'Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad

In Vincent van Gogh’s work the work has is there because of three people who did this and they are himself who was the writer and the illustrator, to his brother who he wrote to and was the recipient of most of the letters and to her widowed wife who preserved the letters and had them published. The painting career of Van Gogh was only 10 years he begun as an amateur but later grew and prospered to become a very gifted painter of all time. All the art that he made was well created, the letters that he wrote portray him as a man who is very articulate, has a drive, it also showed him as a difficult person among other personalities.

A lot of the letters that of Van Gogh wrote, they are full of quotations, which in most case are unacknowledged, and they emanate from books such as the  Bible, Francis Bacon’s book on Descriptio globi intellectualis. All the books he read by popular writers he had both admiration and criticism he read books by Charles Dickens, Shakespeare and others he understood the books well and even recommended his brother to read some of the books. The reading of the many books enabled him to improve on his creativity and be able to express himself at ease.

When a lot of writers will attempt to entertain or amuse their readers with the work they have written, Van Gogh made no such attempt. His writing style can be considered to be clumsy with no emotion. In his letters he addressed Theo who happened to be very close to him and he used this letters to share his thoughts, his challenges, what he was doing. He quarreled his brother and even went further to request for money from him, in his communications with his brothers his personality reveals him as a man who is difficult and he is very insensitive especially his inability to clear grievances.

The letters will inform the reader of all the thoughts of Van Gogh, the people he was seeing, the books he read, and his feeling with an account of daily. One can be able to read the mind of him and know what exactly he was up to.

A reason he is considered a good writer was because he was terrible in relationships with other people. This made him to be very argumentative and passionate at this, and this made people to avoid him. This made him to be a very lonely man, in one of the letters he wrote in July 1887, he informs his brother Theo, that the reason he has no friends or a lover it was because he was very dedicated to his art, and it was only through letter that he contacted other people.

Joseph Conrad wrote the novel based on his challenges and what he had seen when he was in Congo for nine years. He based the novel based on his experiences from what he saw there in Congo from the ills of colonialism to the ivory trading which was violent in nature.  The novel is a set in Thames River on a boat for one night. In his time in Congo he had bad experiences like in the, July 1890, it was a difficult time for him after he spent a lot of time watching bodies that had been tied to a post and shot and were now rotting and what remained finally were skeletons. He also experienced a disturbing moment when he came across a 13 year old boy who had a gunshot wound in the head, he watched in horror as people died with a lot of anguish and pain. Later his life in Congo ended and he returned home, he wrote a lot of letters based on his experiences in Congo and tormented and disturbed him of what he experienced there in Congo.

Marlow was narrated Conrad’s work and he informs his friends of the day he went out in search of Kurtz, who was a businessman who had his business lose value, was dangerously corrupt by the power had had over his workers. For Kurtz nothing else mattered and he only thinks about himself and the girl who he is about to marry. His only care is the money that he had, the wealth he possessed and the power he had over all the subjects he had. Finally Kurtz dies and Marlow is the one to break the news to Kurtz fiancée where he lies to her about the last words that Kurtz said, and Marlow lies by informing her that he called her name before he died. But the truth is that the last words by Kurtz were of what he thought of what life really meant. He described life as ‘the horror’.

The story is a simple tale, narrated well with a lot of creativity; it is superb in observation and very informative. The novel tries to fight colonialism or exploitation of the weak as was happening in Congo. He uses the novel to vent his fury and of how people will make very little from what life has to offer due to their personal greed. More would have been gained by one engaging others, but pride and value of material things over humanity takes the best of people. This novella is meant to seek a balance in humanity and plead for care and treatment of all with dignity.

Heart of Darkness is a novella written by Joseph Conrad, and is based on a narration by an Englishman who takes an assignment from a Belgian Company as a river boat captain in Congo. The story shows three levels of darkness namely; how the colonialists treated the natives, the darkness in the Congo wilderness and the darkness in every human being when they do evil things. This essay seeks to identify a causal claim in the story relating to the authors way of manipulating the readers expectations and reactions. It examines how Conrad’s description causes the reader to identify certain sympathies in the novella. The darkness that is the African wilderness causes darkness of the heart in Kurtz making him a very manipulative evil man.

