Heart of Darkness Symbolism, Imagery & Allegory

Light and Dark

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

Put away your yin-yang posters: in Heart of Darkness, light doesn't necessarily symbolize pure goodness or pure enlightenment. In fact, Conrad's vision is so dark that we're not even sure he fully trusts light. As Marlow says, "sunlight can be made to lie, too" (3.50).

Over and over, we see light giving way to darkness: the sun sets, sane people go crazy, and the white ivory introduces a brutal trade. And over and over, we see black and white merging: Brussels as a "whited sepulcher" (1.21); the ivory deep in the black jungle; the white-capped woman knitting with black wool (1.24), the Intended as a "pale head" dressed "all in black" (3.53).

And then, in case you weren't quite confused enough, everything gets more complicated: Marlow compares white men to black men, and concludes (potentially) that these men are all the same. That doesn't sound so confusing? Well, consider what happens when his steamboat is stuck in the fog: he says that the fog is so thick that they can't tell up from down. Without understanding differences—like the difference between black and white, or up and down—you can't tell anything at all. There's no meaning. Doesn't that sound pretty horrific?

Two Knitting Women

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

These aren't harmless old grannies knitting acrylic baby blankets by the fireside. Not at all. Check out the description of them:

In the outer room the two women knitted black wool feverishly. People were arriving, and the younger one was walking back and forth introducing them. The old one sat on her chair. Her flat cloth slippers were propped up on a foot-warmer, and a cat reposed on her lap. She wore a starched white affair on her head, had a wart on one cheek, and silver-rimmed spectacles hung on the tip of her nose. She glanced at me above the glasses. The swift and indifferent placidity of that look troubled me. Two youths with foolish and cheery countenances were being piloted over, and she threw at them the same quick glance of unconcerned wisdom. She seemed to know all about them and about me, too. An eerie feeling came over me. She seemed uncanny and fateful. Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes. Ave! Old knitter of black wool. Morituri te salutant. (1.24)

The thing that strikes us right away is that these ladies seem to represent the Moirae—the ancient Greek personifications of fate. Two of the three Fates spin the life-thread of each human being; the third Fate cuts the thread when the time comes for the man to die. The Fates, being immortals, have foresight and thus can see every man's fate.

Okay, where are we getting all that? Well, look at the way Marlow contrasts them—old, young; thin, fat; uncanny, cheerful. The Greek conception tended to think the three Fates as being young, middle-aged, and old: the young one represents birth, the middle one life, and the old one death.

And then there's that Latin quotation at the end, which means "They who are about to die salute you." Traditionally, that's the greeting made to the emperor by condemned Roman criminals, gladiators, or anyone else who was, you know, about to die. (Sadly, it's probably not actually true.) Since the Fates control life, it makes sense for Conrad to throw this in.

But that leads us to the most important question: what happened to the third Fate? Which one's missing—life? birth? Is this an indication that something's gone horribly wrong?

Flies

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

This one's practically a freebie: flies have been symbolizing death ever since flies hung around dead bodies (so, forever). Slightly more recently than "forever"—but also a long time ago—the devil got the nickname "Beelzebub," which most people translate as "Lord of the Flies." (We're pretty sure William Golding had read Heart of Darkness.)

In Heart of Darkness, flies notably appear when an agent dies in Chapter One ("In the steady buzz of flies the homeward-bound agent was lying finished and insensible" [1.48]) and when Kurtz dies: "A continuous shower of small flies streamed upon the lamp, upon the cloth, upon our hands and faces" (3.44).

Heads on Sticks

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

The heads-on-sticks symbolize Kurtz's excessive brutality and they're the final clue we need to decide that, yep, Kurtz is mad.

The appearance of these heads-on-sticks is the graphic climax of the book, which comes conveniently close to the plot climax. Coincidence? Not if you're into Conrad half as much as we are. We've seen some pretty horrible things up until this point, but the heads on sticks take the cake. And check out how the horror show is revealed to us:

Now I had suddenly a nearer view, and its first result was to make me throw my head back as if before a blow. Then I went carefully from post to post with my glass, and I saw my mistake. These round knobs were not ornamental but symbolic; they were expressive and puzzling, striking and disturbing—food for thought and also for vultures if there had been any looking down from the sky; but at all events for such ants as were industrious enough to ascend the pole. They would have been even more impressive, those heads on the stakes, if their faces had not been turned to the house. Only one, the first I had made out, was facing my way. I was not so shocked as you may think. The start back I had given was really nothing but a movement of surprise. I had expected to see a knob of wood there, you know. I returned deliberately to the first I had seen—and there it was, black, dried, sunken, with closed eyelids—a head that seemed to sleep at the top of that pole, and, with the shrunken dry lips showing a narrow white line of the teeth, was smiling, too, smiling continuously at some endless and jocose dream of that eternal slumber. (3.4)

