JOSEPH CONRAD’s Heart of Darkness: Representing Colonial Atrocity
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- čas přidán 31. 10. 2020
- This episode will focus on Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness and what it allows us to see in the relationship between colonial atrocity and its representation in literature. We will pay attention to the history of Leopold II’s exploitation of the Congo Free State from 1855-1908 and the ways in which Conrad’s novella depicts that exploitation in relation to various problems of literary representation. Conrad is famous for having depicted the Congo river as the site of primal impulses and longings, thus converting it into the location of various elusive epiphanies. And yet the problem of representation, couched by Conrad in terms of the contrast between narrative surfaces and their kernels, also allows Heart of Darkness to partially divest the historical Congo of the horror of its more sordid details and to render it the staging post of a different kind of crisis, namely, is the crisis of representation itself. We will also see that apart from exposing Leopold II’s hypocrisy in the Congo, Conrad also upturns the central terms of the masculine adventure narratives that were commonplace and highly popular in his day, replacing their self-assurance with doubt and existential malaise.
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Suggested Reading:
- Chinua Achebe, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” version revised for the 3rd Norton Critical edition of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, 1988. First published in 1977.
- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, 5th Norton Critical Edition, edited by Paul B. Armstrong (2017).
- Roger Casement, “The Congo Report,” in Peter Singleton-Gates and Maurice Girodas, The Black Diaries: An Account of Roger Casement’s Life and Times with a Collection of His Diaries and Public Writings (1959)
- Adam Hoschsild, King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998).
- Benita Parry, Conrad and Imperialism: Ideological Boundaries and Visionary Frontiers (1983)
- David Van Reybrouck, Congo: The Epic History of a People, trans. Sam Garret (2014)
- Silverman, Debora L. "Art Nouveau, Art of Darkness: African Lineages of Belgian Modernism, Part I." West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 18, no. 2 (2011): 139-181.
- Silverman, Debora L. "Art Nouveau, Art of Darkness: African Lineages of Belgian Modernism, Part II." West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 19, no. 2 (2012): 175-195.
Thank you for this very interesting interpretation of Heart of Darkness! I like how you put it into its historical context, while also acknowledging Achebe's landmark article on the novella. It seemed to me that your analysis followed, at least to some extent, Fredric Jameson's three horizons of interpretation, starting with form, then ideology, and last a larger historical context that placed the text into the genre of the colonial narrative as a collective whole, which is something that I really enjoyed. I wonder if this is an intentional approach to literary interpretation that you followed or if it was something working more in the background of your considerations (or if it was relevant to your thinking at all)? Overall, this is probably the best, most well rounded interpretation of the novella that I have heard so far, so thank you for your insights and clarity of thought. I'll be sure to watch more of your videos soon.
Thanks for this, Nate. I am very much inspired by Frederic Jameson and have used him for other aspects of my work but with this episode on Heart of Darkness he was not at the foreground of my thinking. But I like that you make the connection, and so clearly too. Most important, of course, is that you found something useful in the episode for your own thinking.
Thank you Professor for the deep analysis, by the way I'm Algerian writer and translator and I have translated "Heart of darkness" to Arabic
Thanks, Mohamed. It is a very disturbing novel in any language.
من فضلك كيف وصلت رواية قلب الظلام للعالمية وكيف اثر كونراد وبمن تاثر
this analysis is very deep Prof. Going forward, I will include this video on my treatment of the text. your explanation of the form and content representation is top-notch, thank a lot Prof Quayson.
Thank you, Agyeiwaa. I am glad you enjoyed it.
I have never read a word of Conrad. This is fascinating. There's something that still eludes me after hearing your masterful analysis. Conrad's failure to represent Africans as the real people they were and its linkage to a crisis of representation--which I believe you show as indissolubly linked--still eludes me, that is, his motive for doing so. It seems that whatever world-view he was raised with (and this was in captive Poland, I take it, before emigrating to imperial Britain) was so traumatically upended in the Congo that he could not fully digest his experience or hope that his fellow Europeans could understand it. So both the root of the violence of the imperialists and the nature of their victims remain a frightful mystery.
Hi Ralph, there definitely was a problem of how to digest the Congo for Conrad, that's for sure. But more significant was the fact that he just couldn't process the violence and utter mayhem he had been exposed to. As a young boy he had once pointed to the African continent as a place he really wanted to know. What he was exposed to as an adult however had no correlatives in his own experience up to that time.
thank you for making this content available for free. we are studying heart of darkness in my Adaptation class right now in concurrence with Apocalypse Now and this video was very helpful for my understanding of the novel!
This so far the best analysis of the book. Thank you so much for this Professor🌼
Thank you so much for this! I've been teaching this book in various high school lit classes for years...great to have this as a resource!
Hi William, I am glad that you found the episode helpful. Hopefully, your students will find it helpful too.
@@CriticReadingWriting Dr. Quayson thank you so much for your reply. I teach 10th and 11th grade Literature and I'm currently teaching Heart of Darkness with my 11th grade honors class. Would it be possible to connect via email?
