What is historical context and can texts be explained or enriched by considerations of context?

“Heart of Darkness” is often said to reflect the tone of the modernist age and while this can be read as a form of historical context it is better acknowledged as recognition of its role within literary as well as socio-political patterns of consciousness at the time of its press. By identifying a common trend of cultural and moral disillusionment within writing of this age, the novel takes on a universal meaning and results in a more profound impact in undercutting the power of imperialism and revealing the hollowness of white man and disorientation of the west. Conrad’s depiction of the man Fresleven’s weakness when the spear “went quite easy between the shoulder-blades” and hollowness with the “grass growing through his ribs” can be read allegorically to represent the sense of cultural and psychological vacuity being experienced at the time, a backlash against the literature of romanticism. E. Said recognized that “grand narratives had lost their legitimation in large measure as a result of the crisis of modernism” which identified with imagery of the white man’s lack of substance in the novel. The implications of the modernist slant on the nature of the heart of darkness indicate that the reference is “not to a place (Africa) but to the condition of European man, not to black people but to Colonialism”. This type of reading reveals that in many ways the context of the novel was integral to its interpretation and analysis, however whilst it can be accused of reflecting or relating a certain historical consciousness, as a fictional work, it can be argued that its aesthetic qualities are maintained within the text and therefore detached from peripheral historical pressures.

The structure and temporality of the novel is particularly important in forming its own context while showing that its revelatory substance is intrinsic to the fiction rather than supported by any outside interpretative evidence. While, Marlow sets out his tale through the chronological sequencing of his memories, the “effect of the experience, dreamlike and absurd” denies this type of order and “renders meaningless the conventional measurements of time and space”. Without any kind of fixed temporality the novel is allowed to lose its structural shape, echoing both the modernist crises of subjectivity and the psychological chaos present in the heart of the human mind. Marlow’s description of his journey becomes an expression of deep disorientation, “everyday the coast looked the same, as though we had not moved” and dissatisfied loss of perspective, “long reaches that were like one and the same reach, monotonous bends that were exactly the same”; reflecting the increasing disillusionment in the minds of the west.

However, in using Marlow as a secondary narrator, Conrad casts a safety net around any perspective which is aroused by Marlow’s story telling. Marlow’s authority on his own narrative is set against the unnamed first person used to introduce him, just as the fiction as a whole is shadowed by Conrad’s role in producing it. In this way the introductory passage which lets the reader know “to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside”strongly indicates the enigma of “The Heart of Darkness” in its multi-layering of meaning and its lack of an ultimate heart to define it. What is suggested about the novel and can be related to the importance of its context is that certain outer influences are able to provide small insights “as a glow brings out a haze”, whereby moments of clarity are reached and “made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine”. So, while the nature of the novel as an expedition into the unknown or a search for some deeper revelatory meaning leads the reader to believe that they will make some grand discovery at the pinnacle, this initial passage suggests that the method of the narrative has no such simple intelligibility, rather that the moments of lucidity are revealed only in certain lights.

The relationship between the living Conrad and his fictional character Marlow has been analysed repeatedly since the novel was published to try to establish how far the author actually identified with his creation. While it has often been suggested that the narrative “can be explained by reference to Conrad’s own life”, giving the novel an autobiographical emphasis, it could be argued that as a work of fiction the alignment of the author’s own opinions with his principle character is irrelevant to the reading of the text itself. However, Marlow’s role as a narrator reinforces exactly why the presence of Conrad in his writing is both necessary and historically relevant to the novel. Just as Conrad’s own experiences on the Congo allowed him to reconstruct and remould his fictional counterpart, so Marlow as the storyteller is able to “juxtapose events and impressions” to relive “a fictional present”. Marlow’s restructuring of his experiences make the reader aware that some kind of past history, or experience is being poured into the narrative, echoing that of Conrad’s own as Marlow expresses, “it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence- that which makes it’s truth, its meaning-its subtle and penetrating essence”. So the reader is simultaneously drawn into the narrative by the historical pull of human experience while being distanced by its fictive barriers.

