Heart of Darkness
by zunguzungu
In order to argue what Roosevelt is in the dissertation, I found I had to produce a capsule summary of the Heart of Darkness myth of Africa so that I can argue Roosevelt to be doing a different kind of Africa myth. For your edification, therefore, this is how I paraphrase Heart of Darkness in 400 words:
The experience of the Congo produced a sense in the West of an African “darkness” that reflected the dark truth of the civilized world’s ego-ideals: from Conrad through to Fanon’s critique of it, Africa as “Heart of Darkness” told a story of the African as civilized man’s id, as the humanity buried under civilized morality and work discipline. The essential hollowness of Marlow’s faith in work, after all, can settle onto the revelation of what Kurtz truly is because buried beneath the veneer of civilization is the truth we seek to avoid looking too closely at: while Kurtz throws off the shackles of civilization and “go[es] ashore for a howl and a dance,” therefore, Marlow’s restraint is precisely a function of having closed his mind to anything but “surface-truth[s]” and stayed busy.
In this account of human maturity, the African within represents the undisciplined, unrestrained animal essence over which a thin but ultimately insubstantial gloss of human civilization has been cast. And the kind of growing understanding that Heart of Darkness charts is of Marlow’s increasing realization — and horror — at the truth of himself and of all civilized man, a truth which can only be dealt with lying (or, perhaps, by fiction), by closing his eyes (and those of Kurtz’ intended) to a truth which “would have been too dark — too dark altogether.” In other words, the enlightenment which Marlow has received — three times described as a kind of Buddha — is that denial is better than looking too close at reality; “going at it blind,” he reflects, is the proper way to “tackle a darkness.”
Conrad’s account of what Fanon called the “Black who slumbers in every White,” therefore, produces horror because it narrates “maturity” as a (male) realization of the more-real real beneath and the violent discipline produced in response. The beautiful illusions of the ego, therefore, only cover over the libidinal horror that still essentially motivates even the most (ostensibly) idealistic efforts to civilize and liberate; the evangelical illusions of Conrad’s women, after all, are what keeps them “out of it — completely” but which, Marlow eventually decides, must be cultivated as the only buffer against the darkness. “We must help them to stay in that beautiful world of their own,” he writes, “lest ours gets worse.” But even a shining example of European civilization like Kurtz is, ultimately, nothing more than “a dog in a parody of breeches,” an animal pretending to be human.
I’m working on Liberia’s history right now (not sure how I got here) and it’s fascinating to see the development of the Americo-Liberian as the civilized contrast to indigenous Africans from about 1822 through the late 1830s. Puts an interesting spin on the “heart of darkness” when it’s framed through diasporic histories. The language of the “heart of darkness” runs through the Liberian stuff.
I think Conrad’s Outpost of Progress story (one of his few other Africa stories) has a Sierra Leonian character, who echoes the presence in West Africa of the “dandified” pretenses-to-civilized African population — portrayed quite negatively, as I recall — a presence which is quite absent in HoD itself.
That early Liberian stuff is fascinating, though I’ve only ever skated on the edges of it. Was it Azikiwe that wrote a history of liberia, by the way? I’ve always been curious about that particular text’s lineage.
To continue from above I’m natrually introverted and sometimes find my weak self afraid to do most of these spontaneous ideas for people I dot know! But God is LOVE. And guess who helped me make a list and who will hold me/us accountable to DO the things? My 5 and 3 year old. Praise Him for their hearts.
Azikiwe did write one history of Liberia. One line of thinking traces it back to Blyden, my current obsession, who spent some time in Lagos and actually mentored Casely Hayford. Blyden also wrote a history of Liberia, a very politic one.
One other thing you might find interesting. “Re-captives,” slaves released after capture by British forces and then re-settled in Liberia were described as “Congoes.” Nothing I have read explains this particular name (to be fair, I also haven’t looked very hard), but this would be at some point between the 1830s and 1840s.
wow, haha, one good thing about bnlggiog is that i learn a bunch of tighns from those who comment.I didn’t know this. And it’s really, really nice to know this. Thanks Maki.
you would like to help Liberian girls get a strong, hehltay start in life donate to our partner More Than Me. ore Than Me helps little girls from one of the poorest slums in the world get off the street and