Great analysis backed strongly with clear historical contextualisation and vivid imagery.
Thank you.
Thanks, Victoria. I was first introduced to Heart of Darkness as an undergraduate student at Legon, and suffice it to say that the way it was taught to us was very different from how I rediscovered it for myself later. Once you are introduced to the detail of the historical background, it is impossible to read it innocently again. But much of the criticism of the novel does not bother with the background anyway. Very interesting conundrum.
This talk provides insights into the pioneering importance and limits of Heart of Darkness, a profoundly psychologically engrossing and disturbing piece of literature.
Loving these lectures, Ato! More please...
Thanks, Charbel. There are definitely more to come.
Thank you Prof! This was great
A very interesting and accessible lecture. Thank you.
thank you for this wonderful lecture
I enjoyed the critical analysis and the African perspective. The comparison of Conrad's work alongside of the great adventure novels of the colonial days was very eye opening and instructive.
Thank you.
Glad you enjoyed it, Bill!
Very informative, thank you!
Thank you professor Quayson 🙏
I studied and loved H of D in 1984 in Toronto and was taught to focus on mainly literary devices, many which you cover hear. Your analysis on Conrad and the 1890 colonial reality of the Congo for example illustrates that learning can be a life long occupation.
Hi Mike, learning is indeed a life-long occupation. I myself was introduced to the novel many years ago as an undergraduate, and no one told us then about the background of the Congo Free State. It has taken many years for me to piece it together myself, and it was this episode that got me finally to understand the atrocities more fully. It was very sobering indeed but has allowed me to understand the novel in a more nuanced way than I did before.
Thanks for liking the episode and commenting on it. Much appreciated.
@@CriticReadingWriting many thanks! Will be sharing your lectures with culture and book loving friends sir.
Great analysis with great thoughts.
Thank you for the analysis professor.
Prof i m currently studying heart of darkness and your analysis of the text is sp great that there are no words to express it.... I really loved it... Salute to such deep analysis and hard work. Please make an analysis of lord of flies, mrs dalloway and sons and lovers. Thanku for such an amazing video
I am glad that you found the episode useful, Chahat. Thanks for letting me know.
Building on your point of form preceeding content- the heart of darkness is a difficult read, it has an unusual word choice, long meandering sentences, and the piling up of adjectives like you mentioned. Also conrad will often talk about things not obviously relevant to the story.
The same way Marlow had to navigate the river and hack thru the obscure jungle, we as readers are navigating thru Conrad's obscure sentences. Perhaps even becoming "obsessed" to reaching the end of the story.
Sir i would like asking you what's major question that can be faces in this novella as question from of essay
Thank you for the analysis professor.
My question is; How do you see the use of impressionistic techniques and focus on sensory description in the novel ? Can it be read as a proof of Marlow's unreliability as a narrator or at a larger level as Conrad's attempt as an author to develop an elusive work of male adventure thereby safeguarding his apparent Englishness ?
Hi Sakhsi, the use of impressionist techniques in the novel is part of Conrad's attempt to convey the difficulty of what he is trying to represent. One of the key points of the novel is that it is actually really difficult to convey the true sense of landscaped beyond Europe, even though novels of the genre of masculine adventure narrative seemed to make it look so easy.
Greeting, awesome explanation, plz give a lecture on how season of migration to the North is revisionary writing of Heart of darkness.
Thanks, Oshinwani!
Again, many thanks, Ato! For bearing the literary torch that lightens our knowledge quest in all of this darkness we are in globally!
Akwasi, thanks for your kind words. The thing is to do what you truly love and the world will give you the tribe for it.
Thanks for that exclusive analysis. please help me justify the suitability of the tittle "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. THANK YOU.,
Is there a Transcript for this excellent talk?
A beautiful analysis of the novel, which opens the eyes of the readers from different point of view. An unimaginable explanation that naturally raise up an eternal international question of exploitations of unknowns by the Europeans. And personally this is my question that ain't the noneuropeans civilised according to their own definition?
Hi Chayanika, non-Europeans also have their own definitions of civilization, but the problem is that they are not always allowed to tell their own stories and so we come to think that Europeans have a monopoly of civilization. This is completely false, of course.
I wish you would speak louder. Can you obtain a better microphone in the future? Thanks!
Bless
I have to admit, dearest professor, that I got hooked on to your lecture from the very beginning. I am certain it is one of the finest in CZcams.
Love from Pakistan ❤️💖😚 thank you
Thanks again for insightful coverage of king leopold in The Congo Free State. Do you accept small donations towards your work here?
I’m unemployed and still want to contribute. Cheers.
Hi Horace, that is a beautiful sentiment you just expressed and it shows how useful you found the episode on Conrad. To tell you the truth, it was extremely difficult to read up on the background to the Congo Free State to put together the episode. I was introduced to Heart of Darkness many years ago while at university, but our professor did not give us this terrible background to the novel. In fact, it is something that most critics of the novel strenuously try to avoid. So unearthing it was a big challenge. The hope of course is that no one can read or teach the novel again without taking account of its real historical background. It is true that it is a classic of world literature, but what it shines a light should be understood as inextricably entangled with its status.