Marlow doesn't come right out and say, "Oh, and by the way, those ornamental knobs were actually heads." No—he walks us through it, showing us his reaction: "its first result was to make me throw my head back as if before a blow." But we still don't know why, even after we find out that they're "symbolic." In fact, we don't find out that they're heads until halfway through the paragraph.

So, it's interesting is a little, like, "No biggie," about all this. As if to symbolize the way Marlow combats horror with humor, he tells us that these "black, dried, sunken" heads are "smiling continuously" in their "jocose dream of eternal slumber." Which, let's face it, wouldn't really be the language we would use to describe severed heads.

Language

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

Like everything else in this novel, language is a mixed bag. On the one hand, Marlow sees Kurtz's eloquence as a redeeming feature—but it's also the reason he goes mad. In the end, he's "very little more than a voice" (2.27).

But we could also say that language is used as a human connection. When Marlow finds the harlequin's book, he feels relieved because he can connect to something manmade: "The simple old sailor, with his talk of chains and purchases, made me forget the jungle and the pilgrims in a delicious sensation of having come upon something unmistakably real" (2.9).

So what? Well, maybe Marlow's whole story is a way to differentiate himself from Kurtz: it's a symbolic way of retaining his own individuality among the encroaching madness brought upon by the wilderness.

Hm. Sounds good to us.

The Accountant

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

When Marlow meets the accountant, he's stunned:

I met a white man, in such an unexpected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision. I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol held in a big white hand. He was amazing, and had a penholder behind his ear. (1.42)

Okay, now picture yourself heading off to a camping trip in your prom gear: boutonniere, cummerbund, sparkly dress, maybe even some sexy heels. Pretty ridiculous, right? That's the accountant.

The thing is, he symbolizes the Company as it wants to be seen. He dresses elegantly despite the heat and the poverty of the black native African workers surrounding him, emphasizing the Company's professionalism. He's always immersed in his accounting books, diligently completing his work, which represents the Company's devotion to perfection and excellence.

Yep, this guy really is Employee of the Year—especially when his only response to the groans of a coworker is to complain about how it's hard to do math when someone's dying across the room. (True that. We can't even do math in the silence of a proctored test room.) His varnished boots help us see exactly how hypocritical and disgusting the company is.

The Doctor

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

Before heading to Africa, Marlow has to visit a doctor. We only see the guy for a few minutes, but he gives us unpleasant feelings—and Marlow, too. he's not a symbol so much as an agent of foreshadowing, a reminder that the imperialist project affects everyone, and not always in good ways.

In particular, he seems to be a little too interested in whether there's any "madness" in Marlow's family, and he calls the information "my share in the advantages my country shall reap from the possession of such a magnificent dependency" (1.26). In other words—he sees the explorers and agents as one (completely unethical) scientific experiment. Key element? Measuring Marlow's skull, which he sees as something akin to taking scientific observations of his brain.

Will Marlow, too, be irrevocably changed from his journey into a murderous and obsessed madman? We're not sure. But toward the beginning of Marlow's journey, he remembers the doctor's words and says—in a rare moment of humor—"I felt I was becoming scientifically interesting" (1.51). He might not come back totally mad, but it's close

Kurtz's Painting

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

At the central station, Marlow sees a painting, "a woman, draped and blindfolded, carrying a lighted torch. The background was sombre—almost black. The movement of the woman was stately, and the effect of the torchlight on the face was sinister" (1.57).

What's up with this? Well, Kurtz painted it, for one. And then there's the whole issue of the woman, and we already know that Marlow seems to sequester women into idealized roles outside the realm of gloomy reality. This woman is so separate that she's a painting, and she's so impossibly idealistic that she, um, isn't real.

On to the blindfolded, torch-carrying part—sounds a lot like justice, doesn't it? Maybe. Some people think this image is about blind Europe trying to bring light to Africa, which would fit in with Kurtz's whole grand imperialist theme. One thing we're sure of: carrying a torch while blindfolded sounds like a real fire hazard.

Which, come to think of it, might just be Conrad's point.

