Nietzsche's philosophy in Heart of Darkness
by  Melanie and Riccardo

Friedrich Nietzsche's life

Friedrich Nietzsche was born in 1844 and died in 1900; he was one of the most important philosophers of all times and he influenced a lot of minds of that century, especially in Europe. One of his best known statements is the "Ubermensch" (the super man, the strong man) but he is also famous for his statements about the Christian religion.

The criticism of religion and of faith loss in it is one of the most important aspects of his philosophy: his father was a parson and died when Nietzsche was only five years old. His mother wanted him to become a parson and "sent" him to a college and when he went to the university he studied theology. He did not want to make a criticism against Christ but against the man of the 19th century that had to live with the need of a god and of a faith, but that had also to live with his forces.

Nietzsche's thought: Christianity and the Hero

Nietzsche thinks that the Christian ideas must be destroyed and all these qualities are false. He "attacks" the Christian morals, the morals made by the ancient philosophers and the morals of the people, not cultivated people (he says that they are just like a flock). He criticizes qualities such as compassion on the pure people or love towards the other people that do not have the force to live without any help.

We may find this aspect of Nietzsche's philosophy in the novel "Heart of Darkness" especially when the Negroes are described and how they are "ill used" by the white men; they are slaves and are considered just like objects, because they are weak and wild. But we know that Nietzsche does not consider badly the compassion if it is felt by a strong man. In "Heart of Darkness" there are Marlow and Kurtz: the first is the strong person that does not like what the white men are doing in Africa but that is fascinated by this land; Kurtz is another strong person, that uses the Negroes because they are weaker than him - in fact he is considered like a god by them for his nature- and that loves this country for the same reason as Marlow and also because he can be seen like a god and live far from the stupid morals of his rich European world. Nietzsche believes that the true strength of man is unique and not of everybody: Marlow and Kurtz have this uniqueness. The hero that Nietzsche considers is the law of himself: he does not have to be limited by the consideration for the other people, and by stupid laws and rules. So, the true Nietzsche's hero can be very similar to Kurtz. Nietzsche says that Christianity came into existence in order to lighten the heart. Maybe Marlow and Kurtz were sent to Africa to light the dark heart of the land. T hey wanted to light the life of the natives; they wanted to make their lives more worthwhile. To the European the life of the natives was not life, it was a downfall, it wasn't human, it wasn't tolerable. And it was the same with the Christian religion; it was founded to give the people a sense of their life. 

At first it was Kurtz turn, but he wasn't able to bring the light to the people and the land, the darkness became a part of him and took all the light from his heart. There was only the ivory, which was able to enlighten the heart. So the ivory became a sort of religion for Kurtz and later also for Marlow. There, at the Congo, they needed something to believe, so they took the ivory because it was bright, the only thing which brought them light. 

Nietzsche says also, that Christianity has first to burden the heart, and afterwards it's able to lighten it. I think that it's the same with ivory but in reverse order because first everybody was blinded by the ivory and later it was the reason of murder and harm. But there is also the possibility that Kurtz wanted to burden the people to enlighten their heart with his strength and power and his European civilized thoughts

.
"As long as a man knows very well the strength and weakness of his teaching, his art, his religion, its power is still slight." by Nietzsche

"The thing was to know what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own." by Joseph Conrad

Kurtz broke his ties with the company when he was at his station; he wanted everybody to think about the strong and severe man who he was before he came down to the jungle. When he met the natives he felt that his way to break the will of human creatures is not the right way and his power is only a weak one. The blacks were the uncivilized to the Europeans' eyes but Kurtz felt that they were not. They were content with their life and their situation. And the attempt of civilizing them did not work and today it's the same.
Ivory was the only thing which gave him power, it made him strong and with the help of ivory he wanted to teach the others to respect him.

"The influence of a man has never yet grown great without his blind pupils" this is another sentence of Nietzsche. 
"Hadn't I been told in all the tones of jealousy and admiration that he had collected, bartered, swindled, or stolen more ivory than all the other agents together?" So that is a sentence out of the book which shows that the ivory gave him power. But he wasn't able to get all the ivory by himself, he had to count on some "blind pupils" who had to help him.
Kurtz's influence also grew with his followers, who were blinded by the ivory, the white gold and they were also blinded by the appearance, by the charisma of Kurtz and his visions. And because of these reasons he became a sort of god. When Marlow got closer to Kurtz by reading information, he got also blinded. First he said that he was not a real fan of Kurtz but later he was also fascinated but not like the others, because Kurtz was very ill when Marlow met him. Nevertheless there was something which attracted the people.

Nietzsche's thought: Bacchus and the wilderness

Another very important aspect of Nietzsche's thought is his love for the ancient cultures, especially the Greek one, that he liked so much especially for its religion and for Bacchus myth. He was fascinated by the wild nature and by the ancient soul of men, that is dead, and that Bacchus could recall from its "human-coffin". In Heart of Darkness we can find a lot of descriptions of this world in which the time has never gone on; some landscapes and some people are represented like ancient bronze-casting statues. 
"…and near the river two bronze figures, leaning on tall spears, stood in the sunlight under fantastic head-dresses of spotted skins, warlike and still in statuesque repose. And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a woman.
She walked with measured steps, draped in striped and fringed cloths, treading the earth proudly, with a slight jingle and flash of barbarous ornaments. She carried her head high; her hair was done in the shape of a helmet; she had brass leggings to the knees, brass wire gauntlets to the elbow, a crimson spot on her tawny cheek, innumerable necklaces of glass beads on her neck; bizarre things, charms, gifts of witch-men, that hung about her, glittered and trembled at every step. She must have had the value of several elephant tusks upon her. She was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent; there was something ominous and stately in her deliberate progress. And in the hush that had fallen suddenly upon the whole sorrowful land, the immense wilderness, the colossal body of the fecund and mysterious life seemed to look at her, pensive, as though it had been looking at the image of its town tenebrous and passionate soul." (Heart of Darkness p 137-138)
She is, in her wilderness, described like a wonderful, beautiful, mysterious and fascinating creature. She represents a forgotten world in which we lived centuries ago and that the people from the richest countries have forgotten (or they think they have forgotten it ), a world and that they must destroy or use to make money, because they know that in this wilderness, even if it is sometimes barbarian, there isn't the evils that you can feel everywhere in a rich country of that time.

Nietzsche and Heart of Darkness's characters

We can see in the strength of Kurtz's soul what Nietzsche means when he speaks about the strong person that lives his life in full (a person who is beyond good and evil): this appears evident in many passages of the book. For example, when Marlow meets the Russian guy and hears his words "He mad me see things, things…"; when the Russian chap and Kurtz were talking, the Russian chap was fascinated by Kurtz, that changed him with his wisdom. Also Marlow is fascinated by the idea to meet Kurtz, because he can change something in his life and in his spirit, too; but Marlow and Kurtz have a lot of things in common: both of them love this country even if they came here for a job, Marlow to find Kurtz and this one because he was a colonialist. Furthermore, Kurtz wrote a sort of report of seventeen pages about the redemption of the savages. He was very similar to Nietzsche's hero that can also feel compassion towards the weak people, but isn't limited by it. In other words this hum an feeling can be felt by the strong men but it does not affect them. The end of Kurtz is his death. Even when Marlow meets him for the first time, he is on a stretcher, ill and weakened, very different from the strong man Marlow was told about. Kurtz is near his unavoidable end.

by  Melanie and Riccardo