And no, we do not accept donations. But thank you very much for offering to do so. It is very touching and much appreciated.
Roger casement was a good man.
Fascinating, including the popularity and purposes of the masculine adventure novels for English boys ... that Englishmen peopling late 19th and early 20th century "expeditionary forces" started in heroic fictional fantasies fueled by both capitalism and imperial Christianity ...
Yes, Marcia, that is a very fascinating juxtaposition that is not usually commented upon. But colonialism was a highly complicated apparatus with many different intersecting aspects.
Dear Marcia, Joseph Conrad (Józef Korzeniowski) was a Pole writing in English, not an Englishmen. ;-).
Conrad was selling books to English readers. I wish he had taken sides but he chose not to. I’m not a fan of his work because I don’t think he’s a great craftsman.
It's interesting how this book is analyzed and discussed like this. Just my opinion - the book was hastily written crap. Apocalypse Now was "Rock Soup". They made a big exciting movie with music and actors out of a nothing story.
I apologize for bursting everybody's bubble. Go ahead and call me an idiot. You'll feel better. Then face the truth.
While I appreciate the effort, this analysis of Conrad's Heart Of Darkness reeks of twenty-first century "politically-correct" politics. The novel is about a psychological journey to the heart of darkness or the shadow of one's own soul. Notice how the professor is dressed in the costume of the Western oppressor? Why is that? Anyway, now let's talk about the Bantu-speaking people's oppression of the Sans Bushman of southern Africa. Yes?
Interesting. I noticed that the practice of amputating a man's hand that was mentioned here was not described as being the result of the most common crime that called for it. I guess mentioning that particular crime would be considered racist since it has been so many times mentioned before. But then again people can decide for themselves why the mention of THEFT was passed over here.The cutting off of the hand is A Muslim practice actually. But some facts can be embarrassing and mentioning the Natives that wanted to eat other men in the Conrad's book should be stepped around too. Lol. People wanting to join the woke seem to want the truth. Just not all of it. Lol
While its clear that the Congo was under the influence of Colonialism its important to mention or remind people of a thing or two. Or six or nine. But that would be too much wouldn't it? The first thing to remind people of is the fact that it was not some sort of organized African industry that the Belgians came to control or possess. There was none. They created that system. And it doesn't take a fkn genius to understand that it wasn't likely that any such industry was going to evolve any time soon among the natives. Who are we or they trying to kid? And many Africans came to work for the so called exploiters. Modern relevance casting back on this period is misleading in anyone's understanding. Nobody dares ask the question today , "where would these people and others be WITHOUT COLONIZATION?" Do they not to this day try to operate independently under models that were imposed (taught to them) upon them once upon a NOT TOO DISTANT TIME? Would you Sir be standing there with a book in your hand judging the very systems you now depend upon? A book. Explore that idea. Simply Existing for huge tracks of time really loses its worth in a way when a people had on their own ,never evolved into that which had a written language of their OWN when that oh so evil , blue eyed devil showed up to show you how to run s##t. Think about it. How much truth does the world want? What was in place before the so called plundering? Admiration for brute strength, envy jealousy and theft? And to encapsulate Conrad's vision, reducing it into a Pig's slop trough to expose the atrocity and injustice of colonialism is the same mistake Achebbe made. There is much much more going on in this novelette psychologically. Things the African seems uninterested in ,and there is nothing surprising or wrong with that. Achebbe is offended by Conrad's concept of native relevance having a voice, being non essential in his story. Sorry but in a way, it is. Almost irrelevant. The writers job is to show not judge. The concepts of back biting envy, gossip and social fear among employees in high powered positions as well as the conscious effort to protect the opposite sex from the horror of realities of one's actual position and observations ,are just two of the themes Conrad is compelled to show the reader on this journey. I noticed you have also taken the time to try to reduce other great writers like Shakespeare to an analysis of political relevance in the vein of Colonialism. Im glad you get something out of it. Unfortunately when all is said and done this provides nobody with no real elevation. That was to take place under history and the process of cultural evolution which nobody has the power to fake or cover up. Who is the REAL resentment truly reserved for? Witness the complex. Can we really be surprised when we hear the chants of "kill the boar!" ? Of course. Erase the uncomfortable truth and recreate a new one.
P.S. take a look at some of the atrocity that has been taking place during the appropriation of farmer's land in the South. Undeniable Savagery. But this is of course by individuals,, not by the totality of Black people. Correct? Farmland then given to people who have to be taught how to run it. Lovely. And let's not ignore the brutal militaristic gangster mentality that swept through the basin and surrounding nations. When the I.Q. is weak brute force , machetes and or bullets rule the day. The writer's of our literature will teach us about our literature, Thank You . Sorry about your lot in history but who is it that is really to blame for that? Whiteman? It would be soooo much easier if that were true wouldn't it?