God Imagery

Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory

In the "Character Analysis" for both Marlow and Kurtz we talked about how Conrad compares both men to gods. But it's not that simple. (We hope that doesn't come as a surprise.)

So, let's try to unpack this. Marlow is like a Buddha who, last time we checked, was an enlightening teacher-figure. Kurtz, on the other hand, is described as a lightning and fire Jupiter figure. Jupiter was a little more prone to the negative human emotions of jealousy, vengeance, and ambition. So right away, the god imagery allows us to differentiate between our two big characters.

But it doesn't end there. Interestingly, Marlow calls the white men on the ship "pilgrims." Like the Puritans at Plymouth Rock, remember that "pilgrim" is a word for people embarking on a religious journey for spiritual reasons. This may just be ironic, since altruistic enlightenment was one of the supposed motives for England's imperialistic forays into Africa. Or the label of "pilgrim" may just infuse the tale with a spiritual undercurrent, making Marlow's discussions of darkness and light sound religious. Take your pick. Or come up with a new idea!

Heart of Darkness Setting

Heart of Darkness Setting

Where It All Goes Down

The Congo River in Africa around 1890, and Aboard the Nellie on the Thames River in 1891

Marlow tells the story of his travels up the Congo River. That makes the setting…the Congo. And more generally, Africa. Check out one of Marlow's descriptions of sailing up the river:

Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of overshadowed distances. On silvery sand-banks hippos and alligators sunned themselves side by side. The broadening waters flowed through a mob of wooded islands; you lost your way on that river as you would in a desert, and butted all day long against shoals, trying to find the channel, till you thought yourself bewitched and cut off for ever from everything you had known once—somewhere—far away—in another existence perhaps. (2.5)

What's cool about this is the way that Marlow compares sailing up that river to going back in time. It's almost as though—hint, this is SUPER important, Shmoopers—he's making Africa into a version of Europe's past. Remember that Marlow is telling us this story on a different river, the English Thames. That makes the Thames into a parallel for the Congo. So, if the Thames is like the Congo, then England is like Africa, which means that … white men are like black men, with a key difference: white men used to be like black men.

Want more evidence? At the beginning of the novel, Marlow breaks the silence by saying, "And this also has been one of the dark places of the earth" [1.8]). In other words, England, too, was a place of "primitive darkness" until men from Rome (in this scenario, the noble, altruistic "civilized" people invading to do good) rode up and conquered it.

What we have here is allochronic discourse, a very fancy phrase for—well, actually, a complex idea: that Westerners often talk and write about other countries as though they exist in different times and are just trying to catch up with the West. You can hear that kind of thinking even in phrases like "developing countries": developing countries are countries that are stuck in a different time and are racing to get up to our time. (Does this idea get you excited? There's a whole book about it! Er, well, a whole library really—but that should be enough to get you started.)

But there's a major problem with thinking that way: Africa actually exists in the exact same time that Europe does. It's not really a prehistoric land that only serves to remind Europe about its past, and treating it that way sounds, well, a little (or a lot) racist. And that's the source of a major critique against Heart of Darkness: even though Conrad seems to be saying that Europeans can be just as bad by putting the "heart of darkness" on the Thames, he's still saying that Africans represent a primitive and savage stage of human development.

  

Heart of Darkness Narrator:

Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?

First person (Peripheral Narrator), First Person (Central Narrator)

Welcome to our frame narrative. First, our unnamed narrator introduces the frame for the story (the evening spent aboard the Nellie). Why do we start out like this? Well, because we have another narrator, we can stop Marlow's story and hear commentary on the Thames River and its surroundings. We also get some great little lines about Marlow's voice, with the implicit parallel to Kurtz. In short, the nameless narrator is an opportunity for more commentary, more connections, and more flexing of Conrad's literary muscles.
And then there's this little tidbit about Marlow:
to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of those misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine. (1.9)
If the meaning of this story is similarly on the outside, then we need to be outside this story (i.e., on the Thames) to understand Conrad's parallels between the Thames and Congo Rivers, Europe and Africa, white Europeans and black Africans, etc. Pretty neat.

Listen Up

Obviously, the frame is crucial to Conrad's whole literary agenda. But once Marlow starts yapping away, most of the novel is told from his point of view. We have to ask: just how accurate is his portrayal of Kurtz as a madman? Just how frightening is the interior? Since Marlow clearly has point to make, and isn't above lying to make a point (as with the Intended), can we trust that he's being straight with us? And would it matter if he weren't?

