When I read the part of the manager and his uncle’s discussion about Kurtz. I feel a twisted sense of morality. They feel that Kurtz wants to take over the manager’s position. They are willing to do anything that will get him or his assistant the Russian hanged, so that the trading field might be leveled to their advantage.
For chapter 2, lots of things happen during Marlow is leaving on a two-month trip up the river to Kurtz, along with the manager and several “pilgrims”. The river is dangerous and the trip is difficult. Even though I trying to ignore racism in this book and focus on other things, in this scene, I still feel Africans in this book are mostly objects: Marlow refers to his helmsman as a piece of machinery. As narrator says,
“An athletic black belonging to some coast tribe. He was the most unstable kind of fool I had ever seen. He steered with no end of a swagger while you were by; but if he lost sight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject funk, and would let that cripple of a steamboat get the upper hand of him in a minute.”
Africans become a mere backdrop for Marlow, against which he can play out his philosophical and existential struggles. It presents a set of issues surrounding race that is ultimately troubling.
I also found a symbol, fog that contributes to this theme. Fog is a sort of corollary to darkness. Fog not only obscures but distorts: it gives one just enough information to begin making decisions but no way to judge the accuracy of that information, which often ends up being wrong. Marlow’s steamer is caught in the fog, meaning that he has no idea where he’s going and no idea whether peril lies ahead. And the further meaning is what seems to be right, just and enlightened now are actually wrong, unjust and guilty.
My question is: What does the title “Heart of Darkness” mean? Is it the darkness which is hidden under the white skin?
I agree that the fog somewhat represents the darkness, as whenever the fog seems to come about, the character always seems to be wandering in deep thought or just seem to be lost. I think the title, “Heart of Darkness”, represents whenever Marlow seems to have negative thoughts or whenever he’s feeling hopeless. For example, the part where Mr. Kurtz died, there was a section where he described the impact that Mr. Kurtz had on him and in the ending of that section, he describes that he was “in the heart of the inpenetrable darkness” (79). Every time Marlow seems to be confused or something happens that effects him in a negative way, he always seems to go back to that negative place of darkness. I feel as if Marlow is not a confident character. He is very dependent on other people, such as Mr. Kurtz. He describes how much he admired Mr. Kurtz, but when he died, he lost all confidence, as if there was no longer any other hope for him to succeed with the rest of his voyage.
I disagreed with the statement that, “Africans become a mere backdrop for Marlow,”. In fact, the Africans are the heart of darkness. I deduced darkness to mean, the reason or justification that allows a person to treat others with such disrespect. It is impossible, from my perspective, to overlook the overt descriptions of Africans in the book. Joseph constantly refers to Africans as savages which is demoralizing, to say the least. The unapologetic way Joseph Conrad dehumanized the African cannot be brush over or in any way be make light of as he further when on to associate the African with cannibalism. I must admit , I understood what Chinua Achebe alluded to when he said Joseph’s writing could be very alluring. However, though the material was difficult, it served as a very important reminder………….
I agree with you that fog represents the darkness. If the fog comes out, the people will start to get confused. Just like Marlow and his mariner, they feel lost when the fog comes because they can’t see anything and they afraid they will be attacked by the aborigin. I also agree with your question about the title of the book. Why does it call “Heart of Darkness”? I think the selfishness of people is the best answer. When we can have benefits from the others , we will try to get it without thinking about the consequences.”The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, … ,they were not inhuman”(36) This statement show that the darkness from human. Human can do anything if they want to take the advantages. Therefore, I think this is why we called it Heart of darkness.