Joseph Conrad's life and its consequences for Heart of Darkness
By Francesco and Mario

Joseph Conrad is considered one of the principal authors of the 19th and 20th centuries. His novels speaks about the sea and adventures: stories of mariners that face the extraordinary loneliness and dangers of the sea, continuous victim of the risks. In fact, before being a novelist, Conrad was really a seaman.

Conrad was Polish, although Jozef Teodor Konrad Nalez Korzeniowski was born on the 3rd December 1857 in Berdiczew, close to Kiev. He was the son of Polish parents, who were fighters for the independence of Poland (at that time Poland was in the middle of the Russian empire). During his infancy he dreamed of travelling all over the seas of the Earth, far from the ugly and evil world of his infancy.Conrad was early interested in geography. When he was nine years old he had an atlas, where he studied maps in his leisure time. Soon he saw the map of Africa, which was not fully measured. His intention to discover this continent of undiscovered treasures was called. I think, as the matters stood (Russian exile), it was clear that Conrad wanted to discover new sides of his life by discovering new areas. And Africa was nearby to his plans.

Since he was 17 years old, he was inclined to an irresistible vocation for the sea life, and left for Marsiglia becoming a simple seaman. For Conrad, to sail meant to discover and to know all the things that are at the frontiers of the world. After a long experience on the sea, he started to work for the French Merchant Navy and, in 1878 for the English Merchant Navy, where he became Captain. In 1886 Conrad became English citizen. For 20 years he travelled on almost all seas, but in particular on the Malaysian Isles.

The first novel of Conrad was very appreciated by the most important novelists of the time, so that he abandoned the sea life, even if with a lot of sadness and became a novelist. Conrad became a master of the English literature even if his native language was Polish. 
 

In his novels the principal issues are the loneliness of the protagonists, fate and luck that can change the destiny of the central characters. Conrad's hero was often a runaway or a rejected whose life is marked by the fate and by the great desire to know. One characteristic of Conrad's novels is the fact that they take inspiration from his difficult and restless life. In this way he totally identifies himself with the principal actors of his novels. One of his principal novels, where we can evidently find this characteristic, is "Heart of Darkness": to write this book, considered a best seller of the European literature, Conrad took inspiration from life, too. In April 1890, thanks to the acquaintance of his aunt Marguerite, he worked for the "Society Anonym Belge for the commerce of Congo". In this year with a French ship Conrad sailed from Bordeaux to Boma, on the coast of the Congo River. From Boma he went to the village of Matadi and then to the village of Kinshasa. When he arrived, the director of the station told him that his boat was damaged so Conrad travelled on another ship piloted by a Danish captain. The aim of the travel was to sail the river and arrive at the nearest station, where he had to take the director, called Klein, that was ill. During the return voyage Klein died and Conrad was infected by the malaria fever that made his health worsen forever.

"Heart of Darkness" is especially a book about the discovery of new places, about the travel through an unknown land, and, at the same time, in the mysteries hidden in the human soul. In addition, in this book Conrad also openly accuses contemporary colonialism. He does not denounce only the Belgian imperialism in Congo, but the whole European imperialistic policy. This is demonstrated by the different nationalities of his characters: Marlow is English, Fresleven is Danish, Kurtz is Belgian.

We have to say that this book is a fable about the cruelty of humans. The best case to prove this is Mr. Kurtz: probably he was as normal as Marlow and every other human in the book. So he was not a psychopathic killer as you would describe him today. In an experiment, a number of volunteers were captured in prison for some weeks living crowed together. They became so insane that they wanted to kill their "neighbors". Although this example can't be equated with a journey on the Congo, where you see death and cruelty, which is enough to fill thousand lives. But maybe everyone would go crazy in that case. And having power over people is the dream of every human (if you want to become a famous rock star you also have power over people). The question is: did Conrad see such a cruel person or did he think of humanity in general? It's a question withy a really difficult answer. Conrad was a man who could have lived in the second half of the 20th century because he was one of the first who knew about the intention of being powerful (in the 20th century C.G.. Jung made this theory, it wasn't as much respected as Sigmund Freud's theories or Victor Frankl's, but I think this shows humanity in the right way).

Conrad accuses also the western hypocrisy. In fact, in the early years of the 20th century this colonization movement was motivated by some socio-political reasons and aimed at the civilization of the African tribes. But we don't know if Joseph Conrad had these opinions before he made his journey to the Congo. Did he have any prejudices ("Vorbehalte"/I know "prejudices" isn't the best expression)? Would he have believed this story if someone had told him about the cruelty of imperialism? Probably, in that case, he doubts it. But he would have thought about cruelty because he knew some basic "information" therefore (we immediately could imagine the time his family was in the Russian exile. His parents surely have told him something about this). We can also imagine that a man, who knew something about the darkness of imperialism ("cruelty" and "darkness" are more or less the same), never would have wanted to make a journey into the Congo.

There's one last question: How exchangeable are Conrad and Marlow? Are they the same? The protagonist of this novel is Charlie Marlow, but the real protagonist is Conrad himself because his life is very similar to the story of Marlow. He is an English wandering seaman. When he was young he had always adored the African rivers, especially the Congo river that is drawn on the map like a dangerous snake. One day he receives a charge from an important company for the transport of ivory; he is very happy and accepts with pleasure. The dream of Marlow (and consequently the dream of Conrad) is to explore "the mystics and gloomy blankest of blank spaces", that had never been explored by the colonization. When Marlow arrives at the company's seat, he does not find the agent that had to receive him. Marlow decides to leave and go to look for him. The Agent's name is Kurtz. When Marlow arrives at the village, the blacks don't want the white men to take Kurz away because for them Kurtz is a sort of divinity. However the protagonist brings Kurtz on his ship. The ship leaves while the blacks see their divinity going away. During the travel Kurtz dies and Marlow finds some letters for Kurtz's girlfriend. Marlows comes back to England and gives those letters to the woman.

This novel contains Conrad's ideas and opinions about the most important questions of his time. For example, Kurtz symbolizes the vain and senseless attempt of western society to homologate to itself every different thing that characterizes the other societies. And Conrad's vision of the world directly comes from his real life experiences.Everyone, who knows the book and the biography of the author won't doubt it, that Marlow is the person Conrad identifies with. But maybe Conrad added something. Maybe he made some mistakes in the Congo, so that he wanted to "improve" Marlow and so himself. Who knows?

By Francesco and Mario