   

Heart of Darkness Genre

Adventure, Psychological Thriller and Suspense, Literary Fiction
Let's take these one at a time:
Adventure. You've got a boat. You've got hippos. You've got cannibals, heads on sticks, and a white guy who's gone "native." Sounds like an adventure to us.
Psychological Thriller. At the same time, we have to admit that Heart of Darkness is a little light on the action. This is no summer blockbuster. It's much more of a twisted journey into the dark interior of a madman's mind than it is a journey into the dark interior of a continent—which lets us slap on a "psychological thriller" sticker.
Literary Fiction. "Literary fiction" is basically a euphemism for "required reading." Since the odds are better than even that you're here exactly because you're being required to read Heart of Darkness—yup, sounds like literary fiction to us.
Okay, want a better definition? Literary fiction tends to focus more on character and psychological development than plot and action, and its goals isn't to entertain you so much as to go, "Hm, I never thought about that before. Sounds to us like Heart of Darkness fits the bill.

                                              

Heart of Darkness Tone

Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?

Cynical, Stark, Poetic

Just to choose a totally random passage:

Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. Another mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet. The work was going on. The work! (1.39)

Okay, fine, we didn't exactly choose this randomly. But Marlow's description of dying slaves is a good example of Heart of Darkness's tone. It's stark and unflinching, describing the dying slaves in really poetic language—all that "half coming out, half effaced" business—along with a kind of emotionless statement of facts: they slaves are dying, and the work is going on. Over and over, Conrad renders terrible scenes with a literary flick of the wrist. Maybe he sees poetry as the only way to deal with horror?

But notice the exclamation mark after the second "work." That's Marlow (or Conrad) being cynical: it tells us that he can't believe the work is just going on while all these humans are suffering, but it also tells us that he's not surprised. His journey into Africa has made him cynical about what humans are capable of.

Heart of Darkness Writing Style

Verbose, Poetic, Introspective

We hear you: Conrad isn't easy to read. His writing can come across as long-winded and (we'll go there) tedious. But we think you should give it a chance. It might help to slow down and read it almost like poetry, because it really is more like poetry than like your typical prose narrative. Once you get the hang of his writing, it's worth it. Check out this passage:
She stood looking at us without a stir, and like the wilderness itself, with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose. A whole minute passed, and then she made a step forward. There was a low jingle, a glint of yellow metal, a sway of fringed draperies, and she stopped as if her heart had failed her. (3.15)
Notice how Conrad hops from physical ("she stood looking at us") to metaphorical ("like the wilderness") to speculative ("with an air of brooding over an inscrutable purpose") in just one sentence. The sentence's slow, meditative rhythm almost makes us feel the pause of the warrior woman looking over the group—and then we move back into rich physical description ("jingle," "glint," "sway") before veering off again into the speculative "as if her heart had failed her."
This passage shows us that, even when Conrad is describing the physical world and physical action, it's always tightly linked to psychology and motivation. Just as the journey into Africa is really a journey into the human heart, a description of a woman stepping forward is really a description of her mind.
We told you it was worth it.

What’s Up With the Title?

With such an ominous title, Heart of Darkness delivers what it promises: ruminations on the nature of evil. (You know, just like Wicked, but without the song-and-dance.) The "heart of darkness" refers not only to a physical location (inside Africa), but also to a state of mind and the grim consequences of imperialism (the European world takeover during the 15th through 20th centuries).
So yeah, Conrad was into metaphors. The text considers the deep jungle of Africa as the heart of darkness both for its untamed and hostile wilderness and for its supposed "savages" who hang out there practicing certain non-European customs such as cannibalism.
But why is the African jungle called "dark"?
The no-duh answer is that there's not much light in there, what with the heavy foliage and the mists. The more complicated answer is that, according to the novel, the wilderness makes men metaphorically blind to their situation and surroundings. In the heart of darkness, you can't do good: you can only choose to be less evil.

What’s Up With the Ending?