Kurtz is an ivory trader sent to Africa by the company, and with the aim to bring civilization to the natives as described in his report. His purpose for coming to Africa was “humanizing, improving, instructing” the natives (Conrad 47). The author describes his charisma and eloquence when he arrives from Europe. He is a charming philanthropist who, upon his arrival, had the interests of the natives at heart. As the reader, one feels admiration for this man with such noble intentions.

When he gets to Congo, he abandons all his good intentions for the natives, and lets the savage in him take over. As much as we want to label him morally sick due to his actions in the jungle, he is just an exaggeration of the impulses we have inside us. According to the author, Kurtz’s illness was caused by madness. The madness was due to the continued isolation in the African wilderness. He lets his savage side loose in the jungle, doing all kinds of evil, and eventually this causes madness that gradually kills him. Conrad describes Kurtz’s power over the natives and the company through his control over vast amounts of ivory. The natives regard him as a god, and adore him and he is able to trick them into giving him the ivory, and this gives him leverage with the company that lets him do whatever he pleases as long as he keeps the piles of ivory coming. Different characters respond differently to Kurtz; Marlow is fascinated by him, the manager envies and despises him, and the harlequin worships him. As the reader, the reaction and expectation of the story is influenced by what the author communicates about the characters.

The author blames the African jungle for the death of Kurtz. In the beginning of the story, the description of the eloquent, charming Englishman that comes to aid in civilization of the native is a sharp contrast to the ivory raiding, crazy man roaming the Congo jungle. The African wilderness in this novella is described as a dark continent with uncivilized savage natives whom the white man thought they could civilize and humanize. According to the author, the African continent is to blame for the heart of darkness unleashed in Kurtz. Through descriptions of what he has gone through in the jungle, the reader is able to grasp and probably feel sorry for Kurtz. Through his journey, Marlow discovers that the African jungle may be terrifying, but it is not as dark as the evil we harbor inside us.

Another description of the African jungle is the dehumanization of characters, shown by the lack of names for the other characters in the book. Apart from Kurtz and Marlow, the rest are known by their titles in the book, for example, the manager, the intended and the harlequin. The author portrays Kurtz as an evil man and at the same time some mysterious person that the reader meets at the end of the book. All the information that the reader has, comes from tales by other characters in the book. At the beginning of the novella, the narrator describes the darkness around them, which is symbolic of the story he is about to tell, “Only the gloom to the west. Brooding greater than the superior reaches became more solemn every minute, as if infuriated by the loom of the sun” (Conrad 1).The readers’ expectations are already geared towards the impending dark tale of a darker place.

The conversation between the Russian and Marlow demonstrates the belief that the only civilized people that can survive the African wilderness are the “absolutely uncalculating, pure, unpractical spirit of escapade had ever ruled a person, it rules this…youth” (Conrad 17). The conversation also goes on to show that Kurtz suffered a lot, hated the situation, but just could not get him to leave.

When Marlow spoke to Kurtz before taking him back to the steam boat, he was of a sane mind, but a mad soul. The author tries to show that Kurtz was deeply tormented by all the things he had done. It shows that he was not completely insane, and had a conscience. Conrad also depicts Kurtz as being hollow, and only the jungle could fill that hollow, as said by Marlow when he discovered skulls on spikes. At this point, he is convinced that Kurtz became a savage just like the natives that worshiped him.

It is not right to blame all that happened to Kurtz on the African wilderness. This is because the darkness in this man was already there it just needed the right catalyst to come to the surface. Kurtz, becoming like the natives, served the company’s interest at best, the other white people in the company pretending to be offended by his behavior is hypocritical. The only difference between what the company and Kurtz did is that he did not care what people thought about him while the company did.