the bewildering, the illuminating, the most exalted and the most contemptible, the pulsating stream of light, or the deceitful flow from the heart of impenetrable darkness” (54). Mr. Kurtz set himself up as a deity. “He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land – I mean literally” because he believed “we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, ‘must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings – we approach them with the might of a deity,’ … ‘By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded’” (56).

Again, Idi Amin personifies this trait. “What people found fascinating was this very spontaneous person. The man who’d be out there; who’d mix with the crowd; who’d join them in dancing, in any celebration. He was someone who connected so much with the common man” (CCTV Africa). But even as a man who connected with “the common man” he set himself up as more. He declared himself “His Excellency President for Life Field Marshall Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Lord of all the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular” (O'Connor). Saddam Hussein is another example who personifies both charm and grandiosity. Journalist Mark Bowden described Hussein as “a thoughtful, articulate, intelligent politician” (Bowden). Yet at the same time, Hussein erected huge statues of himself all over his country and created a mythology where he had heroic relatives, such as Nebuchadnezzar (O'Connor). While Kim Jung Il isn’t as charming as his dictatorial peers, he certainly rivals them in narcissism. The official North Korean biographies of him make outrageous claims about his accomplishments such as that he invented hamburgers or scored a 38 under par on his first ever game of golf (Chandler).

The final item of comparison between Mr. Kurtz and the Darkness of Heart subjects are their acts of cruelty. In Heart of Darkness, Kurtz is not the only perpetrator of cruel acts. The Company conscripts the Native Africans into forced labor in which they require them to work for very little pay; “Strings of dusty niggers with splay feet arrived and departed; a stream of manufactured goods, rubbishy cottons, beads, and brass wire sent into the depts. Of darkness, and in return came a precious trickle of ivory” (Conrad, Heart of Darkness 30). Kurtz on the other hand resorts to more violent methods for control. He resorted to murder “because he could do so, and had a fancy for it, and there was nothing on earth to prevent him killing whom he jolly well pleased” (61). He enjoyed the results of his brutality as well, since he posted the heads of his victims on stakes in front of and facing his house (62).

Many of the Darkness of Heart subjects also participated in a myriad of acts of cruelty and murder. The death toll attributed to Idi Amin is 300,000, while rumors abounded that he kept photos of his victims’ bludgeoned bodies and some of their heads in his refrigerator (Silva). Mao Ze Dong fostered a national climate of fear in China in which people were afraid to speak anything which was against the “official party line”. He killed millions and sent many more to live in labor camps or in rural China (Pettinger). Joseph Kony forces children into lives as soldiers and sex slaves (BBC News). Fidel Castro has had over 4,000 people killed by firing squad and many more have died on his orders (Robles). Finally, Uncle Sam’s death toll numbers in the millions from the treatment of the Native Americans alone (Lewy).

Joseph Conrad used the fictional character of Mr. Kurtz to represent the less acceptable characteristics of mankind. These attibutes are inherent to every member of the human race to varying degrees, from the selfish or prideful thought to the very act of murder. Left unchecked, these tendencies result in the atrocities conducted by the subjects of the Darkness of Heart project. In the words of Lord Acton, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men” (Acton Institute). Time has brought much change since Joseph Conrad penned The Heart of Darkness, but one thing still remains - darkness still lurks in the hearts of man. 

Print Sources:

Conrad, Joseph. "Heart of Darkness." Akbari, Suzanne, et al. The Norton Anthology of World Literature Volume F . New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 17-78. Print.