Lol, you tell us!
No, seriously. Right at the end of Marlow's visit with the Intended, he tells us that he couldn't tell her the truth about Kurtz: "It would have been too dark—too dark altogether …" (3.86). And then we scoot back to the top level of the frame, where the flood is receding and the unnamed narrator tells us that the "tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky—seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness" (3.87).
We suspect these two "darknesses" are related. (You think?) When Marlow tells us that he lied to the Intended to preserve her vision of Kurtz as a good crusader bringing light to dark Africa, is the point of the story to make us realize that there's just as much darkness in Europe as there is in Africa? Are we supposed to imagine the Thames flowing out into the ocean and then mixing with the waters flowing out of the Congo? Are we supposed to close our book and throw it across the room in frustration?
Well, maybe. Here's a thought: the ending of Heart of Darkness is intentionally vague and ambiguous because we humans are vague and ambiguous, with good and evil, civilized and savage duking it out in our souls every single day. (That is, unless we're women, in which case we're just pure and beautiful. Score!)
In other words, we're saying, we suspect that the ending isn't supposed to give us a clear answer about what all this means. Remember that for Marlow, the meaning is outside of the text, and not inside (1.9).
And what's outside of the text is… us.

Tough-O-Meter

We've got your back. With the Tough-O-Meter, you'll know whether to bring extra layers or Swiss army knives as you summit the literary mountain. (10 = Toughest)

Snow Line (7)

Sorry, guys. This one's a toughie. Not only are the plot, themes, and motivation a little obscure (maybe even dark), but the language isn't exactly easy, either. Check out this set of sentences from the beginning of the novel:

Forthwith a change came over the waters, and the serenity became less brilliant but more profound. The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth. We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories. (1.4-6)

Translation: the river continued to flow, but it looked different after the sun went down.

All right, come back. Before you give up, consider this: English was Conrad's third language, and he couldn't even speak it well until he was in his twenties. (Polish and French are numbers one and two.) If he could churn out prose like this in his third language, surely you can read it in your first or second. Right?

Heart of Darkness Plot Analysis

Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.

Initial Situation

Just a Small Town Boy

Charlie Marlow loves maps. He wants to become an explorer so he can fill in those blank spaces on the maps. Upon acquiring a steamboat with the Company, he begins his journey into the African interior. This is a lovely little conflict-free initial situation. Although, with comments like "morituri te salutant" ("we who are about to die salute you") (1.4), we have a feeling there's some conflict coming soon.

Conflict

Bromantic

Marlow hears about Kurtz and almost immediately becomes obsessed with him. To Marlow, Kurtz answers all sorts of problems: the eerie silence of the jungle (by having an eloquent voice), the shenanigans of the native Africans (by "taming" them), the chaos of the wilderness (by acquiring ivory), and the moral ambiguity of the interior (by making himself into a kind of god).
So, where's the conflict? To find this paragon and bring him back to civilization, Marlow has to go on a perilous journey—both physical and mental. Plus, there are cannibals.

Complication

Hurry Up and Wait

All Marlow wants to do is be BFFs with Kurtz (and bring him home), but he just runs into problem after problem. First, he can't get his steamboat moving up the Congo. Second, a bunch of Company peons are trying to undermine Kurtz.
And third, Kurtz is a total loony who orders Marlow's steamboat to be attacked because he doesn't want to leave the interior. Oh, and the native Africans don't want him to leave either.

Climax

ESCAPE FROM THE INTERIOR!

Kurtz tries to escape from his hut right before Marlow and company are scheduled to bring him home, but it's not much an escape since the guy is half-dead already. Marlow catches up to him and, at this point, has two options: either let him go and allow Kurtz his victory, or follow Company orders and bring him back.
Marlow goes with option two, and the next morning they make a successful escape from the restless Africans. It's all very climactic.

Suspense

Things Get Twisted

Right when you think Marlow is going to succeed in his mission of bringing Kurtz back to civilization … Kurtz dies. In fact, he dies in complete agony, first going blind, then raving incomprehensibly, then finally seeing visions as he expires. His last words—"The horror! The horror!"—pronounce his final judgment on his world.
Okay, we admit that a death sounds a lot more like a climax than suspense. Here's where he think the suspense comes in: with Kurtz dying in this dramatic way, we're left wondering what's going to happen to Marlow. Is he going to go back to his regular Company life, just a regular imperialist working stiff? Or has he actually learned something from his trip into the heart of darkness?

Denouement

Brussels Kind of Sucks

Marlow returns safely to Belgium, only to find that everything is petty and small when compared to the horrors he experienced on the Congo. (Wait, isn't that a good thing?) He has one final task before he can finally move on: handing over Kurtz's letters to his Intended, i.e. fiancée.

Conclusion

You Kiss Your Mama With That Mouth?

For some reason, everyone back home still thinks of Kurtz as a saint and martyr and all-around good guy—particularly the Intended, who goes on and on about how awesome Kurtz is. Marlow doesn't correct her. In fact, he lies right to her face, leaving us wondering what kind of lesson he's learned at all.