Conrad himself described the story in 1902 as “mainly a vehicle for conveying a batch of personal impressions” while admitting that it could be described as “experience pushed a little (and only a very little) beyond the actual facts of the case”. This demonstrates the complicated intertwining of fact and fiction involved in the writing of such a novel. While Conrad was able to express his own disillusionment with the systems he had experienced through his representations of Marlow and Kurtz, it can be shown that he is subject to his own criticisms by the very aspect of those experiences. Despite his strongly critical portrayal of white man and colonial victories, Conrad has often been accused of racism in his literature, and evidence of which, (whether conscious, or unconsciously displayed) helps to show why it is therefore difficult to separate a work of literature from its historical source of writing. In “Heart of Darkness” the allegory for the psychological journey to the heart of the human mind is bound inseparably to the physical one related by Marlow and experienced by Conrad in reality. If the story is to be read only as a metaphor which discovers the horrors and corruption lurking at the bottom of man’s heart, the implications of using Africa as “an external parallel, for a physical setting to match the inner darkness”reveal that despite Conrad’s attempts to subvert colonialism he betrays his own prejudices from the outset.

While Conrad has been described as a “man of his times holding prevalent western attitudes such as that “primitive people were morally inferior to civilised ones”, Marlow’s corresponding attitudes can be identified by his reaction to the Africans and in particular the cannibals in aligning the two. His sympathy for the black race is reflected in the negative portrayal of white man yet the superficial nature of his sympathies are revealed when he encounters the cannibals. He expresses his horror that there might be some connection between them and himself, admitting “Well, you know that was the worst of it- this suspicion of their not being inhuman”.  Again, it is the undertone of colonial prejudice breaking through the surface gloss of compassion which Conrad has allowed Marlow to display. While “he feels sorry for them when he sees them dying, when he sees them healthy, he feels nothing but abhorrence and loathing”. Conrad’s ambivalent attitudes towards colonialism are therefore revealed not just through Marlow’s ironic narrative technique but by the underlying tone of colonial prejudices which pervade the imagery of the novel.

The stark contrasts of white and black, light and shade, presented in the imagery of the novel function in a very specific way through the designation of roles, the creation and disintegration of stereotypes, and the assertion of hegemonies in the discourse. Conrad’s portrayal of Africa as the “blank space” on the map which then becomes a “place of darkness” ready for western discovery and domination initiates the assignment of metaphorical colouring. However, as Chinua Achebe pointed out the mystery and shadow cast by Conrad’s portrayal of Africa  “was and is the dominant image of Africa in the western imagination”and reinforces Conrad’s position as a product of this mass consciousness. As the metaphor is extended to the associations of good and evil accompanying this imagery, it is clear that Africa has been consigned to a “symbol for an evil and primeval force” within this westernised structuring of stereotypes. In his portrayal of the African women as “like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding…” he both places her in the context of colonial domination of land and subordinates her to the depravity associated within the imagery of darkness.

While the balance of fiction and fact contributing to “Heart of Darkness” blur the boundaries between critical commentary and aesthetic or artistically based literature, the novel is constantly subject to the conditions present during its creation. Benita Parry’s claim that what Marlow sees “belongs not to history but to fantasy” may be true but despite Conrad’s literary and political intentions, his western preconceptions appear to be daubed throughout the novel, particularly in his portrayal of Africa and Africans. The distancing of himself from any direct narrative responsibility almost reinforces the presence of Conrad within the novel and while his authorial role should not direct a reading of the text, his alignment and identification with Marlow does add a dimension to its analysis. Finally, the ambivalence with which the novel approaches attitudes towards colonialism demonstrates how important the respective roles of historical and modernist contexts are in uncovering the complex layering of narrative voices. In this way “Heart of Darkness” “produces a critical reflection on the very forms of consciousness it illuminates”and by doing so self-consciously acknowledges its own debt to historical context, whilst echoing the patterning of past, present and future which create the literary as well as literal temporality both in art and life.

---